By Bob Chambers

Roger Clemens was just acquitted of lying to Congress about using performance-enhancing drugs in the latest of so many tabloid sports stories that they no longer shock.
But it wasn’t always that way, and the demarcation of public awareness about what really goes on in clubhouses is often marked as Ball Four, former pitcher Jim Bouton’s rousing expose that blew the doors off the squeaky clean image of baseball and its heroes – in particular, Mickey Mantle, the subject of a biography last year by Jane Leavy called The Last Boy.
The two books together provide seminal reading for baseball fans and students of the American hero industry; links in a chain to today’s sports universe.

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Posted on June 21, 2012

‘What The Hell Is Wrong With This Guy?’

“Ivan Brunetti makes dark, misanthropic comics that channel taboo-laden subject matter – making his adoring readers gasp with relish,” says GravityFreeDesign in a YouTube upload on Monday.
“Brunetti was born in Mondavio, Italy and moved to Chicago in the 1970s, always with a reverence for comic book art. He is most famous for his Schizo series, wherein he vents about capitalism, politics, and his own shortcomings.
“The Chicago Reader describes Brunetti’s work as follows: ‘A sense of humor as black an ink . . . a darkly funny, intensely personal, uncompromisingly nihilistic comic book.’
“Spin magazine writes, ‘Brunetti’s self-loathing and seething disgust is so unrelenting that it begs a simple question: What the hell is wrong with this guy?’
“He’s contributed cover designs for The New Yorker magazine, and he is also the editor of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories.
“Currently, he teaches classes on comics, drawing, and design at Columbia College of Chicago.”

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Posted on June 18, 2012

Shawn Colvin vs. Buddy Guy

“Shawn Colvin, the three-time Grammy-winner best known for the 1997 hit ‘Sunny Came Home,’ released a new album All Fall Down, as well as a memoir this week,” Laura Rowley writes for the Huffington Post.
“Diamond in the Rough is an utterly raw account of Colvin’s childhood in South Dakota and Illinois; her life-long battle with anxiety and depression that started in middle school; conquering the alcoholism that dogged her through her 20s; her numerous romantic debacles (and two divorces); and finding happiness in her career and motherhood in her 30s and 40s. Lyrical, funny and painfully honest, Colvin’s memoir reads like a seriously fractured fairy tale.”

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Posted on June 14, 2012

By The Beachwood Book Bureau

Quickly.
1. From The Chicago Writers Conference:
“Acclaimed author Aleksandar Hemon will be the Opening Keynote Speaker at the inaugural Chicago Writers Conference, announced conference Founder Mare Swallow.
“Born in Sarajevo and now living in Chicago, Aleksandar Hemon is the author of Love and Obstacles, The Lazarus Project, Nowhere Man and The Question of Bruno.
“He’s also a winner of a MacArthur ‘genius grant,’ finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient.”
Registration for the conference is now open.

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Posted on June 12, 2012

Be Who You Want To Be. Love What You Love.

“Martians, robots, dinosaurs, mummies, ghosts, time machines, rocket ships, carnival magicians, alarming doppelgangers who forecast murder and doom – the sort of sensational subjects that fascinate children are the stuff of Ray Bradbury’s fiction,” Michiko Kakutani wrote for the New York Times this week after the author’s death.
“Over a 70-year career, he used his fecund storytelling talents to fashion tales that have captivated legions of young people and inspired a host of imitators. His work informed the imagination of writers and filmmakers like Stephen King, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron, and helped transport science fiction out of the pulp magazine ghetto and into the mainstream.”
In 2009, Columbia College awarded Bradbury with an honorary degree at its commencement ceremony. Bradbury was introduced by authorized biographer and faculty member Sam Weller before appearing via satellite from Los Angeles:

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Posted on June 8, 2012