All Book Reviews
'Indianapolis' resolves a long uncertain World War II tragedyWith help from an elementary school student, a naval captain has finally been exonerated.
'A Bite-Sized History of France' delightfully combines French history with gastronomyWhatever this rollicking survey lacks in focus, it more than makes up for with its brisk, witty, imaginative voice.
'Barons of the Sea' chronicles the race to build the perfect clipper shipClipper ships are the dream floating before the eyes of all the characters in Steven Ujifusa's fast-paced and entrancing new book.
'Carbon Ideologies' examines – exhaustively – non-renewable energyThese fat volumes are full of scientific exposition, data in charts, and dozen-page interviews, all to make the point that our understanding of the perils of nonrenewable energy may be too little, too late.
'What We Were Promised' depicts post-Mao China in a deft debut novel set in ShanghaiSet against a contemporary global backdrop, Tan explores the timeless servant-master class conflict.
'The Wonderful Mr. Willughby' profiles a pioneer of ornithology and early scientistWillughby was a citizen scientist, a foot soldier in the war against ignorance.
'A Terrible Country' follows an ex-pat who returns to experience life in RussiaAn academic learns to see Russia through the eyes of his 90-year-old grandmother.
'The Poisoned City' tells the horrific story of Flint's contaminated waterAnna Clark's brutally honest book takes us from point A to point Z.
'First In Line' profiles modern vice presidents from Nixon to PenceJournalist Kate Brower interviewed all of the former living vice presidents among the 200 subjects she spoke to and her extensive reporting pays off.
3 books for deep summer readingFor readers for whom 'summer reading' means 'a really long book,' here are three pleasing giants.
'What to Read and Why' shares a personal love of authors and titlesFrancine Prose’s wide-ranging oeuvre encompasses everything from biographies of Anne Frank and the painter Caravaggio to young adult novels about bullying and sex.
'Verdi' takes a lively approach to uncovering the man behind the art'The Man Revealed' is an introduction to Verdi, as a man rather than as a composer. Suchet takes great pains not to get bogged down in boring details or obscure music theory.
'Northland' is an entertaining trip along America's 4,000-mile northern border
'There There' weaves a powerful tale of contemporary urban Native AmericansOrange's debut novel follows 12 indigenous people living in Oakland, Calif., all wrestling with the effects of their heritage on their daily experiences.
'Squeezed' paints a dark picture of an American middle class that can't keep upJournalist Alissa Quart takes a hard look at 'the Middle Precariat,' highly educated Americans who are barely able to keep up the facade of middle class respectability.
'Uncensored' tells of a difficult passage between black and white, poor and richZachary Wood, famed for promoting controversial speakers at Williams College, tells the story of his own painful transitions.
'The Bone and Sinew of the Land' restores a lost chapter of US historyWe’ve long forgotten the African-Americans who lived free – at least some of the time – in the Midwest in the decades before the Civil War.
'Rough Beauty' recounts a poet's journey from self-reliance to community livingWhen award-winning poet Karen Auvinen loses all in a fire, she must decide what kind of life to rebuild.
'And Then We Danced,' 'Old in Art School,' tell of later-in-life creative endeavorsNell Painter enrolls in art school at 64, while Henry Alford begins a serious pursuit of dance at the age of 50.
'Frenemies' is Ken Auletta's brightly readable tour of today's ad businessNew Yorker writer Auletta takes his readers deep inside the conference calls and boardrooms of the professionals on the front lines of the industry's internet transformation.
