All Book Reviews
'South Toward Home' asks: Why does the South inspire so many writers?Margaret Eby perceptively shows how place and prose interact in the land which birthed some of America's greatest writing.
Shirley Jackson, master of Halloween fright, was also the owner of an unusual houseAmong the selections in 'Let Me Tell You' is 'Good Old House,' an essay in which Jackson recalls the odd happenings at the home she shared in New England with her English professor husband and their young children.
'Did You Ever Have a Family' gracefully, movingly, deconstructs a tragedyA small-town tragedy sends ripples through the lives of many in a debut novel from memoirist Bill Clegg.
'Showdown' tells how Strom Thurmond tried to keep Thurgood Marshall off the Supreme CourtMarshall was black and liberal, two too many questionable traits for many US senators as the senate confirmation hearings began in what would become known as 1967’s 'Summer of Love.'
'The Witches': What really happened in Salem in 1692?Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff offers a comprehensive illumination of an unsettling period of American history that continues to captivate our cultural imagination.
'Custer's Trials' portrays a man at odds with himself and his timesCuster was a sword-wielding cavalryman when warfare had already moved into the age of mechanical slaughter.
'The Givenness of Things' mounts a passionate, intelligent defense of America and ChristianityOver the course of 17 provocative essays, Robinson, a 'self-declared Calvinist from northern Idaho,' brings both her formidable intellect and powers of plain speaking to deliver a clarion call against the culture of fear that she believes is eating away at American society.
'Landfalls' is a delightful, intelligent 18th-century sailing yarnA debut novel of an 18th-century French expedition – capturing history's delusions and personal slants – proves a 'surprise and a triumph.'
Two poetry collections focus on how to think, how to chooseMary Oliver and Kay Ryan both offer insightful new work.
'Find a Way,' swimmer Diana Nyad's stirring tale, is not for the squeamishNyad's message: 'You're never too old to chase your dreams.'
'Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 3': rambling, cantankerous, funny – and sadIn addition to humor and raw partisanship, the book is punctuated with moments of great darkness.
'The Tsar of Love and Techno' connects Russian characters from the Caucasus to SiberiaThe author of 'A Constellation of Vital Phenomena' returns with a set of short stories that link to his award-winning debut.
'Gold Fame Citrus' is a love story set in tomorrow's parched CaliforniaThe future is thirsty in this novel of an attempted escape from a drought-ravaged California.
'Empire of Self': a wonderful, moving biography of Gore VidalGore Vidal accomplished more in a typical decade than most people do in a lifetime.
‘When Clouds Fell from the Sky’ sheds new light on a dark period in Cambodia’s historyJournalist Robert Carmichael examines the nearly four-year period of Khmer Rouge rule through a family's search for a loved one who disappeared into the regime’s secretive prison system, never to be seen again.
‘M Train’ follows Patti Smith as she slips beguilingly between present and pastSmith is so charming and unpretentious a writer that her rambles carry more than their weight in words.
'Doomed to Succeed' examines the complicated, ambivalent US-Israel bondIn this well researched history Ross meticulously chronicles the bumpy ride that the two nations have taken together since 1948.
'Undermajordomo Minor' is an imaginative fairytale marred by small imprecisionsThe latest novel from the author of 'The Sisters Brothers' tells the story of an enigmatic Baron in a language all its own.
'Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights' is Salman Rushdie's clanky meditation on faithIn Rushdie's murky new novel, characters from two worlds – the mundane and human and the supernatural – set off an era of chaos that lead to the end of religion and its most destructive side effects.
'The Year of Lear' skillfully traces the mark of current events on ShakespeareShakespeare wrote three great works in 1606: 'King Lear,' 'Macbeth,' and 'Antony and Cleopatra.' Shapiro demonstrates that all three were marked by their time.
