Junot Diaz

I have to put in a plug for the new book by Junot Diaz- "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao". I seem to mostly read comic books now- this is a big fat book with no pictures, but there are pop culture references galore, including many asides about comics (and ...LOTR!) A novel with footnotes about the history of the Dominican Republic, it relates funny and horrifyingly sad stories about several generations of a Dominican family, in New Jersey and on the island.

Michiko Kakutani's review in the Times

I found A. O. Scott's review somewhat irritating- just the way I often feel about his movie reviews.

Diaz wrote a review of Adrian Tomine's new graphic novel "Shortcomings" for Calvin for PW.