Arts and Culture

Features on our favorites in books, music, film, and comedy.

Saratoga Springs, New York

Summertime in Saratoga Springs

Amid the upstate areas where vacationers flock, Saratoga Springs is a popular pick. To some, it is the home of horse racing, where folks dress in finery and peer over papers as determined steeds propel past. To others, it is a performing arts destination, and its annual New York City Ballet season the most anticipated event of them all.

Quick Spin: Author Simon Van Booy

Simon Van Booy has a way with words. A way with people, really. An observation of life that builds on a page like the slow, calculated movements of the constructs of an igloo. His stories offer a richness to life’s every day instances – love and loss, birth and death, the climbing and the falling of dreams.

Daily Blender Exclusive: Author Christopher Moore

As a Midwest kid who grew up in a faith-heavy community, it almost felt a little sacrilege to read Christopher Moore’s Lamb. The story of Jesus’s teen years as told by his best friend, Biff, Lamb spins the story of the Messiah’s early life, before the healing and the leading and the fishes and the whatnot.

Quick Spin: Author Bret Anthony Johnston

Bret Anthony Johnston’s outward appearance oozes fiction writer. You see his thick-rimmed glasses and often solemn photos and you think, Yup, this is what they’re all like. But Johnston (whose name sounds a little like a member of a boy band, doesn’t it?) is so much more than the scarf-wearing stereotype you might associate with the typical writer.