ENTERTAINMENT
October 14, 2012 | By Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times
Blasphemy New and Selected Stories Sherman Alexie Grove Press: 480 pp, $27 Sherman Alexie's characters live in a kind of dreamscape, a limbo between Native American and white culture, between city life and the reservation. All sorts of fantastic, improbable things happen in this in-between space. Students channel famous Indian warriors in their high school classes. Donkeys are taught to excel at basketball, the national sport of every Indian tribe. Against all odds the Native American characters in "Blasphemy," Alexie's new anthology of short stories, wander, stumble and blunder their way into moments of clarity and redemption.
ENTERTAINMENT
April 13, 2012 | By Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times
When the Department of Justice and state officials announced their lawsuits against Apple and five major publishers Wednesday, it sent a ripple of anxiety through the talent at the industry's heart. "I'm in a bit of an awkward position because this has pitted my publisher against the retailer that far and away sells more of my books than any other," says Michael Connelly, the bestselling mystery novelist. "I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me, and both of these hands feed me. " Connelly is published by Little, Brown, which is owned by Hachette, one of the publishers named in the suits that has since agreed to settle.
ENTERTAINMENT
October 16, 2009 | Carolyn Kellogg
Leaning against a black couch in his office, Sherman Alexie is laughing. He laughs often and easily -- at others' jokes and his own, at sarcasm and silliness -- and his laughter is contagious. Last year, he cracked up Stephen Colbert when he appeared on "The Colbert Report." Fans are known to walk away from Alexie's book signings gasping for air, wiping their eyes. But the photographer sent to take his photo wasn't laughing. For the umpteenth time, he gently asked Alexie to be serious for a moment.
BOOKS
September 16, 2007 | Susan Carpenter, Susan Carpenter is a Times staff writer.
Race and poverty aren't subjects Americans like to talk about. They're too loaded, too uncomfortable. But they are also too important to brush under the rug at a time when immigration issues loom large and there is greater disparity than ever between rich and poor. Unless we're willing to talk about these touchy subjects -- to walk into the fire, so to speak -- it's difficult to understand opposing viewpoints and harder still to combat racism or impoverishment.
BOOKS
April 8, 2007 | Mark S. Luce, Mark S. Luce lives in Kansas City, Mo., where he teaches at the Barstow School. He also teaches at the University of Kansas.
SHERMAN ALEXIE never allows readers to wade timidly into the turbulent waters of his novels or stories. Instead, he simply hurls folks into the deep and seems to say, swim if you can -- or dare.
BOOKS
July 30, 2006 | Laurel Maury, Laurel Maury writes reviews for a variety of publications.
ELLEN FORNEY'S comic strip art is a non-nostalgic blast from the indie arts scene of the 1990s -- that time after Kurt Cobain's death, before Courtney Love became a corporate commodity, when the world seemed a more hopeful place. Forney, a longtime contributor to Seattle's alternative weekly the Stranger, produces work that is sexually explicit and occasionally gross.