By discovering such important truths, Diana Gabaldon and Susan Elizabeth Phillips have taken romance novels to the heights of the hardcover best-seller lists, though their styles are very different.
Gabaldon is the J.K. Rowling of romance publishing. Her latest novel, “A Breath of Snow and Ashes,” was burning up the presale charts before its late September release. There were spoilers on Web sites. There were dress-up release parties, as fans celebrated the next 1,000 pages in the saga of Claire Beauchamp, a World War II nurse who gets unstuck in the 18th Century.
This is the sixth book and the Outlander series is as hot as ever. So are Claire and her Highlander, Jamie Fraser, now in their 50s, which has become a hot age in the romance market, and living in North Carolina.
Gabaldon’s books, starting from the first, “Outlander,” are long, intense, serious, lyrical.
Related Travel Information
David Mamet’s latest play is another courtroom drama – except that it’s like no other. This is the most surreal trial since the one in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and you follow it with bizarrely opposing reactions. On the one hand, you can just laugh – often uproariously – at the escalating madness here. The judge first distracted by his hay fever and then demented by his hay fever tablets; the Jewish defendant at loggerheads with his Christian attorney; the prosecutor beset by his hysterical boyfriend. Mamet pillories every kind of political correctness. And what the hell is
Saturday night's Tsongas Arena lineup vacillated between two distinct musical idioms – call it metal-core, punk-pop or plain old whiner's delight, but never has rock 'n' roll this volatile sounded so tuneful.
Opener Reggie and the Full Effect played a short set of throttling hardcore (complete with uvula-scraping screams), blended with curiously radio-friendly riffs.
Alkaline Trio followed with a dexterous, authoritative performance.Alternating between two lead vocalists, the Chicago-based band played with a seasoned maturity that made for the gig's most pleasant surprise.
Plenty of body
When Drew Baylor, played by Orlando Bloom, gets fired from his job and goes home to kill himself using a self-propelling knife attached to an exercise bike, it is clear that this will be a quirky tale.
Baylor, a young shoe designer, has failed miserably in his newest design of a shoe with silver flaps, costing the company $972 million.
Phil DeVoss, his conniving, unemotional boss played by Alec Baldwin, spends no time in condolences and instead calls Baylor to own up to his fiasco to a waiting reporter.
“I am ill-equipped in the philosophy of failure,” he says and
In an unprecedented move by an organization not exactly known for unbridled creativity, the Chemical Heritage Foundation has lit a match under its oxygen tank. Its newly opened "The Sky's the Limit" exhibit examines the role of atomic technology and the impact of polymers in 1950s pop culture. The display captures the innocence of the day and the widespread belief that through chemistry, anything was possible.
Here's the short of it: WWII ended with a bang, we patted ourselves on the collective back for a decimation job well done, but — oh, hell — we left a surplus of research
Who hasn't experienced teenage love? You can never forget those ticklish lightning bolts that shoot up your spine or cramp your stomach after merely holding your crush's hand. Nothing could have ever stopped you from kissing in the hallways -- you were in love!
Looking back now, you realize that your definition of love was somewhat misconstrued. It was the mere first stirrings of adolescent horniness. You kick yourself for making out in front of all the buses and never living it down even after you graduate from high school.
In a certain sense, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is