All Book Reviews
'Draft No. 4' is as lean and punchy as legendary author John McPhee's earlier workThe star attraction in McPhee's book on writing isn't the method but the man.
'Stanton' brings Lincoln's secretary of war out of the historical shadowsStanton served in two key cabinets posts for two of America's worst presidents (James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson), as well as for Abraham Lincoln, whom he helped to win the Civil War.
'A Legacy of Spies' reminds readers why they have loved John le Carré so well and so longLe Carré's latest novel allows him to revisit his beloved earlier novels from a gripping new perspective.
'Letters to Memory' tells the story of author Karen Tei Yamashita's World War II internmentAllusive, quirky, questioning, 'Letters' is a challenging text.
'A Column of Fire' is half historic epic, half thriller – all of it engagingKen Follett returns with the final (we think) Kingsbridge story, now skipping ahead a couple of centuries to the Elizabethan era.
'Border' is a touching meditation on lives shaped by geographic boundariesAfter 25 years away, memoirist Kapka Kassabova returns to her childhood home where Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey intersect.
'Mozart: The Man Revealed' explores a life infused with as much drama as any operaBiographer John Suchet does not look closely at Mozart's extraordinary musical creations, but he does provide an engaging glimpse into the life of a remarkable young man and his world.
'Glass Houses' is yet another excellent Louise Penny mysteryPenny – whose books wind up on Best Novels of the Year lists, not 'just' Best Mysteries – is a one-woman argument against literary snobbery.
'The Golden House' is Salman Rushdie's failed attempt to capture America in the Trump eraRushdie's twelfth novel feels like a rehash of old themes with a 21st-century gloss.
'The Last of the Tsars' is authoritative, definitive, and tells a compelling storyOxford historian Robert Service examines the overthrow of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917.
'George and Lizzie' proves Nancy Pearl can also be a storytellerCelebrity librarian Pearl - best known for her book recommendations – comes out with her first novel.
'The Heart's Invisible Furies' is the funny, touching story of an Irish EverymanBoyne's new novel follows its protagonist throughout the decades, from birth in 1945 to age 70, and the story encompasses a great deal of history.
'So Happiness to Meet You' spins an improbable premise into a deft memoirAuthor Karin Esterhammer talked her husband into selling nearly everything they owned to move to Vietnam with their 8-year-old son.
3 science books compelling enough to speak to all readersBob Berman's 'Zapped,' Max Tegmark's 'Life 3.0,' and Richard Dawkins's 'Science in the Soul' succeed in turning science books into good summer reads.
'Stark Mad Abolitionists' is a dramatic and gripping account of the battle over slavery fought in KansasRobert K. Sutton brilliantly brings history to life in this thoroughly researched and passionately recounted story.
'Charlton Heston' is a voluminous, possibly definitive, study of a Hollywood paragon of masculinityA portrait of the actor who gave life to the larger-than-life.
'White Tears' follows two Brooklyn hipsters who fake an old blues song and pay the priceIn the new novel from the author of 'Gods Without Men' and 'Revolution,' an attempt to fabricate a work of art sets off a voyage into the darkness of American history.
'Poetry Will Save Your Life' is a sketchbook of personal experience through the lens of poetryPoet Jill Bialosky illuminates for us the joys and tragedies that have shaped her – saved her – through poetry.
'The Epic Crush of Genie Lo' is young adult author F.C. Yee's laugh-out-loud debutSixteen-year-old protagonist Eugenia 'Genie' Lo is much more interested in getting into Harvard than in learning that she is a Chinese deity.
'The Commander' illuminates a figure at the heart of the 20th-century Arab nationalist movementFawzi al-Qawuqji spanned a remarkable period in Arab history and led a life well worth examining.
