Anime and manga began as a world apart. Removed from Western culture and the “real world,” saturated with Japanese exotisme, they were, nonetheless, often part of American science fiction conventions, where fans garbed as their... Read More

In the woolly winter of Alaska lives a drifter code-named “the Drifter” with a part-wolf dog named Dog. His horse is Horse of course. Seeing a plane crash nearby the Drifter and Dog track that way a taxing hike through snow for... Read More

In his fifth Ohio Amish mystery (following Clouds Without Rain and Cast Blue Shadow), the author probes the mechanics and fallout of rumschpringe, that indefinite period during which Amish teenagers are permitted to immerse themselves in... Read More

Most early governors stayed in boarding houses or hotels, according to the author. In 1840, Illinois State Representative Abraham Lincoln introduced legislation to appropriate money for a residence for the governor, but the bill didn’t... Read More

A month before her wedding, the author abruptly calls it off, much to the displeasure of her family, who want to see her married and a mother as soon as possible. As a thirty-three-year-old Korean woman, her shelf life is about to... Read More

One of this book’s most important virtues is the balance that the author achieves in her approach to her subject. Her fair-mindedness lends authority to her commentary on human interaction (often dangerously close interaction) with... Read More

What do Madame Bovary, Jane Eyre, and Bridget Jones have in common? They all suffer for love, of course. They also work, for the author, as literary examples of the real-life pain that most people in the Western world experience at one... Read More

Any backpacker who’s felt superior to the passengers filing off the tour bus in front of the Eiffel Tower, and every vacationer who has fretfully sought to experience the “real” culture of a foreign country from the comfort of a... Read More