Comics briefly

Mr. Vengeance Goes to Comic-con

In one of the most memorable scenes of Korean director Park Chan Wook’s movie Old Boy, his middle-aged protagonist wields a hammer and faces off with a gang of armed young thugs. Old Boy is a live-action feature length film adaptation of the manga by the same name. PW Comics Week met with the director at the recent San Diego Comic-con and discussed Old Boy, his other films and why it’s good for a creator to torture his characters.

Panel Mania: The Year of Loving Dangerously

In the autobiographical The Year of Loving Dangerously, Ted Rall, kicked out of college, broke, jobless, shunned by his parents, and suicidal, avoids homelessness by drifting into the arms of numerous women. The Year of Loving Dangerously is written by Rall, a politacal cartoonist and commentator, and illustrated by Pablo Callejo; it will be released by NBM in December 2009.

Chronicle Has the Lock on Top Chef Books

The Emmy and James Beard Award-winning series Top Chef is the jewel in Bravo’s crown, so it isn’t surprising that the network has developed a range of branded products based on the show. There are Top Chef-themed flower arrangements, Top Chef branded wines and Top Chef knives. Chronicle Books is the lucky winner of the exclusive publishing contract, and it has been a boon to the San Francisco independent.

Cooking the Books with Ruth Reichl

Five years ago, Houghton Mifflin published The Gourmet Cookbook, a 1,000-plus-page compendium of some of the best recipes—think Lobster Thermidore—from the magazine’s archives updated for 2004. In a nod to changing American tastes and culinary consciousness, the house will release Gourmet Today next month. Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl, who edited the book, talks about the massive changes she’s noticed in American home kitchens in the past five years.

Short Order: August 17

In this issue’s round-up of cookbook-related news, Collins U.K. picks up a self-published cookbook phenomenon, Stewart, Tabori & Chang launches a cookbook e-newsletter, Mastering the Art of French Cooking is outselling Julie & Julia, Almost Meatless authors Tara Mataraza Desmond and Joy Manning invite food bloggers across the U.S. and Canada to cook recipes from the book and blog about it, and the Wall Street Journal test runs personalized cookbook sites.

Fall Dessert Books: Cake, Chocolate and Simplicity

It’s been a great year for dessert books: Ani’s Raw Food Desserts, BabyCakes, Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes, Rustic Fruit Desserts and even The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook—which covers more than just desserts—have all hit readers’ sweet spots. And before the year is over, bookstores will see even more sweet tomes. The buzzwords for this fall’s dessert cookbooks? Cakes, chocolate and simplicity.

Review: Veselka: Recipes and Stories from the Landmark Restaurant in New York’s East Village

Veselka started as a modest candy shop/newsstand in 1954, grew into a “humble lunch counter” and is now a bustling 24-hour restaurant in New York’s East Village. Ukrainian fare mixed with American favorites fill the pages of this gift-sized restaurant cookbook, interspersed with the history and stories of the people behind the business as well as an introduction to and celebration of Ukrainian culture.

Madoff Books Hitting Stores

With Bernie Madoff behind bars, books about the Wall Street swindler are starting to land in bookstores. Four major titles are coming out this month, and another is slated for September. Two questions linger, though: Are consumers still interested in Madoff? And if so, which book will they want to read? Borders is putting its muscle behind Too Good to Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff...

PW talks with Rachel Zucker

Zucker talks to PW about what happens when her family reads her books, and the difference between truth and imagination.

PW talks with Richard Belzer

"Just being around all these stories from cops while playing Munch, and being a fan of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, the idea of a mystery-comedy hybrid seemed right up my alley."

Fiction Reviews: 8/17/2009

Reviewed this week, new fiction from Robert B. Parker, Paul Auster, Alice Munro, John Burdett and Newt Gingrich. Also, K'wan fires off another Hood Rat novel, Sheramy Bundrick revisits Van Gogh, Alexander McCall Smith shows no signs of slowing down and Mark Billingham's Det. Insp. Thorne is big into another macabre case.

The Heal Deal: New Health Titles

Health care, perpetually in the forefront of Americans’ minds, is now on the tip of our lips. Fixing our current system tops President Obama’s to-do list, but as the details of reform are debated on Capitol Hill, in the media and around the dinner table, a Quinnipiac poll released August 5 found that 52% of Americans disapprove of the way the president is handling health care, while...

Children's Book Reviews: 8/17/2009

Reviewed this week: picture books from Loren Long, Charise Myracle Harper, Florence Parry Heide and Lane Smith, and Lauren Child; new fiction from Neil Gaiman, Kate DiCamillo and Gennifer Choldenko; and a round-up of titles about children's authors past and present, fit for kids, adults and even scholars.

Gallup Plays to Its Strengths

The idea for Gallup Press was, in the beginning, about branding more than books. Technically, anyway. “We are heavily involved in consulting and management, but people didn't know that—people knew the polls,” Gallup Press publisher Larry Emond explained. Developing Gallup-branded books, Emond went on, started as a “marketing communications initiative.

Why I Write: Deepak Chopra

A clue to why I write came on the day in medical school when I walked into the room where students meet a cadaver for the first time. My scalpel incised a thin line in the parchment-yellow skin, cutting from the breastbone down the belly, and in one stroke the mystery of the human body was revealed. Yet another mystery was destroyed at the same time.

PW talks with Donald Spoto

"The years have not been kind to Grace [Kelly]. I think we live in mean-spirited times, and there's a tendency among some writers to fabricate reasons to destroy reputations."

Web Exclusive Reviews: 8/17/2009

This week: David Freeland with the vanished hotspots of NYC, Tara L. Masih leads a rousing short-short story workshop, Douglas Rogers reports from his home country of Zimbabwe, Alice Eve Cohen chronicles her late-in-life pregnancy, and more. Plus children's books from Denise Vega, Melissa de la Cruz, Jessica Wollman and others.

Q & A with Jane Smiley

Q: You obviously love horses. Is this the kind of book that you would have liked to have read as a child?

A: Well, it's more or less the kind of book I did read. When I was a child in 1960 - I was 10 and 11 that year - there were plenty of horse book series. I loved them all and read them all. I read the Black Stallion series, and other Walter Farley books. I also read Nancy Drew and other series. That was what kids' literature was back then.

Reynolds and Fantagraphics Face the Future

Whenever comics industry observers get together to talk about the people who've made a difference in the business over the last decade, the name Eric Reynolds inevitably comes up. Recently promoted to Associate Publisher for the Seattle-based art comics publisher Fantagraphics he has overseen the company's successful navigation of the new opportunities for graphic novels in bookstores.