Most Popular
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Contentious grain bill put directly to plenary meeting for vote
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Yoon's approval rating plunges to all-time low
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Will tug-of-war between doctors, government end soon?
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Climate impacts set to cut 2050 global GDP by nearly a fifth
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Trilateral talks acknowledge ‘serious’ slumps of won, yen
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[Graphic News] More Koreans say they plan long-distance trips this year
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[KH Explains] Hyundai's full hybrid edge to pay off amid slow transition to pure EVs
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North Korea removes streetlights along cross-border roads with South
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Russia's denial of entry of S. Korean national unrelated to bilateral ties: Seoul official
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Farming households dip below 1m for first time in 2023
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Mark Seliger takes on the unsung in book of trans portraits
NEW YORK (AP) -- Nearly 50 years have passed since police raided New York’s Stonewall Inn, touching off protests on Christopher Street that fueled the LGBT movement.To mark the moment, the popular bar and haven for homeless youth, sex workers, trans people and others in search of community and self was designated a national park in June by President Barack Obama.It’s against that backdrop that longtime resident of the Greenwich Village neighborhood, famed photographer Mark Seliger, decided on a
Oct. 5, 2016
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The farm boy Oscar Wilde of fashion sends up its follies
PARIS (AFP) - He's an Instagram-era Oscar Wilde, the chronicler of fashion world follies whose little red book has become a must-have accessory as anything on the Paris catwalk.Loic Prigent’s “I Love Fashion But it's Everything That I Hate” -- a collection of put-downs, witticisms and snippets of overheard conversations he has gleaned as a fashion insider -- has propelled him to the front row alongside the runway queens he has so much fun quoting.Lines like, “She is so rich she never gets embarr
Oct. 5, 2016
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Indian author Roy announces second novel after 20-year gap
NEW DELHI (AFP) -- Indian author Arundhati Roy announced on Monday that her second novel will be published in 2017 -- 20 years after she won the Booker Prize for her debut one.Roy, an activist and outspoken government critic, said through her publishers that “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” would be released next year. “I am glad to report that the mad souls (even the wicked ones) in ‘The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness’ have found a way into the world, and that I have found my publishers,” Roy s
Oct. 4, 2016
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Writers' privacy row erupts as Italy's Ferrante unmasked
ROME (AFP) -- One of literature’s most talked-about mysteries appeared to have been cracked Monday with the unmasking of the identity of the Italian publishing sensation Elena Ferrante.In its wake, a literary row erupted over journalistic ethics and writers’ right to protect their identities and the personal back stories that may, or may not, inform their work.Claudio Gatti, an Italian investigative journalist, says he has seen evidence of royalty payments that establish that Ferrante is a pen n
Oct. 4, 2016
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Chicago blogger Luvvie Ajayi offers wit, wisdom in new book ‘I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual’
“I’m Judging You” By Luvvie AjayiHenry Holt (256 pages, $17)The wit of culture blogger Luvvie Ajayi (AwesomelyLuvvie.com) has earned her quite the following.She has been called upon by the likes of McDonald’s, Comcast and wine brand Rosa Regale to take over their social media accounts, live Tweet events and blog about “Scandal” and “Being Mary Jane.”And earlier this month, Oprah herself crowned the Chicago web strategist, naming her to the inaugural list of Super Soul 100 leaders recognized for
Sept. 28, 2016
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‘Children of the New World’ finds virtual realities disenchanting
“Children of the New World” By Alexander WeinsteinPicador (240 pages, $16)The typical protagonist of Alexander Weinstein’s cautionary tales in “Children of the New World” is a man who could benefit from reading these stories, but probably never would, unless someone found a way to pipe them directly into his eyeballs.He’s no longer young, though sometimes youngish, emotionally connected to few people beyond his wife (if he has one) and easily swept away by virtual reality, shared-world environme
Sept. 28, 2016
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My Hometown: Springsteen launches book tour in New Jersey
FREEHOLD, New Jersey (AP) -- The Boss was back in his hometown. Bruce Springsteen’s latest tour opened Tuesday, and the rocker who usually lets his songs do the talking yielded to fans to take a turn and share their stories of what he meant to them.They simply wanted to say thank you.“I want to just tell him he’s been my therapy for 40 years,” said Joan Forman, of New Jersey.Fans from all over the world lined up hours before Springsteen’s appearance at a Barnes & Noble in Freehold to promote h
Sept. 28, 2016
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Mara Wilson is not Matilda anymore
When Mara Wilson was a little girl, Hollywood couldn’t get enough of her.She was one of those child actors who seemed preternaturally mature. Her vocabulary was surprisingly expansive. She could carry on full-blown conversations with adults. And she appeared to be in full control of her emotions, bringing out the puppy dog eyes at just the right moment.Interviewing Wilson on the “Today” show in 1994, Katie Couric declared: “Every time I see you in a movie, I just want to put you in my pocket and
Sept. 28, 2016
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Syrian poet Adonis says poetry 'can save Arab world'
GOTHENBURG, Sweden (AFP) -- Noted Syrian poet Adonis, whose name surfaces regularly as a top contender for the Nobel literature prize, says religious fanaticism is “destroying the heart of the Arab world,” but sees salvation in poetry.The 86-year-old lives in exile and is equally scathing about the West's role in the conflict in his homeland which has claimed more than 300,000 lives over five years.“The Americans are not looking for solutions, they are seeking problems,” he told AFP in an interv
Sept. 26, 2016
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Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Here I Am’ depicts a marriage falling apart
“Here I Am”By Jonathan Safran FoerFarrar, Straus and Giroux (592 pages, $28)True to the crumbling marriage at its center, what’s best in “Here I Am” — Jonathan Safran Foer’s moving, maddening and messy novel — comes early.Julia and Jacob have been married for 16 years and have three boys. In the beginning, they’d committed to a policy of complete honesty, convinced they could tell each other everything and be stronger for doing so.But by the time we meet them, Jacob is sexting a work colleague a
Sept. 21, 2016
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Harmonies, strife in Love’s Beach Boys tale
“Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy”By Mike Love with James S. HirschBlue Rider Press (448 pages, $28)Mike Love is acutely aware that he is perceived as a villain.In his new autobiography, “Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy,” Love puts the conventional public framing of his relationship to his cousin and musical collaborator Brian Wilson simply: “For those who believe that Brian walks on water, I will always be the Antichrist.”But every villain is the hero of his own story, and “Good
Sept. 21, 2016
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‘Little Nothing’ a fierce fairy tale
Fairy tales waste no time getting under the skin. They pretend to be innocent, once upon a time and all that, but they never are. The darkened wood, the hooded stranger, the soup served at dinner hide only briefly a more sinister intent.Freud called it uncanny, this transfiguring of the familiar into something weird and powerful, and writers have long reveled in making this leap. Between reality and fantasy is a delicious brew of dissonance and disorientation, all in the service of greater truth
Sept. 21, 2016
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‘The Oliver Stone Experience’ a deep dive into monumental movie career
“The Oliver Stone Experience” By Matt Zoller SeitzAbrams (480 pages, $50)Is there another living American director with a greater run of movies than Oliver Stone? The dozen films he directed over a span of 13 years, from 1986-1999, form a body of work unparalleled in contemporary cinema. They came one after the other -- artful provocations, sometimes clouded in disreputable airs, that delved into recent history and modern-day affairs with a defiant ferocity and style: “Salvador,” “Platoon,” “Wa
Sept. 21, 2016
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Global writers to engage in conversation at Seoul International Writers’ Festival
Writers from around the world will exchange ideas and share literary works at the Seoul International Writers’ Festival taking place from Sept. 25-Oct. 1 at the Arko Art Center and Daehakro Arts Theater in northeastern Seoul. One of the festival’s programs “Free Talks” will pair up writers to engage in conversation about their works and the theme of this year’s festival, “the forgotten and the unforgettable” in literature. The talks will take place at the Daehakro Arts Theater from Sept. 26-30.
Sept. 21, 2016
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Andrea Wulf’s Humboldt biography wins Science Book Prize
LONDON (AP) -- A biography of German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt has been named science book of the year.Andrea Wulf’s “The Invention of Nature” was awarded the 25,000-pound ($33,000) Science Book Prize on Monday.It charts the life of the influential 18th- and 19th-century scientist who gave his name to mountains, cities, a lunar sea and a type of penguin.Writer Bill Bryson, who chaired the judging panel, said Wulf’s book was “a thrilling adventure story ... about a polymath w
Sept. 21, 2016
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New book brings Atlas Obscura site’s wonders to printed page
NEW YORK (AP) -- An elf school in Iceland. A hospital for falcons in the Middle East. A museum in Independence, Missouri, for artwork made from hair.These are the types of attractions featured on the Atlas Obscura website, a fan favorite among curiosity-seeking travelers. Now the site is bringing its geeky and magical world of wonders to the printed page. The new “Atlas Obscura” book offers a sampling of 700 of the website’s 10,000 curious attractions, from a pile of rocks in Butte, Montana, tha
Sept. 21, 2016
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Lawrence Wright shows the human side of Middle East turmoil in ‘The Terror Years’
“The Terror Years: From al-Qaeda to the Islamic State”By Lawrence WrightKnopf (384 pages, $28.95)“The Terror Years,” Lawrence Wright’s wide-ranging and intensively reported collection of stories on the Middle East in the 9/11 age, begins with a pair of masterful profiles. The first, “The Man Behind Bin Laden,” tracks the upbringing and radicalization of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaida. The second, “The Counterterrorist,” explores the career and death of John P. O’Neill, the FBI
Sept. 7, 2016
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Murder lurks deep in the mind
“Hell Fire” By Karin Fossum, translated from the Norwegian by Karl DixonHoughton Mifflin Harcourt (272 pages, $24)With Scandinavian crime fiction all the rage and enormous attention paid to writers like Jo Nesbo, Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, it’s almost, well, criminal, that Norway’s Karin Fossum isn’t better known.Translated into dozens of languages and winner of the Glass Key Award for best Nordic crime novel, Fossum’s exceptional qualities are on view in her new novel, “Hell Fire,” the
Sept. 7, 2016
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How far will you go for your autistic child?
Being a parent is always full of ups and downs, of course, but being the parent of an autistic child, Carolyn Parkhurst writes in her splendid new novel, is a lot like riding a roller coaster that never stops to let you off and catch your breath. Sometimes you marvel at your child’s brilliance. Often, though, you are exhausted by her behavior. You may be prone, like Alexandra Hammond in Parkhurst’s “Harmony,” to compare your growing helplessness to the proliferation of bedbugs in your house.“It’
Sept. 7, 2016
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Raised in California and living in Seoul, novelist Krys Lee wrestles with Korean identities
Standing in the heart of Koreatown, novelist Krys Lee turned around.Was this direction to the Korean market where her family made a pilgrimage every weekend and her mother would rent her cache of Korean videotapes? Which way was the tofu restaurant she and her pastor father walked to countless times after her mother died and there was no one to cook him Korean food?And where was her father’s final apartment where he lived, broken, until he suffered a heart attack mid-sermon at the pulpit?The gle
Sept. 7, 2016