By Byron Spooner Book Nut is a series of reminisces gleaned from thirty years of selling books.  This is the second in the series. So I tell Robert, the smartass kid who works for me, “When we get there?  Keep your trap shut and let me do the talking.” Of course he’s having none of [...]

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By Oscar Villalon Long before the New Yorker’s fiction issue arrives in mailboxes on June 7, buzz abounds about its “20 Under 40” centerpiece, which, according to the New York Observer, “will name 20 individuals under the age of 40 whom they believe to be the most talented and important American writers of their generation.” [...]

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By Marcia Schneider With last week’s highly acclaimed opening of the magnificent exhibition Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Franciscans and visitors have an unprecedented opportunity to see firsthand nearly 100 of the finest French Impressionist paintings in the world. The exhibition, which will run [...]

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By Michelle Jeffers Despite forecasts of drizzly weather all week, the signs are all there–the first long weekend that essentially kicks off the summer season. The Memorial Day holiday is always enjoyable, perhaps because I never plan anything except rejoicing in the luxury of a three day weekend. If the nice weather returns, or even [...]

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By Mary Ellen Hannibal Okay, just read this excerpt from Leon Whiteson’s essay “Life Sentence,” in which he recalls his boyhood in the then British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe): To escape (the librarian’s)scrutiny, I plunged into the stacks. A book slid into my hand, as if by its own volition. The title on [...]

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By Byron Spooner My wife Judy loves a good shoot-out. “I’ll take guys shooting around corners at each other any day,” she always says. Cops versus robbers, drive-bys, gangland warfare, failed robberies, getaways, she loves them all, the louder the better.  (Understand that we’re talking about the movies here, I mean, it’s widely known that [...]

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By Katie Sue Ambellan GHOST BUSTERS! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKB7zfopiUA] Bill Murray would be proud!  Improv Everywhere sent ghosts to haunt the reading room in the New York Public Library on 42nd Street in Manhattan (the same one from the movie!) and someone called the Ghost Busters on the paranormal activity.   SPOOKY! SCARY! With the New York Public [...]

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By Michelle Jeffers This weekend I attended a gig at a little saloon on Potrero Hill. Despite their day jobs, this group of guys, all of them pushing middle age, spend their limited free time playing rock and roll each week. The only payoff: a couple of free drinks at the bar. It made me [...]

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By Katie Sue Ambellan “Love is bullshit. Emotion is bullshit. I am a rock. A jerk. I’m an uncaring asshole and proud of it.” He’s been billed as the “Vonnegut of our generation” and “the great satirist of our time.”  His books have been translated into over 25 languages.  And this Thursday, May 20, he’ll [...]

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By Oscar Villalon Part of the job of being a book critic is filling in the gaps of your reading – catching up with the books from the past that for whatever reason you missed– even as you stay on top of the torrent of new books coming out each season. The point of such [...]

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