Back in 1996, Junot Diaz published a collection of short stories, Drown, which became one of the most celebrated literary debuts of the Nineties. Drown drew on Diaz’s experiences growing up, first in the Dominican Republic, and later, from the age of six, in a northern New Jersey immigrant neighborhood. Now, after eleven years, he has just published his long-awaited first novel, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Wao, the protagonist, is a......

If you're one of those enviro-avengers styled after the heroes of I [Heart] Huckabees who chained themselves to bulldozers in the name of protecting Mother Earth, a new environmentally friendly business called Austin CarShare may appeal to you. Like Zipcar, it aims to provide urbanites with short-term car rentals, something especially useful to students who typically use mass transit, or to families with an occasional use for a second car. The neat thing is that,......