by Vivian Vande Velde The Rumpelstiltskin story, says the author, is full of holes. Think about it. Why would the miller lie about his daughter's ability, when the consequences could be dire? Why does Rumpelstiltskin want a baby in the first place? why would he trade for the princess's ring, when he can spin any amount of gold he wants? To fill in the gaps, Velde retells the story six di...

A Bird's Eye View Of The Rolex Learning Center. (All Images Courtesy Of SANAA.) Viewed from above it looks like a flat, wavy rectangle full of randomly placed holes-- and it's Swiss. A cheesy description, perhaps, but one that fits a glorious modernist library which opened on February 22, 2010 in the city of Lausanne. The Japanese architectural firm known as SANAA has created a single-st...

On Monday, Febrary 1st my picture book MY SHOES AND I was released! Look for it on line or in your favorite bookstore. When I was fourteen years old, my father and I crossed the Mexican/ USA border. I still remember those new shoes that my mother sent me from the United Stated. My shoes traveled with me all the way from El Salvador. At the end of the long and tiring journey my shoes had holes ever...

Child, Lee.  Without Fail. Another Jack Reacher novel, and I enjoyed this one even more than the previous one.   Reacher is recruited by M. E. Froelich (who knew his brother) to test the security around the Vice President elect, when the Secret Service discovers a threat.  Reacher contacts his former colleague, Frances Neagley, and together they find several holes in the security.&n...

It's always great when you're on holidays to dive into a book and get lost in it. Having just finished Ken Scholes's Lamentation I found myself in just that situation. I was flying through it at top speed needing to read just a little bit more before putting it down. When the city of Windwir is destroyed in a fiery cataclysm the Named Lands are heading for war. Rudolfo, Lord of the ...

Tor.com has a couple of stories written by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes, two chaps well known and respected for their short fiction. The catch? They each wrote exactly half of each story. Scholes started one, Lake the other and, in front of a crowd at a bookstore, and switched half-way through. The stories turned ...

I just discovered that my most beloved pair of Rocket Dogs (see this photo) have finally died*.  There are huge cracks in the soles (like, I can see my socks through them), and there are holes along the sides.  _________________________________________________________________ *Josh is of the opinion that they died six months ago, and that I shouldn't be wearing them in January anyway, but what ...

Robert's Favorite Books of 2009: "Twelve" by Jasper Kent. Release Date (UK Only): January 1, 2009. Pubished by Bantam Press UK. Brilliantly blending together historical fiction with vampire horror, "Twelve" is one of the best debuts of the year, and quite possibly my favorite book of 2009. ************************************ "Canticle" by Ken Scholes. Release Date: October 13, 2009. Publishe...

Katie Roiphe's NYTBR essay on sex and American fiction is full of holes (Kunkel, Franzen, and Foer the heirs apparent to Roth, Updike, and Mailer?). But it does make at least one good point vis a vis sex in the current generation of fiction and irony: The younger writers are so self-­conscious, so steeped in a certain kind of liberal education, that their characters can’t condone even their own...

It’s Advent*  – but anyone hoping that we were going to go all fuzzy and seasonal and ‘chestnuts roasting round an open fire’-y  before we dispersed to our separate bolt-holes for Christmas, is going to be mightily disappointed.  We have precisely two – count’ em – TWO, seasonal pieces this week.  Other than that,