“A Map of Tulsa” book review Gary Chew   No doubt another really fine writer like native Tulsan Benjamin Lytal could write a story about the city in which he or she grew up, and give touching expression to that town and some of the people he or she knew while there.   But since I lived in Tulsa, Okla., for nearly 30 years, I'm partial to “A Map of Tulsa,” Lytal's first novel. It's likely I was living there when he was born.   One of my most memorable experiences in Tulsa happened after dark one evening, while I was driving home to my high-rise apartment among the tall buildings Lytal writes of when he describes our skyline. It was along the Arkansas River, near where 21st joins Riverside

'50 Shades of Grey ' If you have read the trilogy you have feelings about them. The good, the bad. The possibly pornographic nature of the content. Let me say that I read the trilogy. The books were unlike anything I had ever read, but as a (relationship) writer and an avid book reader, I felt the need to figure out what they were all about. I was not prepared for what I read, but I, like half the women on earth, was gripped by the story. I must have read all three books in less than four days. Although controversial in nature and seemingly improbable in theory, I believe this to be the reason women have been falling over themselves about the possibility of a movie being made out of the

“The Language of Flowers” expresses the yearnings of the heart. Author, Vanessa Diffenbaugh is doing just that as she kicks off a nationwide book tour with a five hundred dollar a head fundraiser to raise money for foster kids who have aged out of foster care, followed by a talk & book signing at Tsakopoulos Library Galleria on Wednesday, August 31, 2011, 7:30pm to 9pm. The petals hide the tragic inequities of foster care. Her protagonist, Victoria, a damaged foster kid, ages out at 18 and finds herself sleeping in a park. She works at a flower shop for change and communicates meaning through her artistry of flowers. It is what she determines is what she is good at, a creative outlet and

A few weeks ago, I saw Richard St.Ofle read from his book No Wolf (the waygoing compromise) at Luna’s Café on 16th street. St.Ofle had just wrapped up writing and promoting the book, and the reading was a way of, in St.Ofle’s words “celebrating, in advance, the break I’m going to be taking”. Well, that break didn’t last very long, St.Ofle just announced the release of the accompanying audio book, to what is already an ambitious project that includes a soundtrack by Montreal musician August Hell, and a really cool marketing campaign where readers were encouraged to send in photos of them reading the book. The audio book was recorded by another notorious Sacramento busy-body, Robby Moncrie