I'd hoped there was some great story behind the drab jacket design for the hardcover version of Cormac McCarthy's latest novel The Road. Now, thanks to an interview with renowned cover designer Chip Kidd at Esquire, I know that in fact there isn't any good excuse. Says Kidd, "[McCarthy] didn't even want his name on … Continue reading Judging a Book

Slate.com has posted a funny excerpt from Andrew Ferguson's book Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America. It tells the state of Illinois' first steps in the making of its Lincoln library and museum. Would you believe Lincoln's manias and melancholies dramatized by a roller coaster? It was on the table for a while.

I'm not a science fiction fan, as a rule, but I'm not immune to a little alternative-future thinking on occasion. So I'll confess I was intrigued by a recent CBC interview with Alan Weisman, author of the forthcoming SF novel The World Without Us (to be published July 10).Weisman discusses how the world would change … Continue reading Imagine All the People… Gone