All Book Reviews
'Missing Man' delves into Robert Levinson's 2007 disappearance in IranBarry Meier has finely choreographed Levinson’s story, and brought it into the light from the shadow world
'Secondhand Time' records previously unheard witnesses to Soviet lifeThis is the kind of history, otherwise almost unacknowledged by today’s dictatorships, that matters.
'LaRose' is Louise Erdrich's beautiful new novel of love, atonement, justiceHow does one atone for wrong? Erdrich's characters – on a North Dakota reservation and in the nearby town – struggle to find the path forward.
'Elizabeth': how she ruled, from 1588 to her death in 1603Guy does a masterfully comprehensive job writing about the Elizabeth of these waning years
'The Secret War' tells the remarkable story of World War II espionageThe highly respected British military historian Max Hastings has written an authoritative and engaging book that will stand as the definitive single volume analysis of 'The Secret War' for years to come.
'The Politicians & the Egalitarians' posits conflict as central to democracyWhat historian Sean Wilentz gets really passionate about in this collection of essays is the defense of politicians and the political process.
'The Twilight Children' makes a compelling coda to a remarkable careerReleased shortly after the sudden passing of creator Darwyn Cooke, 'The Twilight Children' pays fitting tribute to an exceptional talent.
'Pit Bull' aims to tell the story of a maligned breedJournalist Bronwen Dickey has written a powerful and disturbing book suggesting that fear of pit bulls reflects many broader American anxieties and pathologies surrounding race, class, and poverty.
'Everybody's Fool' revisits Sully Sullivan and his crumbling hometownPulitzer Prize winner Russo’s return to his fictional upstate New York mill town also marks a welcome return to the hard-bitten, hard-drinking, hardscrabble comedy of his first novels.
'Peter Arno' celebrates the iconic, one-of-a-kind New Yorker cartoonistIn Michael Maslin’s dazzling, well-illustrated biography, Arno’s story is told with skill and flair.
'American Rhapsody' is a dazzling slice of American cultural historyFrom Edith Wharton to Nina Simone, New Yorker writer Claudia Roth Pierpont brings 20th-century America alive.
'Valiant Ambition' offers a more nuanced history of Benedict ArnoldNathaniel Philbrick shows that while a major gulf of character did separate Arnold and Washington, the former was more sympathetic and the latter more flawed than the popular mythology suggests.
'A Self-Made Man' follows Abraham Lincoln from youth to political hustlerBlumenthal's new biography of Lincoln – the first of a multi-volume project – is engaging, informative, meandering.
'The Noise of Time' blends Shostakovich, Stalin, the meaning of artJulian Barnes weaves his new novel from the true story of Russian composer Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich.
'Booked' asks tweens to consider the idea that being smart could be coolNewbery medal-winner Kwame Alexander brings soccer, poetry, and teen life together in a compelling narrative for middle-grade readers.
'Zero K' is Don DeLillo's spare but bracing assessment of life's later yearsRoss Lockhart, a super-wealthy businessman, has holed up in a facility in the barren chaparral of Kyrgyzstan, hoping to cheat death through cryonic suspension.
'Pumpkinflowers,' a memoir by an Israeli soldier, questions the battleWas a small hilltop in southern Lebanon worth the lives that were lost there?
'The Morning They Came for Us' conveys the grim story of SyriaA journalist refuses to let readers forget Syria.
'Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here' is full of penetrating insights into teens' livesThis debut novel makes important points about poverty, bullying, and popularity.
'Ghetto' tells the 500-year history of the word and the institutionFrom the Venetian Jewish ghetto of the 1500s through Harlem and South Central LA, Princeton professor Mitchell Duneier profiles an urban phenomenon.
