Of all the expressive media, probably the most exclusive tend to be poetry and abstract art. They’re dense, demanding and heavily symbolic, and they’re hard to interpret without some background of study — all of which gives them a reputation for elitism and pretension. Still, those same qualities are what…
People read novels for two major reasons: for a good yarn, first and foremost, but also to be immersed in a world that’s different from the one they occupy — not just to learn about how it works, but to feel it, to experience its dramas and to know the…
Warning: This article contains spoilers concerning the entire plot of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Normally when I sit down to watch a new Harry Potter movie in theaters, I’m excited to see how the story plays out on screen. But after director Daniel Yates’ criminal bungling of Harry…
Much like God dictated the Bible to its various writers, a dog named Pukka dictated Pukka to its author, Ted Kerasote. Or at least that’s the conceit. The follow-up to Merle’s Door, a book someone named Elizabeth Marshall Thomas called “The best book ever written about dogs” (so the book…
The music of Wolfgang Amadaeus Mozart was both a haven and an inspiration for Albert Einstein. When the physicist would get stuck on a particularly puzzling problem regarding the nature of the universe, he would pick up a violin and turn on a different part of his brain. Along with…
Perhaps more than ever in this reality show age we live in, it can be difficult to know what the hell famous people are even famous for — and nobody, besides maybe Paris Hilton, exemplifies that “famous for being famous” phenomenon better than Tila Tequila. In her completely un-clamored-for memoir,…
Recently, there have been a slew of ill-advised memoirs from people far too young and inexperienced to share their stories with the world. Steve Katz doesn’t have that problem. The 75-year-old Denver author started writing his memoir five years ago, and it has since become a collection of over 100…
You can’t judge a book by its cover — and it just goes to show you, because the cover of The Wishing Trees, by John Shors, is pretty awful. Decked out in pink with an apple blossom and a soft-focus photo, it might as well be an advertisement for a…
Perhaps more than any president in recent memory, and like so many truly terrible people, George W. Bush was fond of playing up his godliness — apparently, if you fold your hands and screw up your face like you’re solving a Rubik’s Cube for long enough, that’ll get you the…
If you like the idea of combining Vampires with sex in literature but think Twilight is ass-clown hackery for prudes, then Vampire Nite is where you want to be tonight. And if you don’t, why the fuck not? Vampires are awesome. Sex is awesome. What’s there not to like? Anyway,…
Young poets from Denver’s slam poetry scene have taken their words and images far beyond the confines of the city. The HBO special Brave New Voices premiered this week and featured performances from Minor Disturbance, Denver’s very own youth Slam Team led by Ken Arkind. The special, co-produced by hip-hop…
Slam Nuba, one of two major ongoing slam events in Denver, meets twice a month on the the first and last Mondays at the Crossroads Theater, 2590 Washington Street; typically, one session is based on what Smith calls a “crazy theme,” while the other is a more traditional straight-on slam,…
Rick Springfield wrote a memoir. That phrase alone pretty much precludes the utility of a review of that memoir; you will either read it or not read it on that basis. All the same, when a copy of Late, Late at Night arrived unannounced in the mailbox with a photo…
The critically acclaimed author of Shutter Island, Dennis Lehane, believes in supporting libraries. Last evening, he spoke to a crowd of roughly eleven hundred at the Mile Hi Church in Lakewood as a part of the free Jefferson County Distinguished Author Series in which he explained why libraries are so…
Pomegranate Place is in one of those old mansions you find throughout the Capitol Hill neighborhood, a relic of another era. It looks like a place where a benevolent secret society might meet. But it’s a women’s center and on the cool dusky evening of Friday, October 15th, it was…
To most of us, Betty White has become a recurring annoyance on our favorite shows, and while we’ve been curious how or why she suddenly came back into fashion, we’ve never put much thought into it. We let her do her thing because after all, she’s old. However, according to…
Tucker Max is living the dream. Since his early twenties, the author of Assholes Finish First has been getting blackout drunk, chasing women and generally indulging every hedonistic whim toward the end of compiling the stories of his wild and often shockingly hilarious exploits (one ends in him covered in…
Since time immemorial, it’s been a tradition of mega-stardom: Actors become musicians and musicians become actors. Less common, though, is the musician/actor-turned-writer — and probably for a good reason: Writing is hard and not very glamorous, and also, they only let you out of your cage once every three weeks…
In MaryJanice Davidson’s new book, My, Myself and Why?, the self-proclaimed “inventor of paranormal chick-lit” takes a run-of-the-mill FBI agent main character and gives her dissociative identity disorder — otherwise known as multiple personalities. But that isn’t just a challenge she has to face: “They’re not solving crime in spite…
I don’t know how many stories Scott Simon has told during his long tenure as an NPR commentator and host. I would guess it’s in the tens of thousands at this point. But I do imagine that the one he tells in his book Baby, We Were Meant for Each…
For all intents and purposes, it’s pretty clear from the book jacket that Gray Matter, by local author Nick Pirog, is a crime novel. Just the cover, which features a red, black and white color scheme and a stylized illustration of the Seattle skyline, was enough for me to guess…
I’m supposed to know everything that goes on in town, but here’s something that passed me by completely: For the last five years, the local firm BurstMarketing has been recording and posting podcasts of Tattered Cover book events, as many as three or four a week, online for free at…
