Books

By PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Hardcover best-sellers compiled from data from large-city bookstores, bookstore chains and local best-seller lists across the United States. The first number to the right of the author's name is the book's previous week's ranking; the second is the number of weeks the book has been on the best-seller list.

Fiction Hardcover

1.

By KAREN MACPHERSON
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Years ago, when author/artist David Wiesner was in art school, a teacher urged him to be open to "mental flotsam" _ those random thoughts that float around your head and seem unconnected and unimportant.

Wiesner's teacher believed that "mental flotsam" was a vital part of the creative process, leading artists to produce work they never could if they followed a more conventional path.

Over the years Wiesner has paid attention to his "mental flotsam," which includes some wild and recurring images of fish, pigs and oversized vegetables floating over landscapes.

By ANDREW A. SMITH
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
The Man of Steel takes over our reviews this week:

Ten years ago, DC Comics released a miniseries that has become a legend. "Kingdom Come," written by Mark Waid and painted (in acrylic and watercolor) by Alex Ross, relied heavily on Biblical imagery, concepts and language (especially from the Book of Revelation) to depict a super-powered conflict with the potential to lead to Armageddon.

In the story, set 10 years or so in the future, Superman and the old guard have retired in disgust, supplanted by a new generation of "heroes" who differ very little from the villains.

By TRISH CHOATE
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Cathy Travis was pulling a little red wagon when she got started in politics.

The Capital Hill veteran of today still has a lot in common with that 8- to 12-year-old girl who made the rounds of turtle races and catfish fries in Arkansas to hand out campaign literature from her wagon.

"When I was a little bitty kid I wanted to be part of something bigger that helped people," Travis, press secretary for a U.S.

By KAREN MACPHERSON
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Reading to babies and toddlers is crucial to their emotional and intellectual development. Yet finding the right book to attract the attention of those on-the-go youngest readers can be a challenge.

Fortunately, there's a ready source of book suggestions: the annual list of "Best Books for Babies" produced by Beginning With Books, a Pittsburgh literacy organization.

By PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Hardcover best-sellers compiled from data from large-city bookstores, bookstore chains and local best-seller lists across the United States. The first number to the right of the author's name is the book's previous week's ranking; the second is the number of weeks the book has been on the best-seller list.

Fiction Hardcover

1.

By KAREN MacPHERSON
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
It's usually a foolproof formula: children's book + written by a celebrity = pap.

Like many people, celebrities seem to think that it's child's play to create a good book for kids.

By BOB HOOVER
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Like her fellow New Yorker Mary Gordon, Alice McDermott draws upon her family's Irish Catholic experience to shape her novels.

Unlike Gordon, she has concentrated on writing fiction _ six novels in 18 years.

By DIANA NELSON JONES
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
("AFTER THIS." By Alice McDermott. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $24)

One of the most evocative American novelists, Alice McDermott opens her new novel with such cinematic detail of a cold spring wind that you can almost feel involuntary tears welling as you read.

It is one of her gifts, making prosaic events exquisite with detail, putting you there.

The cold storm acts as an apt metaphoric beginning.

By ANDREW A. SMITH
Thursday, October 12, 2006
E-Man is back _ again!

For the uninitiated, E-Man burst on the comics scene in 1973 at Charlton Comics, the creation of writer Nick Cuti and artist Joe Staton.