Carolyn Alessio

MIRIAM'S SONG: By Miriam Mathabane, as told to Mark Mathabane Simon & Schuster, 315 pages, $25 Miriam Mathabane grew up in a black township of South Africa toward the end...

When Kamau Jones went to the bookstore to pre-order the fourth book in the Harry Potter series, his friends teased him about liking "teeny-bopper" books. "I tried to explain to...

AFTER ALL: Last Poems By William Matthews Mariner Books, 55 pages, $13 Poet William Matthews died in 1997 at age 55. This posthumous collection of poetry, the last of his...

GIG: Americans Talk About Their Jobs at the Turn of the Millennium Edited by John Bowe, Marisa Bowe and Sabin Streeter Crown, 548 pages, $25 Even telephone psychics have job...

Following an unusual sequence of events that unfolded in the Chicago area and involved three Chinese writers, a publisher controlled by the Beijing government has canceled publication of the novel...

ROSA PARKS By Douglas Brinkley Penguin Lives, 246 pages, $19.95 Rosa Parks' civil rights activism began long before she refused to give up a seat to a white passenger on...

BIOGRAPHY OF A GERM By Arno Karlen Pantheon, 178 pages, $22 The bacterium that causes Lyme disease is an unlikely subject for a biography, but science writer Arno Karlen gives...

BEACHES Edited by Lena Lencek and Gideon Bosker Marlowe, 332 pages, $15.95 paper Don't expect lightweight reading in this collection of "Stories by the Sand and Sea," but a tantalizing...

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD By Richard Yates Introduction by Richard Ford Vintage, 337 pages, $14 Anyone overly nostalgic for the 1950s should read this novel first. Originally published in 1961, "Revolutionary Road"...

MY JOB, MY SELF By Al Gini Routledge, 266 pages, $27.95 Citing sources as diverse as Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" and Dilbert, author Al Gini examines the way...