http://www.themillions.com Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:00:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en With the Oscars just around the corner, here's a wonderfully curious memoir of a father, his son, and their shared love of film. A few years ago, Canadian novelist and occasional CBC arts commentator David Gilmour was faced with a family crisis. His teenage son Jesse was struggling with school and ... http://www.themillions.com/2010/02/father-son-and-silver-screen-david-gilmours-the-film-club.html Every year, as Halloween draws near, I get to thinking about what makes books scary. As a genre, horror hasn’t scared me in years. Although the thought of getting eaten by a zombie or slashed by a psycho killer is certainly unpleasant, it’s less terrifying than more realistic fears of ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/10/staff-pick-house-of-leaves-on-halloween.html Much of Everything Matters! by Ron Currie Jr. is narrated by an all-knowing entity who speaks in the royal we, and tells our hero, Junior Thibodeau, all sorts of pertinent information: for instance, that his father prefers not to talk and that the world will be obliterated by a comet ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/10/staff-picks-everything-matters-and-big-machine.html A couple of weeks ago, Harvard University's acquired the late John Updike's papers, which will take up something like 380 shelf-feet in Houghton Library. For context: that's the length of a football field, endzones included, plus enough parking lot to tailgate in. Now the sorting of the Updike archives begins. Where ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/10/the-maples-stories-backward.html "Sometimes I think he lies just for the sake of lying. Or perhaps he wants to keep everything hidden." A curious late-career entry from Graham Greene, The Captain and the Enemy was published in 1988 when the master-storyteller was the tender age of 84. In it, our narrator recounts how, ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/10/staff-pick-graham-greenes-the-captain-and-the-enemy.html For all of the corseting that aristocratic ladies of the Eighteenth Century wore (stays, garters, petticoats, underskirts…), one might imagine that sexual naughtiness would have been well nigh impossible.  Those who have encountered the writings of the Marquis de Sade or Pierre de Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses know better, of ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/10/staff-pick-hallie-rubenholds-the-lady-in-red.html I have a soft spot for literary adventure tales. It's why, for example, I'm a big fan of certain of T.C. Boyle's novels and also why Alvaro Mutis' The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll is on my personal best novel shortlist. So it was with great pleasure this ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/09/staff-pick-matthew-kneale-english-passengers-review.html The "staff picks" shelf in any good independent bookstore is a treasure trove of book recommendations. Unmoored from media hype and even timeliness, these books are championed by trusted fellow readers. With many former (and current) booksellers in our ranks, we offer our own "Staff Picks" in a feature appearing ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/06/staff-picks-brooks-richler-snow_23.html The "staff picks" shelf in any good independent bookstore is a treasure trove of book recommendations. Unmoored from media hype and even timeliness, these books are championed by trusted fellow readers. With many former (and current) booksellers in our ranks, we offer our own "Staff Picks" in a feature appearing ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/03/staff-picks-morrison-marcom-lethem_10.html The "staff picks" shelf in any good independent bookstore is a treasure trove of book recommendations. Unmoored from media hype and even timeliness, these books are championed by trusted fellow readers. With many bookselling alums in our ranks, we offer our own "Staff Picks" in a feature appearing irregularly.Red Lights ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/01/staff-picks-simenon-johnson-suskind_4975.html