The Big Book of Ghost Stories by Otto Penzler

By Charles McNair at 12:39 PM on October 30, 2012

In my Alabama family, whenever we gather at holidays or weddings … or even for sadder occasions like funerals … a certain moment always arrives.  read more

Blood Beneath My Feet: The Journey of a Southern Death Investigator by Joseph Scott Morgan

By Candice Dyer at 10:42 AM on October 30, 2012

Even Joseph Scott Morgan’s moniker seems like ominous, narrative foreshadowing. He was named for a homicide victim.   read more

Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (10/24/12)

By Hillary Brown, Sean Edgar and Garrett Martin at 10:00 PM on October 24, 2012

This week we review Chris Ware's latest, along with works from Mark Siegel and Mike Norton, and an Avengers vs. X-Men parody that's far better than the original.  read more

Co-Writer of Spider-Man Musical To Chronicle Experience in New Book

By Taylor Evans at 2:00 PM on October 24, 2012

Glen Berger, co-writer of Broadway’s Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is slated to write a book about his experience working on the infamous musical. EW reports that the book, titled Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History will be published by Simon & Schuster and is due out sometime next year....  read more

Will Oldham On Bonnie “Prince” Billy by Alan Licht

By Elias Leight at 3:41 PM on October 23, 2012

The new book Will Oldham on Bonnie “Prince” Billy represents a rare approach to writing about music and the musicians who produce it: the book-length interview.   read more

Rockin’ A Hard Place: Flats, Sharps & Other Notes from a Misfit Music Club Owner by John Jeter

By Matt Wake at 11:26 AM on October 23, 2012

In terms of perceived “sexiness” among entertainment industry occupations, owning and running a top-flight roots-music club ranks probably somewhere between documentary-film producer and playing bass in Wilco.  read more

The Half Light: Five Great Oral Histories

By Shane Ryan at 5:50 PM on October 21, 2012

It occurred to me yesterday, as I was reading Live From New York, a book about the history of Saturday Night Live, that I had become addicted to oral histories.  read more

Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (10/17/12)

By Hillary Brown, Sean Edgar and Garrett Martin at 8:00 PM on October 17, 2012

This week Paste's comic critics review bios of Barack Obama and the Carter Family, a new horror comic from Steve Niles and a big comic-book high-five to Halloween.  read more

How Music Works by David Byrne

By Elias Leight at 1:40 PM on October 16, 2012

Byrne’s a really talented musician. Does that mean he’s an interesting writer? Does writing a killer hook mean a musician can write a good book?   read more

Joseph Anton: A Memoir by Salman Rushdie

By Rayyan Al-Shawaf at 11:12 AM on October 16, 2012

At one point in the British film My Son the Fanatic, scripted by Hanif Kureishi and based on his short story, a white comedian performing in the 1990s in a club in the northern English town of Bradford begins referring to the sole non-white member of the audience (played by Indian actor Om Puri) as “Salman Rushdie.”  read more

National Book Award Finalists Announced

By Ryan Bort at 11:45 AM on October 10, 2012

Dave Eggers, Junot Diaz among nominees.   read more

Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (10/10/12)

By Hillary Brown, Sean Edgar and Garrett Martin at 9:00 AM on October 10, 2012

This week Paste reviews Jay Faerber's new mystery comic, the debut of the latest Avengers series, a sci-fi series from Stargate writers and an anthology of futuristic fairy tales.  read more

Must Win: A Season of Survival for a Town and its Team by Drew Jubera

By Charles McNair at 2:56 PM on October 9, 2012

Drew Jubera has written the best nonfiction book I have read since the year 2000.   read more

The Water Is Wide by Pat Conroy

By Natalie Sturdevant at 11:34 AM on October 9, 2012

"Of the Yamacraw children, I can say little. I don’t think I changed the quality of their lives significantly or altered the inexorable fact that they were imprisoned by the very circumstance of their birth.” - Pat Conroy, The Water Is Wide  read more

Lena Dunham's Book of Essays Brings $3.7M Bid

By Shaina Pearlman at 3:30 PM on October 8, 2012

Few people are having a better year than Lena Dunham. The 26-year-old actress catapulted onto the pop culture scene with HBO’s (love it or hate it) Girls and interest in her sparked an intense bidding war last week for a proposed book of essays....  read more

John Cleese to Write Memoir

By Ryan Bort at 1:45 PM on October 8, 2012

Monty Python co-founder John Cleese is perhaps the most iconic of England’s comedic treasures. In addition to his work with Monty Python, the 72-year-old Cleese has had an illustrious comedic career, and now he’s signed a deal with Random House imprint Crown Archetype to pen a memoir....  read more

Comic Book & Graphic Novel Round-Up (10/4/12)

By Hillary Brown and Sean Edgar at 8:00 PM on October 4, 2012

Paste reviews new books from Charles Burns and Adrian Tomine and the complete Avengers vs. X-Men crossover.  read more

Celebrate Banned Books Week with 2011’s Most Challenged Titles

By Taylor Evans at 4:00 PM on October 3, 2012

"There were 326 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2011, and many more go unreported."   read more

How the SEC Became Goliath: The Making of College Football's Most Dominant Conference by Ray Glier

By Charles McNair at 12:38 PM on October 2, 2012

Down South, they call the college game Big Boy Football. Call Ray Glier a Big Boy Journalist. Glier bylines pepper the New York Times and USA Today sports pages like forward passes in October. He covers mostly baseball and football, an old pro at the game of wringing quotes from unquotable athletes and coaches, then spinning good stories. Last spring, the Atlanta-based writer got the attention of a publisher with a pitch for his first book—why, exactly, has the Southeastern Conference, or SEC, won the past six national championships in college football? “The national championship trophy has been in the...  read more

Too Much Magic by James Howard Kunstler

By Saby Reyes-Kulkarni 
 at 10:25 AM on October 2, 2012

“If you are reading this,” offers social critic and New Urbanist James Howard Kunstler about halfway through his 16th book, “then you may be doing it in the smoldering ruins of modernity.” Writing in the winter of 2011-12, Kunstler observed that the global financial system “stood in nearly complete disarray.” The author worried that the seismic economic spasms occurring then might just bring everything crashing down by the book’s publication date. Such pronouncements, even if not truly meant to be literal, practically guarantee Kunstler’s dismissal as an alarmist doomsayer—an unfair tag given that the ultimate value of his message can’t...  read more