Books Archive

Shmutz - Ask a writer what her/his book is about, and odds are good you’ll be treated to a tour of the plot, and not in twenty-five words or less. Stephen King

Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy - How many Communists did he have on that famous "list" he had? "McCarthyism." That's the catch-all, one-phrase description of the phenomenon he created in his

Shot in the Heart - So here we are in Utah. If I hadn't thought of Gary Gilmore earlier, I can't avoid him now; he's in the news. Utah's lawmakers are having the same trouble

Shriver Report: Amelia Clark, Medical Missionary - Last winter, as veteran readers of this site may recall, our community raised funds for a medical mission to Honduras. Now four students at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and

Siddhartha - I became aware of Hermann Hesse around the time Steppenwolf recorded “Born to Be Wild.” All the kids were reading him --- he’s who you read when you graduated from

Simple Passion - You wait for the phone to ring. That's your life, waiting. You never know when he'll call, so you leave your home as little as possible. Hair dryers and vacuum

Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet - Virtually unknown in America, Xinran is a legend in her native China --- from 1989 to 1996, she hosted "Words on the Night Breeze,'' a radio call-in show in Beijing. In 1994, someone

Skylight - If Head Butler had a book group, we’d all be reading “Skylight” this month. Well, there can’t be a book club --- that would require message boards, and message boards invariably

Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut was born on November 11, 1922, exactly four years after the end of World War I. On Mother’s Day in 1944, while he was home on leave from

Sleepless Nights - GUEST BUTLER RON FRIED is the author of Christmas in Paris, 2002. His play, "Two Mailers," is scheduled for an Off-Broadway production in the fall. He recently completed

Sloth, -

Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on My Pajamas, and Found Happiness - “Slow love” is a good description of the way I’ve come to know Dominique Browning. After decades of a nodding acquaintance when we worked at glossy magazines, we started reading

Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm - “Women who think they’re going to learn anything from Fifty Shades of Gray are wasting their time. They’d do better to read ‘Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the

Small Things Like These - The novel ends abruptly… on page 128. A full stop in mid-stride. This is not laziness or an unfortunate editorial decision. It’s because what happens next is for you to

Small Victories: Recipes, Advice + Hundreds of Ideas for Home Cooking Triumphs - In the past year, I haven't baked a single loaf of bread. And I quickly tired of making meals that took longer than 15 minutes to cook and consume. Now,

Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace - Bird by Bird is the book to read if you’re a beginning writer, or a baffled amateur, or just want to witness a fine stylist making the keyboard sing. I don’t

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution -

Smut: Stories - Oooooo…..a dirty book. And short --- 160 pages --- so you don’t have to wade through acres of prose to get to the good parts. And by a distinguished

Snow Day Reading - The Kindle was made for Snow Days. Many will work from home today, and all praise to those good souls. But at some point even the obsessively dedicated will be