The Acolytes, by Rainer J. Hanshe, depicts an entangled coterie of actors and authors in contemporary New York City. Terence and Gabriel are young actors at the start of their careers, Ivan is their controlling and compulsive director, and Amos is the clairvoyant author/playwright around whom the others gravitate.

It’s Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn when I call up David Ulin in L.A. It’s 10:00 a.m. his time. There are dogs and yard sounds on his end of the line. Ulin’s new book is titled The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time (Sasquatch Books, 2010).