BOOKS
April 16, 2006 | Diana Wagman, Diana Wagman is the author of the novels "Skin Deep," "Spontaneous" and "Bump."
ERICA JONG has more chutzpah in her erogenous zones than most writers have in their entire being. She's one of the few who'd say, "I have longed to be able to do the diva on appropriate occasions, but I'm too short," then admit in the next sentence, "As for the care and feeding of studs, I did that in my thirties and forties and had my fill." In 1972, when Jong was barely 30 years old, her first novel, "Fear of Flying," swept her to fame.
BOOKS
February 19, 2006 | Brian Bouldrey, Brian Bouldrey, director of the English department's writing program at Northwestern University, is the author of the novel "The Boom Economy" and the essay collection "Monster: Adventures in American Machismo."
THE French are "a rhetorical people," writes Bruce Benderson in "The Romanian," a study in pastoral (and sometimes urban) loneliness. It is no surprise then that he has become the first American writer to receive France's Prix de Flore, because his story rises off the page with the help of every imaginable rhetorical device and stylistic flourish. This absorbing memoir begins with Benderson researching Eastern Europe's growing sex industry.
ENTERTAINMENT
March 19, 2005 | Tony Peyser, Special to The Times
In the late 1950s, Phyllis Diller was not only a successful female comedian, she was pretty much the only one. Drag queen impersonators notwithstanding, there's still no one like her. Excerpts from Diller's routines run throughout her autobiography, "Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse," written with Richard Buskin, and do not disappoint: "I called my husband Fang and said, 'I've had a little accident at the corner of Post and Geary.' He said, 'Post and Geary don't cross.' I said, 'They do now.'
ENTERTAINMENT
February 5, 2005 | Carmela Ciuraru, Special to The Times
Fat. It's a "three-letter word larded with meaning," write the editors of the book "Fat." At a time when the subject of body image provokes widespread anxiety, insecurity and self-consciousness, especially about weight, 13 anthropologists and a self-described "fat activist" consider the word as a concept, a stigma, an aesthetic, an epidemic and even a status symbol in a collection of provocative and entertaining essays subtitled "The Anthropology of an Obsession."
ENTERTAINMENT
January 15, 2005 | Jim Fusilli, Special to The Times
If fame were the offspring of talent in today's music scene, Wayne Shorter would be a household name. To jazz fans, the saxophonist and composer is royalty.
BOOKS
December 12, 2004 | Anthony Pagden, Anthony Pagden is professor of history and political science at UCLA and the author of many books, including "Peoples and Empires" and "European Encounters With the New World."
On Oct. 29, the leaders of the European Union's 25 member countries gathered to sign their first constitution. It still must be ratified by each nation's government, but the signing was, nevertheless, a highly significant moment. The people of Europe are now more united than at any time since Rome's golden age in the 2nd century.