Webster County Library

A cultural history of movie stardom examines our worship and resentment of screen icons.

Glenn Frankel sorts through the layers of history in a classic film.

New books by Sarah Selecky, Whitney Otto, Lynne Sharon Schwartz, David Park and Christine Schutt.

Roger Hobbs’s “Ghostman” is named after the most elusive gang member — the guy who makes everything disappear.

This novel involves a dead rock star and an unsolved double homicide, nighttime trysts, affairs, embezzling and illicit recordings.

In this autobiographical novel, Christa Wolf wrestles with her ambiguous cooperation with the Stasi.

A journalist and Detroit native searches for clues to the city’s fate.

In Will Self’s neo-modernist novel, a woman who has languished for decades in a mental hospital is briefly revived from oblivion.

From ramshackle trading posts to the princely states of India, John Darwin examines 500 years of British expansion.

James Lasdun describes the experience of being stalked by a disturbed former student.

In Jamaica Kincaid’s novel, an ugly divorce ends the domestic idyll of a New England family.

Paperback books of particular interest.

Recently reviewed books of particular interest.

Christine Sneed’s novel stars a 50-something movie star, an idol along the lines of Harrison Ford, and his family and colleagues.

Jess Walter started his first novel in high school, but when he became a father at 19 he concluded that fiction was a “dicey way to support a child.”

Nominations for the most wishful Academy Awards category: Best Film About a Writer.

A reader responds to a recent interview with Dave Barry.

A reader responds to a recent letter about a review of Jami Attenberg’s novel “The Middlesteins.”

Readers respond to a recent review of two biographies of Sylvia Plath.

The Bieberesque 11-year-old hero of Teddy Wayne’s new novel is beginning to realize that he’s a confection — manufactured, managed and manipulated by a corporate team of adults.