Books

The Beatles backstage with Roy Orbison, in sunglasses, and Gerry and the Pacemakers in 1963 in Britain. Illustrates BEATLES (category e), by Forrest Wickman (c) 2013, Slate. Moved Thursday, May 23, 2013. (MUST CREDIT: From The Beatles in Liverpool, by Spencer Leigh, courtesy of Mark Naboshek Collection.)

Orbison Biography: Man Behind the Ray-Bans

Sunday, June 16, 2013

When biographer John Kruth writes that Roy Orbison’s “life seemed to mirror that of Job’s from the Old Testament,” he is not stretching too far to make a point. The singer’s first wife died in a motorcycle accident with Orbison just a few hundred yards down the road ahead of her; two of his sons died as boys in a house fire while the singer was overseas. Poor management contributed to a series of bad albums and to Orbison being nearly forgotten. Yet, like Job, as Kruth tells the tale in Rhapsody in Black: The Life and Music of Roy Orbison , Orbison had a …

William Fields, Alabama, 1936. Excerpted from a newly discovered collaboration by James Agee and Walker Evans. Illustrates BOOKS-AGEE (category e), by James Agee and Walker Evans (c) 2013, Slate. Moved Wednesday, June 12, 2013. (MUST CREDIT: Walker Evans/Courtesy of the Library of Congress.)

‘You Ain’t Never Seen Trouble Till You Lose a Youngun’

Sunday, June 16, 2013

How late in her pregnancy a woman works around the house and in the fields and how soon she gets back to work again depends on her health and how much grit she has. Since that is the code she believes in and lives up to the answer is, she works as late …

Overdue 70-Some Years, Book Returned to Stevens

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Claremont — At the entrance of the Stevens High School library this time of year, there is a reminder posted on a board that all library books have to be returned before school ends for the summer. For students who forget — or perhaps misplaced — a book, or two they should always remember it is never too late to return one to …

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Mike Cotroneo, a barn restorer, sets up scaffolding around the lowered steeple of the Norwich Congregational Church in Norwich yesterday. Work to restore its rotted framing will take about two months. (Valley News - Sarah Priestap)

Steeple Repair in Norwich

Randolph catcher Ross Caswell hugs teammate Alex Gilbert after the Galloping Ghosts won the Vermont Division III championship last night at Centennial Field in Burlington. (Valley News - Sarah Priestap)

Motivation Works for Ghosts: Unusual History Lesson Lifts Randolph to Baseball State Crown

Randolph vs. BFA-Fairfax in the VPA D-III baseball championship in Burlington, Vt., on June 17, 2013. Randolph won, 3-2. (Valley News - Sarah Priestap)

Photo Gallery: Randolph vs. BFA-Fairfax Baseball Championship

Other Local News

Brownsville Publisher’s Niche Is Rewarding, if Not Monetarily

Friday, May 24, 2013

Excerpt from God’s Body by Alice B. Fogel. Be That Empty, published by Harbor Mountain Press. “All for show, to win a point for their god they put the bomb on the bus for a ride each miracle …

An Author’s Confession: She Likes Likable Characters

Friday, May 24, 2013

Quick: What’s the most unforgivable sin a writer can commit in fiction? A writerly crime so awful that major, award-winning novelists are condemning it on the pages of Publishers Weekly and inveighing against it in The New Yorker? …

This photograph taken on Saturday, May 11, 2103, in Portland, Maine, shows the cover of former U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe's new book, which is being released Tuesday. Snowe's book is a call to action to end what she calls excessive partisanship in Congress. (AP Photo/Clarke Canfield)

Ex-Sen. Snowe Presses for Bipartisanship

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Portland, Maine — U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe describes a scene out of a Rockwell painting: With Washington crippled by a blizzard, President Obama worked the week before Christmas with a fire roaring in the fireplace in the Oval …

Patti Smith promotes an exhibit of her photographs titled "Patti Smith Camera Solo"at the Detroit Institute of Art on May 31, 2012, Detroit, Michigan. (Mandi Wright/Detroit Free Press/MCT)

Rocker-Poet Patti Smith Introduces World to Forgotten Favorite Novel

Sunday, May 19, 2013

The Slate Book Review presents Patti Smith’s introduction to Astragal , the 1965 novel by Albertine Sarrazin, which is being reprinted this month by New Directions. New York — Perhaps it is wrong to speak of oneself while …

People are surprised to learn: They are a big pipe with a little bit around it, says one of the many colorful scientists that populate Mary Roachs Gulp. Illustrates BOOKS-GROSS (category e), by Peter Brannen (c) 2013, Slate. Moved Monday, May 6, 2013. (MUST CREDIT: Chris Hardy.)

Gross National Product

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Whether you feast on truffles or Cheetos, the end result is the same. Defecation is the great leveler. There’s nothing more democratic or unpretentious than what happens in the confines of our commodes — as the children’s book …

A Talk With the Diva of Magical Feminism

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Washington — Isabel Allende has a cold. Bronchitis, actually. She’s normally a hugger. Not today. “Don’t touch me,” she warns, thrusting her arms up to avoid the slightest possibility of skin-to-skin contact. “I’m all germs.” It’s Wednesday and …

Karen Speerstra of Tunbridge is the author of Sophia: The Feminine Face of God. Speerstra has been living with ovarian cancer for 10 years. She stopped treatment in December and is now receiving hospice care at home. (Valley News - James M. Patterson)

At Peace With the Time That Remains

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Karen Speerstra’s home is in the farthest southwest corner of Tunbridge, about as high as you can get on Kelsey Mountain without being a bird. The dirt road to her house keeps narrowing as it nears the top …

This undated publicity photo released by courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures shows, from left, Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Carey Mulligan, as Daisy Buchanan and Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan in Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures drama, "The Great Gatsby," a Warner Bros. Pictures release. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures)

What’s So Great About ‘Gatsby’?

Friday, May 10, 2013

If you’re a drug dealer, a drunk, a crook, a phoney, a bully, a racist, a snob or a ditz you might want to go see The Great Gatsby, because the characters in the movie are your people. …

Travel Calls to Mind the Limits of Our Expertise

Friday, May 10, 2013

My wife and I are just back from a week and some in the Netherlands, which we spent mostly in Amsterdam, with time out for a couple of glorious days bicycling on the island of Texel. Bicycles are everywhere in that country, which partly explains, no doubt, why …

Dartmouth Professor Edward Miller in his office at Carson Hall. Miller’s recent book, Misalliance, examines the uneasy alliance between the United States and South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem during the Vietnam War. (Valley News - Sarah Priestap)

Dartmouth Historian Revisits Vietnam War

Friday, May 10, 2013

Like the Civil War, whose origins, outcome and meaning are still vigorously debated, how we remember the Vietnam War is inextricably tangled with what our political views of it are. If you believe that the war shouldn’t have …

Books

Orbison Biography: Man Behind the Ray-Bans

Chevy Saver

Thetford to Hold Special Meeting

An Olympian Rout: Oxbow Dismantles Leland & Gray for State Softball Crown

Hawks Claw Back: Chicago Prevails in Classic Battle to Knot Stanley Cup

Editorial: Donations In Name Only; N.H. Court Isn’t Fooled by Tax Credit