The Buffalo News: Books & Literature

Books & Literature

Tracing Lincoln’s unlikely comeback: By Charity Vogel

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Updated: 11/18/08 12:46 PM; Gary Ecelbarger wants to throw a few words at you — words you’ve probably never imagined in connection with Abraham Lincoln.

Bolano bequeaths a harrowing tale: By Jeff Simon

NEWS BOOK REVIEWER

Updated: 11/16/08 4:22 AM; What if Roberto Bolano’s final wishes had been honored? What if, then, this massive, posthumous 900-page masterwork had been published successively as five novel/novellas corresponding to the five sections of the book?

Editor’s Choice: Updated: 11/16/08 4:22 AM; Moving to Higher Ground:How Jazz Can Change Your Life ^byWynton Marsalis with Geoffrey C. Ward (Random House, 183 pages, $26). It is generally one thing to be a great jazz explicator, quite another entirely to be a great jazz musician. Billy Taylor, for instance, is a wonderful jazz explainer but a thoroughly middling player. Most great jazz musicians can only explain their gift and their tradition partially and artlessly.

SCIENCE FICTION: Updated: 11/16/08 4:22 AM; The Devil’s Eye by Jack McDevitt (Ace, $24.95).

YOUNG ADULT: Updated: 11/16/08 4:22 AM; Black Box by Julie Schumacher (Delacorte, $15.99, 176 pages. Ages 12 and up).

ADVENTURE: Updated: 11/16/08 4:22 AM; The Fire by Katherine Neville (Ballantine Books, $26)

Poetry and Literature Calendar/: Updated: 11/09/08 7:30 AM; MONDAY, 7 p. m.: Wordflight Series poetry reading and Tanka Writing Workshop led by Dennis Maloney, author of “The Map Is Not The Territory,” translator of “The Landscape of Castile” by Antonio Machado and “The House in the Sand” by Pablo Neruda, and publisher of White Pine Press. Crane Library, 633 Elmwood Ave.

Going with the flow on the River Thames: By Michael D. Langan

NEWS BOOK REVIEWER

Updated: 11/09/08 7:30 AM; Peter Ackroyd is tirelessly inventive in describing his beloved London and its estuary, the Thames. Seven years ago, he wrote “London, the Biography,” prefacing it by saying, “I am not Virgil prepared to guide aspiring Dantes around a defined and circular kingdom. I am only one stumbling Londoner who wishes to lead others in the directions I have pursued over a lifetime.”

Spinning a romance for Lord Byron: By Charity Vogel

NEWS BOOK REVIEWER

Updated: 11/09/08 7:30 AM; One week in his life yielded more “scope” for fiction — a word used to telling effect in this novel — than most people’s entire existences, which is why George Gordon, Lord Byron, makes such a supremely safe choice for a novel. Nonetheless, Benjamin Markovits does a fine job with his second novel in Byron country; his first, “Imposture,” was published in 2007, and told the story of Byron’s doctor assuming the poet’s identity in order to pursue a beautiful young woman.

‘Pippa Lee’ — first the book, then the romantic film version: By Karen Brady

NEWS BOOK REVIEWER

Updated: 11/09/08 7:30 AM; Rebecca Miller’s fetching first novel — “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” — must be, for her, something of a double- edged sword. For who can read this daughter of the great American playwright Arthur Miller without comparison? Who can pick up her work without thinking of her life as the wife of the eminent British actor Daniel Day-Lewis?

Best Sellers: Updated: 11/09/08 7:30 AM; Compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide.

Editor’s Choice: Updated: 11/09/08 7:30 AM; P. S. Further Thoughts From a Lifetime of Listening ^byStuds Terkel (The New Press, 230 pages, $16.95 paper).

Pooh sketches fetch a high price: By Elle Moxley

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Updated: 11/05/08 6:47 AM; LONDON — Tiggers might not like honey, but collectors apparently do.