Book Reviews  

 

Most visitors to Amish Country never experience in-depth encounters with the Amish and don't care to, Susan L. Trollinger writes in her new book, "Selling the Amish: The Tourism of Nostalgia."
People would generally rather shop. They'd rather eat mashed potatoes and gravy. They're seekers ...

What looks like the passing of a book, is really the passing of a baton. A younger generation is taking charge of Lancaster Public Library's 58th annual spring used-book sale, one of the oldest and largest in the country.
Longtime sale organizer Pat Ditzler, left, and her successor, Sandy Milchanows...

"Driving Mr. Yogi" began as a 1,500-word story in the New York Times last spring. Sportswriter Harvey Araton has greatly expanded the story for this book, and he hasn't done himself any favors.
In sum, it's about the friendship between Yogi Berra, the aging but game old Yankees catcher and mascot, a...

What Erna Reinhart always liked about the late actor Jimmy Stewart was that he stood for "the qualities of goodness and the all-American way of life," she said when she and husband Charles Reinhart inked a deal to publish "Jimmy Stewart on the Air."
"He never lost that hometown appeal," the movie fa...

 

Mario Puzo (1920-99) was one of 12 children born in New York's Hell's Kitchen to two illiterate Neapolitan immigrants. Puzo graduated from City College, loved the novels of Dostoyevsky and in his 20s began writing stories for pulp magazines. He published two little-noticed novels, and then...

Find these fast-paced, spine-tingling young-adult murder mysteries on the teens' new-book shelf at the Duke Street Library.
1    BUTTERFLY CLUES, by Kate Ellison. Lo's compulsive behavior symptoms get her into trouble after she witnesses a murder while wandering dangerous parts of Cl...

NEW YORK (AP) — At age 95, Kirk Douglas is not too old to give e-books a shot.
The legendary actor has an e-memoir coming out in June.
Titled "I Am Spartacus! Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist," the book tells about the epic that came out in 1960 and helped break Hollywood's ban against su...

 

Rock-climbing prodigy Hugh Herr got lost in a blizzard on Mount Washington, N.H., in 1982. The Penn Manor High School student spent three nights clinging to life in the freezing cold and consequently lost both his legs below the knee.
Yet 26 years later, Herr gave his blessing when his wif...

 

One night in the land of rolling hills, hot sun and mosquito nets, a tiny bundle all wrapped up in blankets was carefully placed in front of a bright blue door. ... Far away, on the other side of the world, a mommy was dreaming of a baby ... growing in her heart, not in her belly."

So b...

In a rare show of literature appreciation, a Capitol Hill official likened the tale of intrigue surrounding a Chinese Communist Party chief and his possibly homicidal wife to "a 'Bourne Supremacy' plot."
If Christopher Buckley's waggishly amusing "They Eat Puppies, Don't They?" enjoys a smidgen of t...