On May 6, Kenneth Branagh's Thor opens in theatres – and the Toronto Public Library doth have mighty reads featuring the Son of Odin. Branagh with his Shakespearean gravitas seems an unlikely fit with a superhero film. Watch his interview at the Comics Con in San Diego. It may surprise you. Oscar-winner Natalie Portman plays […]
Rob Lowe's autobiography, Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography, will be released April 28. And I can't wait. The May issue of Vanity Fair has an excerpt in which Lowe recalls his gruelling audition for Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 The Outsiders where he competes with Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Tom Cruise, C. Thomas […]
Steve Tyler, Aerosmith rocker and American Idol celebrity judge, has an autobiography coming out in May. The 63-year old Demon of Screamin' promises that his book, Does the Noise In My Head Bother You? delivers "all the unexpurgated, brain-jangling tales of debauchery, sex & drugs, transcendence & chemical dependence you will ever want to hear." […]
Do you like your mysteries hard-boiled? Here are some great reads by the American literary descendants of Chandler, Hammett, Jim Thompson, John D. MacDonald and Mickey Spillane. Harry Bosch Series by Michael Connelly. I have a serious crush on Hieronymus – experienced, tough and tortured – he walks the […]
Meredith Baxter's autobiography, Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering, has received a flurry of media attention over her allegations that her ex-husband, actor David Birney, was mentally and physically abusive to her. Birney, clearly not wanting to join Charlie and Mel in the pantheon of horrible husbands, hotly denies these allegations and calls […]
Many people have recommended The Happiness Project by Gretchen Craft Rubin as a life-changing read. Published last year, I checked out Rubin's website – and immediately became annoyed. Rubin has twelve personal commandments for happiness. Her Number 1 Rule: "Be Gretchen." And indeed, Rubin, a Yale-educated lawyer from Kansas City should be happy: this book has […]
Jazz Hands! Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark could be one of the most expensive Broadway flops of all time. Budget woes, delays, cast changes and spectacular injuries plagued this 65 million dollar production from the start. A Spider-Man stuntman (apparen’tly unable to do whatever a spider can) plunged into the orchestra pit after his safety […]
These mysteries from Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Finland are not for the faint of heart. Steig Larsson is just one of the many authors that swept in on the Nordic crime fiction wave. Dark, psychological, and often twisted – these thrillers are the perfect read for […]
Monica Ali's forthcoming novel, Untold Story, imagines the life of Princess Diana — had she not died in the Alma tunnel in Paris in 1997. Scheduled for release on June 28, this novel about one of the world's most famous women by an edgy British novelist is bound to get lots of attention. Diana would […]
Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother has paren’ts, pundits, educators, and critics hopping. Chua, a Yale law professor, has written a memoir about raising two daughters for success. Contrasting her extreme paren’ting style to what she perceives as Western permissiveness, Chua's book has, not surprisingly, pushed a few buttons. While Chua insists that […]