All Book Reviews
Now we’re really cooking: New standout cookbooks include 'America: The Cookbook' and 'Milk Street'Besides deliciousness, what these cookbooks share is a global melting pot mentality that reflects a trend toward increasingly porous culinary borders.
'We Were Eight Years in Power' discusses race with intelligent sobrietyTa-Nehisi Coates offers a collection of eight of his most penetrating essays from The Atlantic.
'Radio Free Vermont' touts the power of local government and grassroots effortsThis new novel by author, environmentalist, and Vermonter Bill McKibben is heavy on coincidence and light on believability.
'Calder' clearly establishes its subject as a giant of the 20th centuryUp until now, there has never been a full-scale biography to help us understand and appreciate Calder's accomplishments.
'Gold Dust Woman' tells the story of rock icon Stevie NicksDevoted followers won’t find major new stories in this biography by Stephen Davis, but it’s certainly an exhaustive account.
'The Thin Light of Freedom' is a Civil War history that explores the forging of modern AmericaSmall towns throughout the Great Appalachian Valley changed hands many times during war, and as complicated a military picture as that presents, it represents an even more complicated political and social picture.
'Black Tudors' reveals a surprising and overlooked chapter of historyHidden in British archives and parish records are the identities of dozens of black people who lived in England during Tudor times.
'Troublemakers' follows the meteoric transformation of Silicon Valley’s founding generation'Troublemakers' transports us to a Silicon Valley before the arrival of internet behemoths the likes of Netflix and Salesforce, when giants such as Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel ruled the day.
'Prairie Fires' author Caroline Fraser offers a substantial biography of Laura Ingalls WilderWe meet here a Wilder who embodied 'a great American drama in three acts': poverty, struggle, and reinvention.
'Lenin' illuminates one of history's most destructive leaders'The regime [Lenin] created was largely shaped by his personality,' writes Victor Sebestyen, 'secretive, suspicious, intolerant, ascetic, intemperate.'
Bumper crop of new US presidents biographies reflects the challenges they all facedFrom John Adams to George H. W. Bush, these seven presidential biographies cover remarkable ground and offer a series of engaging portraits.
'L’Appart' is a painfully funny story of the joys and pitfalls of making Paris your homeIf you’ve ever dreamed of tossing your return ticket home, David Lebovitz might make you think twice.
'Franklin D. Roosevelt' examines the now-forgotten political opposition FDR faced at every stageRobert Dallek's FDR is a man of great but always complicated drives.
'Friends Divided' explores the remarkable, stormy friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John AdamsRevolutionary-era historian Gordon S. Wood, in his latest book on the period, makes clear just how fragile the American experiment had become once George Washington retired to Mount Vernon.
'Murder, Magic, and What We Wore' is the Diet Sprite of Regency rompsThe young adult novel is full of fits and starts, but charming in a way that feels as sweetly ingenuous as its heroine
'Traces of Vermeer' strives to figure out the actual nitty-gritty of Vermeer's craftJelley is a painter in her own right, which allows her to write with authority.
'Greater Gotham' traces New York's transformation into capital of the Western worldIn this big new book, author Mike Wallace posits that 1898 to 1919 were the years in which New York entered the modern era.
'The Misfit’s Manifesto' argues in favor of compassion, justice, and love for allBased on her 2016 TED Talk, “The Beauty of Being a Misfit,” Lidia Yuknavitch argues that life's most difficult moments can be portals to a new experience.
'Blood Brothers' details the strange, history-defying friendship of Buffalo Bill and Sitting BullSitting Bull toured with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show for a four-month period in 1885.
'The Second Coming of the KKK' explores the largely forgotten 1920s resurgence of the KlanThe Klan was 'the biggest social movement of the early twentieth century,' one whose 'ideas echo again today,' writes New York University historian Linda Gordon in her startling new book.
