“Light” Reading: An Interview With Bob Mould by Gregg Shapiro You can add out singer/songwriter Bob Mould’s name to the list of musicians who have made the move from the stage to the page and written a memoir. See A Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody (Little, Brown, 2011), written by Mould with respected music journalist and author Michael Azerrad, is one of the bolder autobiographies... 

Book Marks by Richard Labonte July 25, 2011 The Girls Club, by Sally Bellerose. Bywater Books, 288 pages, $14.95 paper. Marie is the tough sister. Renee is the pretty sister. And Cora Rose is the uncertain sister – though she has the best hair of the three working-class Catholic LaBarre girls. As this debut novel opens, they’re respectively 16, 15 and 14, adolescents on the cusp of womanhood... 

Book Marks by Richard Labonte July 11, 2011 Shaken and Stirred, by Joan Opyr. Bywater Books, 398 pages, $14.95 paper. Opyr is a master (mistress?) of mixing light and dark – of telling a story about family dysfunction, alcoholic rage and life without a lover (but there’s a stalker) with laugh-out loud panache. Poppy Koslowski is recovering from a physically painful hysterectomy when her mother... 

Thurber House Events Heat Up the Summer Thurber House will host local authors, as well as an international bestseller, at this summer’s remaining author events Tess Gerritsen A seemingly-happy mother’s world rocked by infidelity. A college librarian hunting down the murderer of a childhood friend. The story of a legendary football player, and his time spent with one of the most prestigious college... 

Book Marks by Richard Labonte June 27, 2011 Love/Imperfect, by Christopher T. Leland. Wayne State University Press, 184 pages, $18.95 paper As in real life, gay mingles with straight in Leland’s first collection (after five novels), 17 shimmering, sensual short stories linked by the thematic threads of intimacy and love. Among the queer stories: “A Mother’s Love,” in which a young man’s... 

Book Marks by Richard Labonte June 13, 2011 Remembrance of Things I Forgot, by Bob Smith. Terrace Books/University of Wisconsin Press, 272 pages, $26.95 hardcover. Comic book dealer John Sherkson is a gay man with foiled dreams, liberal ideals and a faltering relationship. Instead of crafting stellar comics for new generations of fanboys, he sells the classics from a Manhattan storefront; the presidency... 

Book Marks by Richard Labonte May 30, 2011 Progress, by Michael V. Smith. Cormorant Books, 262 pages, $21 paper. Fifteen years and a haunting secret separate siblings Robert and Helen when he lands on her doorstep one day – the day Helen, while visiting the grave of a lost love, witnesses a horrific dam construction accident that is subsequently covered up. Life has stalled for Helen: she stayed... 

Book Marks by Richard Labonte May 16, 2011 Leche, by R. Zamora Linmark. Coffee House Press, 280 pages, $15.95 paper. The message of this kaleidoscopic novel is that you can go home again. But the trip is… trippy. Filipino-born Vince, raised by his grandfather after his parents decamped for Hawaii to escape the repressive Marcos regime, reunited with his mother at age 10. Thirteen years later,... 

Fast Food & the Lean, Mean Teen: Seven Ways to Make Healthier (and Skinnier) Choices at the Drive-Thru Being a teen is tough. Most days your schedule is jam-packed with activities from the time you crawl out of bed to the time you face-plant onto your mattress at night. You’re balancing school, social life, homework, chores, and a host of extracurricular stuff that might range from sports to... 

Book Marks April 4, 2011 by Richard Labonte Unnatural, by Michael Griffo. Kensington Books, 498 pages, $9.95 paper. Pallid boys, beautiful boys, jealous boys, closeted boys, boys who suck every which way: volume one of this young-adult trilogy tacks vampire lust onto the hoary theme of hormones running wild at a private boy’s school – and, as a vampire’s bite is wont to do, brings the sexy-school...