EVENT: Upstairs at the Square, the bookstores series featuring musicians and authors in conversation & performing their work, is happening tonight. This one will be featuring musician Badly Drawn Boy and author Dana Spiotta, with host Katherine Lanpher. more ›

Ooh, here's some obscure weather trivia. The big rain we had last week pushed Central Park's total for the year to over 50 inches. That makes 2006 the fourth consecutive year in which precipitation exceeded 50 inches --the first time that's happened since records began in 1869. more ›

With the fifth anniversary of September 11 drawing near, many related books are being released this and next week. One of the most intriguing is The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon. Both have a rich history in comics: USA Today explains, "Jacobson, 76, created Richie Rich and was executive editor of Marvel and Harvey Comics, and Colon, 75, drew Casper and Wonder Woman" - but the book is a graphic interpretation of The 9/11 Commission's report on the events of Septemer 11, because they found it difficult to get through the 568-page report. Colon said, "For a government report, it was well written, but still hard to follow — lots of Arabic names, and a lot of things going on at the same time in different places." Slate has been excerpting the book, and from those excerpts, it seems to work very well. more ›

-Police saved a man yesterday from an oncoming train. more ›

We'd been eyeing the huge book, New Art City, which is about American artists hitting their stride in the mid-20th century New York City. However, we were concerned that at 665 pages, we would throw out our back carrying it back home from the store (or cause UPS to slip a disc) and then it would break out coffee table. John Updike reviewed it this weekend in the NY Times Book Review, and he assuaged our fears: "This is not a coffee-table art book; its illustrations, though numerous, are small, and black-and-white. A dense text rules the textbook-sized pages - 557 of them, not counting notes, acknowledgments and index." The book looks at the famous - Jackson Pollock, David Smith, Willem de Kooning, Joseph Cornell, Andy Warhol, and Donald Judd - and the lesser known - Hans Hofmann, Joan Mitchell, Fairfield Porter, and John Graham. Author Jed Perl will be speaking at a few events here, so it should be interesting if you're at all interested in modern American art. more ›

Liev Schreiber, Everything Is Illuminated more ›

- Suddenly under a storm of bullets, a 13-year-old Brooklyn boy threw himself over a 10-year-old girl in an attempt to keep her safe (he got shot twice in the back, she was hit on the arms). The kids, who were getting their hair braided on a stoop at 2 a.m. when the shooting occurred, are in stable condition and security tapes are being reviewed. more ›