Baseball

“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.

Culture and Criticism

From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.

Donors Choose and Contests

Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.

Stories, True and Otherwise

Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.

The Vine

The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!

The Vine: Ask The Readers Book-a-thon #7
March 3, 2010 · 10 Comments

I’m looking for a book I read in the mid-to-late 1980s.   It was a young adult book and involved a teen boy who has an amulet that causes a portal to another world to …

The Vine: Ask The Readers Book-a-thon #6
March 3, 2010 · 16 Comments

In middle school, instead of an elective, I was a Library Aide.   I was a super goob, but I got to read a lot of really good books — I stumbled across du Maurier …

The Vine: Ask The Readers Book-a-thon #5
March 3, 2010 · 14 Comments

Dear Sars,
A longtime lurker peeking out into the light.
No amount of Googling has helped me turn up an old favorite from my Catholic school days, so I’m giving it a shot here. There was a …

The Vine: Ask The Readers Book-a-thon #4
March 3, 2010 · 6 Comments

Dear Sars,
I’m hoping readers can point me toward a poem. In a college Asian history class, our professor showed us a Chinese poem. It was a nice but fairly standard poem, had been submitted anonymously …

The Vine: Ask The Readers Book-a-thon #3
March 3, 2010 · 4 Comments

Hi, Sars —
I’m looking for a short story, narrated by a guy who I think has a connection with the federal government (i.e., he’s a BIA rep or something like that) who’s been sent to …

The Vine: Ask The Readers Book-a-thon #2
March 3, 2010 · 36 Comments

Hi Sars,
I want this book to exist, but I’m not certain that it does.   It’s such a great concept that it HAS to exist, I figure.
I want a cookbook containing recipes entirely composed from …

The Vine: Ask The Readers Book-a-thon #1
March 3, 2010 · 7 Comments

Good morning, friends. Today’s Vine will work a bit differently; I have a huge backlog of find-that-book requests, so I’ll post one every hour or so throughout the day and put y’all to work on …

Ajami
March 2, 2010 · No Comment

The best part of the Oscars Death Race project is the nice surprises: the films I expected to have to endure that gripped me instead.
I faced Ajami as one does a hated vegetable, and got …

Coco avant Chanel
March 1, 2010 · 5 Comments

It’s hard to tell if the movie intends to portray Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel as morally compromised and often bratty, as part of a larger conversation about the forging of genius. If so, the script could …

DVR Break-Up: Shear Torture
March 1, 2010 · 17 Comments
DVR Break-Up: <I>Shear</I> Torture

Shear Genius has had problems from the beginning. The use of the Project Runway cookie-cutter for competitive reality shows about other lifestyle genres is understandable, but not always successful; with Top Design, the glitch seemed …