The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading in the Age of Distraction - Megan Cox Gurdon

Devotion - Patti Smith

Sharaz-de: tales from the Arabian nights - Sergio Toppi

Summary: Explores a barbaric society where the supernatural is the only remedy to injustice, as Sharaz-De, captive to a cruel and despotic king, must each night spin tales to entertain her master and save her head from the executioner.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

The late Toppi has been a longtime star of the European comics scene, yet English translations of his highly regarded works have been hard to come by for years. Sharaz-De, published in lavish hardcover, shows his exquisite illustrations at their best. The tale is familiar: faced with execution in the morning, Sharaz-De spins tale after tale for her barbaric king, with each story delaying her impending doom. Two chapters are given over to vibrant watercolors, adding a psychedelic undertone to the tightly woven ink work elsewhere, as jinn, devils, and selfish men do battle upon the pages. Toppi does not use conventional comic panels, but allows his illustrations to sprawl behind and around them, with a singular illustration depicting multiple aspects of the story depending on where your eye first lands. A foreword from Walter Simonson pays tribute to the artist, who died in August, 2012. The Tales from the Arabian Nights may be well enough known, but Toppi's unparalleled skill at twisting fine art, design, and comic book structure together render this a real treat. (Dec.)

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The moth

The moth (Anthology)

Summary: "In the tradition of book anthologies created from public radio programs such as StoryCorps and This I Believe, THE MOTH collects the best storytelling moments--most in print here for the very first time--straight from their archive of more than 3000 shows since the first Moth Evening in 1997. From James Braly's struggling with what to do when his three-year-old son wants a pink bicycle to Dr. George Lombardi's flying to India to save Mother Theresa's life, from former U.S. Press Secretary Joe Lockhart'soversleeping after a long night in a Moscow bar and missing Air Force One on his first international trip, to Ed Gavagan's surviving being stabbed by a gang and then testifying at their trial, these 40 stories range from sublime to heartbreaking to hilarious, and this collection will feature the very best. Backed by The Moth's own efforts and their expanding syndication and live event efforts in 2012-2013, this book will be an important and cherished read for existing fans of the program, literary fans of some of the featured storytellers, and oral history buffs coast-to-coast"-- - (Baker & Taylor)

Kirkus Reviews
Storytellers from a diverse array of backgrounds present true tales via a New York–based organization broadcasting at themoth.org. For all its vital cultural roots, storytelling makes a strange bedfellow with the printed page. In this self-congratulatory volume--readers can plow through a preface, a foreword and an introduction before even getting to the first story--stories originally told before live audiences are transcribed and edited to no discernible purpose, considering that they are all available in their original formats on the website. The stories run the gamut from childhood memories to love and marriage to illness, crime, war and family secrets, with several epiphanies thrown in for good measure. Some are quite moving--e.g., rapper Darryl "DMC" McDaniels' account of how Sarah McLachlan's music saved him from depression and geneticist Paul Nurse's discovery that the woman he had thought was his sister was actually his mother. Malcolm Gladwell's "Her Way" manages to be both hilarious and heartbreaking in its evocation of a friendship's end. Others that should pack a punch, including writer Jillian Lauren's "The Prince and I," about her stint as a courtesan to the Sultan of Brunei, fall flat on the page. Therein lies the problem with this anthology: These stories are meant to be experienced in a live venue, where listeners can immerse themselves in each teller's unique sense of tone and timing. Unlike personal essays, stories require give and take from an audience, which prompts the question: Why bother printing these in an age when people who couldn't attend the original sessions can easily access live footage online? Other contributors include A.E. Hotchner, Adam Gopnik, Sebastian Junger and Nathan Englander. Comes across as a vanity project that does little credit to the storytelling process. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Haroun and the sea of stories - Salman Rushdie

Haroun and the sea of stories - Rushdie, Salman


Summary: Abandoned by his wife, professional storyteller Shah of Blah suffers further insult when he loses his gift for gab, and his courageous son sets out to restore his former talents - (Baker & Taylor)




Publishers Weekly Reviews
Following the unprecedented controversy generated by The Satanic Verses , Rushdie offers as eloquent a defense of art as any Renaissance treatise. Supposedly begun as a bedtime story for Rushdie's son, Haroun concerns a supremely talented storyteller named Rashid whose wife is lured away by the same saturnine neighbor who poisons Rashid's son Haroun's thoughts. ``What's the use of stories that aren't even true?'' Haroun demands, parroting the neighbor and thus unintentionally paralyzing Rashid's imagination. The clocks freeze: time literally stops when the ability to narrate its passing is lost. Repentant, Haroun quests through a fantastic realm in order to restore his father's gift for storytelling. Saturated with the hyperreal color of such classic fantasies as the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland , Rushdie's fabulous landscape operates by P2C2Es (Processes Too Complicated To Explain), features a court where all the attendant Pages are numbered, and unfurls a riotous display of verbal pranks (one defiant character chants ``You can chop suey, but / You can't chop me!''; elsewhere, from another character: `` `Gogogol,' he gurgled. `` `Kafkafka,' he coughed''). But although the pyrotechnics here are entertaining in and of themselves, the irresistible force of the novel rests in Rushdie's wholehearted embrace of the fable--its form as well as its significance. It's almost as if Rushdie has invented a new form, the meta-fable. Rather than retreating under the famous death threats, Rushdie reiterates the importance of literature, stressing not just the good of stories ``that aren't even true'' but persuading us that these stories convey the truth. As Haroun realizes, ``He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real.'' (Jan.) Copyright 1990 Cahners Business Information.

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