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» RELATED: "Just Some Pretty Faces: 'New Moon' looks better than 'Twilight,' but these creatures can't act their way out of Dracula's tomb." [Express, March 2010]
STEPHENIE MEYER'S ATTEMPT at world domination continues with "Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1." But this adaptation of the bloodsucking love story is "purely a must-have for any collector's library," as its book sleeve proclaims. What it isn't: a necessity for any non-collector of "Twilight" ephemera.
As a weighty hardcover, the quality of the product is technically impressive: The pages are thick and glossy, the cover is colorful and eye-catching and the grand size of the volume — more than 200 pages — means your $19.99 isn't a totally wasted investment. But some aspects of "Twilight: The Graphic Novel," such as the amateurish font and color choices and heavily manga-inspired feel, seem a little trite.
Continue Reading "Mangled Manga: 'Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1'" »
1) Lips Serviced
Winter weather might finally be — fingers crossed! — in the rearview mirror. But we're still suffering the beauty roadblocks of the interminably cold season. Itchy skin. Dry hair. And, please, do not call attention to our cracked, chapped lips. Enter Shiseido's new Perfect Rouge lipstick collection ($25, department stores), which boasts a light-yet-moisturizing formula that feels as pucker-replenishing as ChapStick but — in a range of 20 rich, perfect-for-spring shades — slides on much, much prettier.
2) Dude, Step it Up
Baggy suits, blousy button-downs and mile-wide power ties came under attack in fashion expert Tom Julian's first book with Nordstrom on men's style, out last year. Now, Julian takes on puffy khakis, fraying fleeces and other out-of-date casual wear in the "Nordstrom Guide to Men's Everyday Dressing" ($18, Chronicle Books), out Saturday in Nordstrom stores and online. The savvy handbook offers stylish-but-wearable ideas — like classic-cool penny loafers, a vast improvement from the holey sneaks you've been sporting since college.
KIA DUPREE FIRST garnered attention in 2005 for her debut novel, "Robbing Peter," which addressed the theme of fatherless households and earned her the Fiction Honor Book Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She's returned five years later with the intense page-turner "Damaged," a sometimes harsh yet all too realistic look at life on the streets.
"Damaged" is set in Washington, D.C., Dupree's native city, and centers on the turbulent life of Camille Logan. Long ago abandoned by her drug-addicted mother and forced into the home of a pedophilic foster father after the death of her grandmother, Camille finds happiness in the arms of a drug dealer named Chu. But her high quickly crashes down: Chu is soon murdered and Camille — alone again and broke — finds herself with only a semblance of stability afforded her by a deranged pimp.
Dupree spoke with Express about "Damaged" and how she uses words to capture the gritty soul of the Washington, D.C., you don't find on postcards. She will be giving a reading on March 20 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library.
SAN FRANCISCO HAS a vampire kitty problem.
A giant, bloodsucking mancat is on the loose, turning other alley cats into his undead minions and amassing an army to prowl the night. That is, at least, the secret municipal crisis in Christopher Moore's latest novel, "Bite Me," an imaginative, often hilarious account of the young, the goth, and the fanged in the City by the Bay.
"Bite Me" is the third — and possibly the final — in a vampire trilogy that Moore kicked off in 1995 with "Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story," about a secretary named Jody who is turned into a dark mistress of the night. Twelve years later, Jody rose again in a sequel succinctly titled "You Suck," which trailed the "hot redhead" and her newly vamped boyfriend Tommy around the streets of San Francisco.
They are lovers, but these books are not supernatural soap operas like the "Twilight" books or "The Vampire Diaries." Moore's books — all of them, not just the ones with fangs — have an absurdist quality that gives them both a sharp humor and an almost tragic gravity, which in this trilogy subverts the self-seriousness of the modern-day vampire.They may have heightened senses, and they may be able to jump, fight, prowl, and hear footsteps six blocks away, but Moore's bloodsuckers are all freaks in their own way. They retain all their human afflictions — their old fears, uncertainties and pettiness — and they still have to do laundry.
"Bite Me" also marks the return of goth kid and vampire minion Abby Normal — or, as she's known by her mom, Allison Green — who has a comic obsession with creatures of the night and a handy mastery of sarcasm and slang. A minor character in "You Suck" and a cameo in Moore's 2006 novel "A Dirty Job," Abby narrates passages of "Bite Me" as if she were blogging, and her sections are the highlights of the novel, sparkling with wit and spraypainted with OMG's, WTF's, kayso's and a kthxbai or two.
For Moore, writing in Abby's gothily mannered voice is a tight-rope act: one slip and the entire novel could come crashing to the ground. But he remains surefooted, even as her descriptions grow more and more outlandish: "Do the condemned in hell know the suffering that is a whole day of mom-guilt heaped like steaming piles of bat guano upon my spiky coif?" she philosophizes after being grounded. Of being away from her boyfriend ... for a few hours: "I weep, I brood, I grieve — I have sniffed the bitter pink Sharpie of despair and mascara tears stripe my cheeks like a mouthful of chewed up black Gummi bears has been loogied in my eyes."
Moore's prose in these and other passages throughout "Bite Me" is hyperactive and inventive. His sentences don't just sit there on the page, waiting politely to be read. Instead, they get right up in your face and bark at you. That balance of off-hand humor and literary bravado, honed over thirty years of writing novels like "Island of the Sequined Love Nun" and "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Paul," has established him as a revered cult author with a reputation for gleefully subverting the horror genre with humor, wit and actual insight.
Armed with holy water and necklaces of garlic cloves, Express caught up with Moore in his writing lair and talked about how vampires hunt, how the dotcom bubble nearly burst his trilogy, and why his books don't make good movies.
Then he bit us.
Continue Reading "A Teething-Sinking Novel: Christopher Moore, 'Bite Me'" »
ASKING VEGETARIANS INCREDULOUSLY how they get their protein is more than a cliche — it's also a slap in the face to cookbook authors such as Lynn Alley, author of "The Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker" ($20, Ten Speed Press). Her new book offers a passport full of meat-free global eats, with rejiggerings of the greatest hits of your favorite takeout spots, from Italian polenta lasagna to Japanese-style braised tofu. The book gives both vegetarians and omnivores a sophisticated excuse to pull out that dusty slow-cooker Great-Aunt Helga gave you for Christmas in 2002.
» Best For: Home cooks looking to spice up their eating ruts with easy, hearty fare.
» Recipes We're Dying to Try: Minted Potato and Chickpea Curry, Mexican Chocolate Pudding Cake, Polenta Gnocchi in Tomato Sauce and Armenian Apricot Soup.
Written by Express contributor Katie Knorovsky
JADE AND KEONI TETA explain more about elevating your metabolism in their book, "The New Me Diet: Eat More, Work Out Less, and Actually Lose Weight While You Rest" ($25.99). Available March 23, the guide offers info on effective exercising, as well as other tips for constant calorie burn, including making sure you eat (the right stuff) every few hours and get enough sleep.
THURSDAY: Jules Feiffer, the man whose eponymous comic strip in the Village Voice defined the '60s ... and '70s ... yeah, and the '80s, fine, has now written a memoir.
The story of his life involves a lot more than sitting behind a desk making visual comments on our national character. You can hear him speak about it tomorrow afternoon at Politics and Prose.
» Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW; Thu., March 18, 4 p.m., free; 202- 364-1919. (Van Ness)
Image courtesy Universal Press Syndicate
WEDNESDAY: Today is Saint Patrick's Day, in case you forgot, and its status as a Wednesday prevents you from celebrating. Probably. Hey, who knows where you work.
Anyway, you can honor the Irish more soberly with Irish Book Day, wherein volunteers stand at your Metro stop and hand you copies of Irish literature for free. For a list of the stops they'll be at, visit Solasnua.org.
AUTHOR GINA WELCH may have spent nearly two years undercover in Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church, but she never wavered in her religious ideology. Well, not entirely.
"I knew I was never going to believe in God," said Welch, a secular Jew. "I had these moments where I felt stunned by the power of what I was experiencing ... but I just never was able to link up feeling emotionally overcome with a deity."
But during her time with Falwell's followers — told through "In the Land of Believers," released on March 2 — Walsh did form relationships with people who, despite differences, were far friendlier than she expected.
Continue Reading "Respective Differences: Gina Welch, 'In the Land of Believers'" »
THIS WEEKEND: It's tough for an Irish writer. With such a pantheon of glittering literary figures — Oscar Wilde, to name but several — it must be discouraging to try to add to the body of great Irish literature.
Nevertheless, some people are trying. And you can meet them this weekend, during Solas Nua's DC Irish Writers Festival. Readings will occur nightly through Monday at Busboys and Poets, the Goethe-Institut and the Arts Club of Washington. Sadly, Oscar Wilde will not attend, on account of being dead.
» Various locations; check Solasnua.org for schedule.
Photo courtesy Sotheby's
Addison Road