Julie Powell, author of Julie & Julia, appears 7:30 p.m. July 29 at the museum's Horchow Auditorium. A screening of the Nora Ephron movie is slated for 7:30 p.m. July 27 at the AMC NorthPark, and a "special Julia Child-inspired buffet dinner" is being offered at the museum as well.

Deborah Nadoolman Landis, an Academy Award-nominated costume designer, will discuss Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design 7 p.m. Aug. 27 at the Horchow Auditorium.

And Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Taylor Kidd will discuss Traveling With Pomegranates: A Mother-Daughter Story 7:30 p.m. Sept. 15 at First Presbyterian Church of Dallas. Sue Monk Kidd is also the author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid's Chair.

Tickets are $30 for the public; $25 for DMA members, Friends of the Dallas Public Library, seniors, and educators; $15 for students. For Julie & Julia, tickets include the preview screening, but dinner is separate.

Details are available here.

This, however, is not what I had in mind: Angry author Alice Hoffman has used Twitter to fire off a series of angry messages against a Boston Globe critic who didn't love her book The Story Sisters. Said tweets included questioning the critic's credentials, calling her a "moron," boasting of better writers who had reviewed her work ... and publishing the critic's phone number and encouraging followers to call and complain.

("Now any idiot can be a critic," one suggested. Well, she might have a point there.)

Her Twitter feed no longer exists, but the Los Angeles Times' Jacket Copy blog has a rational look at the episode. And while it agrees that the Globe review was not exactly a model of critical perfection, the public venting does not exactly help Hoffman, "who instead of being wronged by a poor review comes off like an aspiring literary gang leader, dispensing orders 140 characters at a time."

The Times also has Hoffman's official statement on the matter; she offers the classic, "I'm sorry if I offended anyone."

You can still find her outraged tweets by visiting Gawker. (There, you can also read what a gun-toting Richard Ford once thought of Hoffman's criticism -- he's not from Texas, is he?)

Just don't get any ideas.

Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield (Broadway, $16) recounts the real activities of the Long Range Desert Group, British commandos trying to derail the rout of Allied troops in North Africa by German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The narrator, a member of a fictional LRDG unit, puts the reader in the crosshairs of the conflict. The book isn't gratuitously bloody, but its taut writing makes real the terrible heat, the chaos and the courage. Pressfield provides a fast read that's deep and thought-provoking, not just action.

Pet lovers will have no trouble embracing a dog as the storyteller in the wonderfully touching The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein (Harper, $14.99). Enzo's master is Denny, a professional race-car driver. The dog dreams of opposable thumbs and a voice so that he can coach and comfort Denny, his wife Eve and their daughter Zoe as life carries all in painful detours. Enzo's faithfulness and understanding are constants, as is his hope of being reincarnated as a human so he can tell Denny how proud he is of him. Rated five Milk-Bones out of five. (And bring a hankie.)

Larry Bond's Cold Choices (Forge, $26.95 hardback) is a submarine thriller set in the frigid Barents Sea. A Russian nuclear submarine commanded by a hot-dog sub jock collides with an American sub in international waters, and the ensuing rescue ignites Cold War emotions and attitudes. It takes a bit of an engineer's mind to follow some of the hardware details, and a few story threads seem to fray (a mutiny afoot? an unstable captain -- of a nuclear vessel?). But the resolution isn't telegraphed, and the reader is engaged to the final pages.

"He loved the poetry section," said Dave Dutton of the famous Dutton's Books in Brentwood. Brother Dirk added that Ralph Waldo Emerson was Jackson's favorite. "I think you would find a great deal of the transcendental, all-accepting philosophy in his lyrics."

His lawyer also noted his wide-ranging tastes:

Largely an autodidact, Jackson was quite well read, according to Jackson's longtime lawyer. "We talked about psychology, Freud and Jung, Hawthorne, sociology, black history and sociology dealing with race issues," Bob Sanger told the LA Weekly after the singer's death. "But he was very well read in the classics of psychology and history and literature . . . Freud and Jung -- go down the street and try and find five people who can talk about Freud and Jung."

For less lofty reading, Examiner.com compiled a list of Michael Jackson-related books.

And lest you worry that we're turning Texas Pages into a celebrity death blog, the closest I can find to a book-related story on Billy Mays is this Tom Dodge review of But Wait ... There's More. The review does not actually mention Mr. Mays, but it's definitely his turf.

"I love bookstores. I love to hold books in my hand. And to give that up is painful. It's like if Minnesota passed a law against fishing, it wouldn't affect the food supply that much. You know, if we passed a law against guys going out in a boat with a rod and a reel and bait and fishing for sunfish and crappies, people would still eat, nobody would go hungry who hadn't before. But it'd be painful. It's a part of our culture."

He also notes that his own bookstore, Common Good Books in St. Paul, is "sort of slowly making its way. I don't know. It's not making money. Nobody makes money with bookstores."

(Spotted on Shelf Awareness.)

Dexter King called it a historic partnership that will bring his father's words to a global audience. Beacon, a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association, publishes books on social justice, human rights and racial equality.

The Boston-based publisher will release new editions of Stride Toward Freedom, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, Trumpet of Conscience and Strength to Love in 2010. Under the agreement, Beacon will also compile King's writings, sermons, lectures and prayers into new editions with introductions by leading scholars.

She was a witness to one of the most gruesome deaths in recent history--the slaying of Javier Calzada near Bluebonnet Lakes in Grand Prairie in December 2001.

Both writers deploy their considerable investigative skills to their mission.

It is the exact opposite of the type of driving you can read about in A.J. Baime's Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferarri, and their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans, which I reviewed here. The book has fast cars, crazed titans of industry and a folksy Texas genius to the rescue -- so what's not to like?

Baime recently spoke about the book on the public radio program Marketplace. You can listen to it here.

You can also read her review of Sum here.

And you can peruse the book here.

The SMU's Newcomers Institute, by the School of Education and Human Development, continued Saturday, and two of the most gripping presentations
were by those who told their stories, one as a former homeless
student and the other through song.

They were skilled at their craft.
Their stories had a strategy.
To inspire others to action.

Here they are:
One Potato, Two Potato by Cynthia DeFelice and Andrea U'Ren, which Lilia reports was the first choice for all elementary school kids
Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look and LeUyen Pham
The Great Pig Search by Eileen Christelow
Surprises According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney

Have your kids read any of these? Would love to hear their reviews!

I am Mr. Anthony M----a, a rich cocoa merchant from Abidjan. my wife Naomi died when our only child Alfreda was only six month old due to illments related to cancer.Due to the love i have for my late wife i decided not to marry again and take the care of my only child as a single parent.I did everything to give my child the best education and training. Alfreda was sent to Havard University in U.S.A to study medicine but as fate will have it she died last two yrs on the september 15th 2007 in a ghastly motor accident as she went for shopping with his friend and that was the genesis of my problems.

But wait, there's more.

Since then i have been suferring from frequent heart faluires which has resulted from me been paralysed. I have taken every medical treatment to see if i can regain my health but the worst happened last month when the doctor revealed to me that there is no other medical means in which i can regain my health and the rate in which my health was detoriating that i will soon leave the mother earth.

Hold on a moment ... that "mother earth" reference makes me just a little verklempt. It's so lyrical and poetic ...

OK, I'm back. So where do you think it should go from here? Is it a novel about a wealthy man trying to do one final act of good to justify his shattered life? Maybe an unknown scion walks onto the scene, and the rich cocoa merchant has to decide whether it's legitimate? Perhaps Willy Wonka emerges as the manipulative force that has been undermining his entire life?