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Through the Keyhole
By Laura Kolbe – Mar 2010 | No Comment
Through the Keyhole

Mikhail Chekhov’s Anton Chekhov: A Brother’s Memoir has at last been published in English in its entirety, and its flaws and omissions make it almost as revealing as one of Anton’s own stories.

A Year with Short Novels: “There is a bridge….”
By Ingrid Norton – Mar 2010 | One Comment
A Year with Short Novels: “There is a bridge….”

The jewel-like perfection of Thornton Wilder’s “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” is the subject of Ingrid Norton’s scrutiny in this latest installment of “The Year of Short Novels”

Peer Review: DeLillo and the Three Ps Peer Review: DeLillo and the Three Ps

The nation’s book critics naturally congregated when Don DeLillo’s slim new book appeared. In the latest Open Letters Peer Review, John Rodwan supplies a scorecard for the players.

Like Dust, and Memories Like Dust, and Memories

In mythology, Alcestis is the model wife, willing to give up her own life for her husband’s. In Katharine Beutner’s lyrical retelling, the truth is more complex.

The Lost Library: Donald Windham’s Two People
By Philip Gambone – Mar 2010 | One Comment
The Lost Library: Donald Windham’s Two People

Donald Windham may not have intended his 1965 novel Two People to be trailblazing, but its unsentimental frankness set it apart just the same. Philip Gambone reads it again.

It’s Not All Gossip and Fangs It’s Not All Gossip and Fangs

The latest novels by Francisco X. Stork and Benjamin Alire Saenz remind us that there’s much, much more to teen fiction than vampire fads.

Facebook Fiction
By Janet Potter – Mar 2010 | No Comment
Facebook Fiction

Justin Taylor’s Everything Here Is The Best Thing Ever raises the age-old question about ‘hot’ new collections: can they possibly live up to their own billing? Janet Potter turns in a verdict.

The Sweetness of Short Novels
By Ingrid Norton – Feb 2010 | 4 Comments
The Sweetness of Short Novels

Doorstop literary tomes might still be the preferred signature grab for literary respectability, but short novels have always been every bit as compelling–and tougher to do well. Ingrid Norton introduces her Year with Short Novels.

A Year with Short Novels: J.L. Carr’s Chance for Renewal
By Ingrid Norton – Feb 2010 | 2 Comments
A Year with Short Novels: J.L. Carr’s Chance for Renewal

In A Month in the Country, J.L. Carr explores that most challenging emotion to capture in fiction: happiness

All the Sad Young Bankers
By Sam Sacks – Feb 2010 | One Comment
All the Sad Young Bankers

Two new novels by Adam Haslett and Jonathan Dee attempt to show us the way we live now by exposing the quality of the characters who handle (or, as the case may be, mishandle) our money.

Welcome to Highsmith Country
By Alyssa Meyers – Feb 2010 | One Comment
Welcome to Highsmith Country

When Patricia Highsmith was bored at parties, she would cover the dinner table with her pet snails. As Joan Schenkar shows in her new biography The Talented Miss Highsmith, this may have been the sweetest part of her personality.

The Creation, and Erasure, of Laura
By Amelia Glaser – Feb 2010 | No Comment
The Creation, and Erasure, of Laura

Dmitri Nabokov published The Original of Laura in the form in which his father had left it: in note-cards, which you can remove, rearrange, annotate, even add to…

Wayward Directions
By Janet Potter – Feb 2010 | One Comment
Wayward Directions

In Joshua Ferris’ The Unnamed, Tim Farnsworth walks away from his job and family, and also away from a novel of domesticity into one of ideas.

World Without End, Amen
By John Madera – Feb 2010 | One Comment
World Without End, Amen

Mary Caponegro continues her chronicle of troubled intimacies in the story collection All Fall Down

Second Glance: The Radicalism of Felix Holt
By Rohan Maitzen – Jan 2010 | 7 Comments
Second Glance: The Radicalism of Felix Holt

Felix Holt, the Radical may be George Eliot’s least-read novel, but as Rohan Maitzen shows, its intricately rendered relationships both paved the path for Middlemarch and reflected on Eliot’s own life

“Did you en-joy the de-mon-stra-tion?”
By Lianne Habinek – Jan 2010 | No Comment
“Did you en-joy the de-mon-stra-tion?”

Boilerplate traveled the world at the turn of the twentieth century in attempt to dissuade humans from their many wars. Finally, his biography (can such things be?) is revealed, and Lianne Habinek reveals its astonishing contents

Vampires Are SO Last Year Vampires Are SO Last Year

Lauren Kate’s new young adult book Fallen is getting the full Twilight treatment, YouTube trailer and all. Kristin Brower Walker looks into what the book is about beyond all that promotional blitz

The Mysteries of Berkeley The Mysteries of Berkeley

In Manhood for Amateurs novelist Michael Chabon visits the strange planet known as parenthood. John G. Rodwan, Jr. follows him where plenty have gone before.

Prospero’s Staff
By Robin Mookerjee – Dec 2009 | No Comment
Prospero’s Staff

Philip Roth’s The Humbling is shrouded in the wintry landscape of his late style. Robin Mookerjee enters the cold.

It’s a Mystery: “Sooner or later, everybody pays”
By Irma Heldman – Dec 2009 | No Comment
It’s a Mystery: “Sooner or later, everybody pays”

Irma Heldman reviews The Ghosts of Belfast, Stuart Neville’s grand Irish thriller debut in which the anti-hero, Gerry Fegan, a former IRA hitman, is “touched” as in crazy, and long ago would have been given the death sentence if they’d had anyone with the moxie to kill him.

Uncertainty Principles
By Sam Sacks – Dec 2009 | No Comment
Uncertainty Principles

In Changing My Mind novelist Zadie Smith, long a literary essayist, gathers together her burgeoning belles-lettres. Is it just a chance collection or does a common theme run through them? Sam Sacks reviews her views.

Have You Seene Me?
By Laura Kolbe – Dec 2009 | No Comment
Have You Seene Me?

As Laura Kolbe shows, A New Literary History of America throws every word of its own title into question—and that’s not the most exciting part of Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors’ immense anthology

“This Spider — No More!”
By Khalid Ponte – Dec 2009 | No Comment
“This Spider — No More!”

In the 1970s, two giants of the Spider-Man comic book, writer Stan Lee and artist John Romita, reunited for a daily newspaper comic strip. Paradise? Ask Khalid Ponte.

2009 Standouts in Teen Fiction 2009 Standouts in Teen Fiction

2009 was a strong year for the teen fiction genre, with inventive entries of every style. Kristin Walker selects three winners in a year-end roundup.

The Books and the City
By Thomas Larson – Dec 2009 | No Comment
The Books and the City

Dan Baum and Dave Eggers have made very different books on New Orleans and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; Thomas Larson separates sense from sensationalism.

A Real Island
By Janet Potter – Nov 2009 | No Comment
A Real Island

For a season, Maurice Sendak’s iconic Wild Things have become specifically what Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze want them to be … but what is that? Janet Potter goes out to meet them.

The Fixer
By Steve Donoghue – Nov 2009 | No Comment
The Fixer

Hilary Mantel’s Tudor novel Wolf Hall recently won the Man-Booker Prize. Each part of that sentence was guaranteed to attract Steve Donoghue’s attention.

Damage Assessment
By Sam Sacks – Nov 2009 | One Comment
Damage Assessment

Perennially underrated novelist Pete Dexter’s latest, Spooner, continues his fascination with damaged characters. Sam Sacks tours a body of work composed mostly of battered bodies.

Chaos, and a Stranger Arrives Chaos, and a Stranger Arrives

Hairy slugs, warring souls, and sexy goblins – Young Adult Fiction is alive and well. Kristin Walker hunkers down with three recent thrillers.

Naught for the Naughty
By Karen Vanuska – Nov 2009 | No Comment
Naught for the Naughty

In The Children’s Book, A.S. Byatt tells the long and complicated story of a family’s secrets; Karen Vanuska sheds some light in the corners.

Second Glance: A Weight that Won’t Go Away
By Greg Gerke – Nov 2009 | No Comment
Second Glance: A Weight that Won’t Go Away

Readers are familiar with the uncompromising dissections of Apartheid South Africa in J.M. Coetzee’s Booker winners Disgrace and Life and Times of Michael K, but Greg Gerke wants us to be equally aware of the haunting vision of Coetzee’s 1990 novel Age of Iron

#1
By Sam Sacks – Oct 2009 | No Comment
#1

In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

#2 #2

In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

#3
By Andrew Martin – Oct 2009 | 2 Comments
#3

In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

#4
By Rita Consalvos – Oct 2009 | One Comment
#4

In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

#6
By John Cotter – Oct 2009 | No Comment
#6

In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

#7
By Greg Waldmann – Oct 2009 | No Comment
#7

In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

#8
By Laura Kolbe – Oct 2009 | No Comment
#8

In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

#9
By Brad Jones – Oct 2009 | No Comment
#9

In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

#10
By Steve Donoghue – Oct 2009 | No Comment
#10

In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

2009 Bestseller Feature 2009 Bestseller Feature

In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

Second Glance: Reading Anthony Trollope
By Rohan Maitzen – Oct 2009 | One Comment
Second Glance: Reading Anthony Trollope

He wrote over 40 novels, many of which a classics, and that sheer quantity can be daunting. Rohan Maitzen tells us how best to approach the literary dynamo that was Anthony Trollope.

It’s A Mystery: “Men engaged in warfare are all ghosts in the making”
By Irma Heldman – Oct 2009 | No Comment
It’s A Mystery: “Men engaged in warfare are all ghosts in the making”

From Charles Todd, author of the critically acclaimed Ian Rutledge series, comes A Duty to the Dead, introducing Bess Crawford, a World War I nurse, who is feisty, fearless, and fascinating. Irma Heldman joins Crawford on her inaugural adventure.

Mothers and Daughters Mothers and Daughters

Young adult fiction today is as varied and challenging as young adult life has become. Kristin Brower Walker reads two promising new titles, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and When You Reach Me, that seem destined to make the next Newbery Award shortlist.

Avatar Bazaar
By Janet Potter – Oct 2009 | No Comment
Avatar Bazaar

Fans of Dan Chaon’s complex, intellectual fiction have eagerly awaited his newest, Await Your Reply. Janet Potter tries to pin down the book’s many identities.

Oh Naomi
By Lianne Habinek – Oct 2009 | No Comment
Oh Naomi

In her new story collection Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Maile Meloy depicts men and women (but mostly men) who want to eat their cake and have it too. Lianne Habinek tells us how successful these characters, and Meloy, turn out to be.

New York Trilogy
By Sam Sacks – Sep 2009 | 2 Comments
New York Trilogy

A local, a booster, and a tourist take on New York; Sam Sacks tours the city with E.L. Doctorow, Colm Tóibín, and Colum McCann.

Forgive Us Our Risks
By Karen Vanuska – Sep 2009 | No Comment
Forgive Us Our Risks

Lydia Peelle revisits the territory of Southern fiction in her short story collection Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing, and Karen Vanuska treks the vivid terrain

The New, Improved Undead
By Deirdre Crimmins – Sep 2009 | No Comment
The New, Improved Undead

Hot-ticket director Guilermo del Toro has co-written a vampire novel that just happens to be about 50 percent flawed. Coincidence? Zombie expert Deirdre Crimmins is on the case.

It’s a Mystery: History Plays for Keeps
By Irma Heldman – Sep 2009 | No Comment
It’s a Mystery: History Plays for Keeps

In Dan Fesperman’s meticulously crafted World War II thriller, The Arms Maker of Berlin, he opens up old war chests and lets the genies of the past wreak havoc upon the present. Irma Heldman is on the case.

I am Man, Hear Me Whimper
By Joshua Garstka – Sep 2009 | No Comment
I am Man, Hear Me Whimper

The primitivism of small-town life gets a thorough examination in Robert Cohen’s Amateur Barbarians; Joshua Garstka strolls these suburbs and reports back

These Disunited States
By John Madera – Aug 2009 | No Comment
These Disunited States

Brian Evenson’s stories are populated by wanderers, ciphers, and schizophrenics lost in the fog of their own frustrations. John Madera attempts to navigate the miasma of Fugue State.

It’s a Mystery: With Caviar Comes Money
By Ingrid Norton – Aug 2009 | No Comment
It’s a Mystery: With Caviar Comes Money

Meet Artie Cohen, a Russian Jewish cop with a conscience. In Reggie Nadelson’s Londongrad, he’s got the weight of the world on one shoulder and New York crime on the other. Irma Heldman follows his travels in the latest “It’s a Mystery.”

‘02
By Laura Tanenbaum – Aug 2009 | No Comment
‘02

J. Courtney Sullivan’s novel Commencement has been compared to fellow Seven Sister Mary McCarthy’s The Group. Laura Tanenbaum assesses how Sullivan fills some mighty big shoes.

Very Scared People
By Deirdre Crimmins – Aug 2009 | No Comment
Very Scared People

Who’s the greatest hater, a killer or his victim’s avenger? Deirdre Crimmins takes a stab at David Moody’s Hater.

Mystery Balls
By Lianne Habinek – Jul 2009 | No Comment
Mystery Balls

Flotsam and jetsam clutter Javier Calvo’s novel Wonderful World, but do they choke its flow? Lianne Habinek, our steadfast guide, charts its course.

It’s a Mystery: “She has a bag full of gold just like Pippi Longstocking”
By Irma Heldman – Jul 2009 | No Comment
It’s a Mystery: “She has a bag full of gold just like Pippi Longstocking”

They’re back! Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played with Fire marks the return of Mikael Blomkvist, the intrepid investigative journalist, and his sidekick Lisbeth Salander, the world-class punk hacker. Irma Heldman is on their trail.

How Could You Stop Loving Me?
By Adam Golaski – Jul 2009 | No Comment
How Could You Stop Loving Me?

Adam Golaski grew up reading Jay McInerney and wanting to walk in his shoes. In How It Ended, those soles are a little scuffed.

Little Frozen Yogurt Shop of Horrors
By Sharon Fulton – Jul 2009 | No Comment
Little Frozen Yogurt Shop of Horrors

The bowling alleys and corner stores of Jim Krusoe’s middle America are the source of oddities beyond imagining—until you’ve read Sharon Fulton’s review of his novels, that is

Classics Illustrated
By Honoria St. Cyr – Jul 2009 | No Comment
Classics Illustrated

An affection for annotated classics and an abiding love for The Wind in the Willows makes Honoria St. Cyr singularly suited to review the new annotated edition of Kenneth Grahame’s classic, edited by Seth Lerer—she shares her discoveries here

The Music of the Mind
By John Madera – Jul 2009 | No Comment
The Music of the Mind

Aleksandar Hemon’s prose has scarcely been mentioned without the accompanying adjective ‘Nabokovian’; John Madera looks at Hemon’s new collection of stories Love and Obstacles to see whether the modifier fits.

Family Through Fiction Family Through Fiction

In The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie has written his most Melvillean novel. John G. Rodwan, Jr. indulges in some Melvillean digressions as he explains just exactly what that means.

No Hugging, No Learning
By Sam Sacks – Jun 2009 | No Comment
No Hugging, No Learning

Colson Whitehead, one of our most intellectually satisfying writers, has written a “novel” that meanders suspiciously like a memoir. Sam Sacks reviews Sag Harbor.

Second Glance: Wave and Say Hello to Frances
By Tracey Kelly – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Second Glance: Wave and Say Hello to Frances

She was a bestseller in her day, now virtually unknown. Fanny Burney, and her great novel Evelina, gets some long-deserved attention from Tracey Kelly.

Viaticum
By Lauren Groff – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Viaticum

A short story by Lauren Groff

The Ocean
By Sergio De La Pava – Jun 2009 | No Comment
The Ocean

A short story by Sergio De La Pava

Queen Hereafter: A Novel of Margaret of Scotland
By Susan Fraser King – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Queen Hereafter: A Novel of Margaret of Scotland

A excerpt from Susan Fraser King’s forthcoming novel about Margaret of Scotland

Ma
By Elinor Lipman – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Ma

An excerpt from Elinor Lipman’s novel The Family Man

Yellow
By Sage Marsters – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Yellow

A short story by Sage Marsters

Giants Hit the Road
By Steve Kluger – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Giants Hit the Road

An excerpt from Steve Kluger’s novel Last Days of Summer

The Prince of the Powers of the Air
By John Cotter – Jun 2009 | No Comment
The Prince of the Powers of the Air

Anthony Burgess is famous, but not for his best book. John Cotter sees your A Clockwork Orange and raises you Earthly Powers.

Supping with Glaucus: A Tour of Roman Historical Fiction
By Steve Donoghue – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Supping with Glaucus: A Tour of Roman Historical Fiction

Steve Donoghue takes the emperor’s box to thumbs-up or thumbs-down an array of Roman historical novels, as “A Year with the Romans” continues.

Second Glance: He Hears Them Speaking
By Brad Jones – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Second Glance: He Hears Them Speaking

You may have passed over Frederick Busch’s many novels on bookstore shelves; Brad Jones convinces you to stop and read the words.

Stillbourne
By Greg Waldmann – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Stillbourne

Eric van Lustbader throws every cliche in the kitchen into Robert Ludlum’s endless Bourne saga, attempting to keep the pot boiling. Greg Waldmann tastes the stew.

Reader, I Disemboweled Him
By Deirdre Crimmins – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Reader, I Disemboweled Him

Intrepid reporter Deirdre Crimmins tackles that last literary taboo: Regency zombies.

Delightful Gumbo or Strange Brew?
By John Madera – Jun 2009 | One Comment
Delightful Gumbo or Strange Brew?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck displays a long list of literary influences; John Madera asks what these well-made stories have to say.

“You can change your name…your job description… But really, nothing changes.”
By Irma Heldman – Jun 2009 | No Comment
“You can change your name…your job description… But really, nothing changes.”

With The Tourist, Olen Steinhauer takes his place in the panoply of classic spy fiction—at the very top with Deighton, Greene, and Le Carré. Irma Heldman is on the inside and tells all.

Upstate
By Christen Enos – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Upstate

John Cheever’s cocktail parties may be gone, but the Library of America has punched up their commuter ticket with a new Collected Stories and Other Writings. That’s Christen Enos in the club car.

Murder on the Fractureline
By Khalid Ponte – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Murder on the Fractureline

China Mieville’s latest book features two cities nervously co-existing in the same space. Khalid Ponte looks at both sides now.

Uppity Blues
By Karen Vanuska – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Uppity Blues

Master of the mannered sneak-attack, Kazuo Ishiguro has enraptured readers for years – including Karen Vanuska, who walks us through Nocturnes, his new collection of linked stories.

This Book Will Shoot You
By John Matthew Fox – Jun 2009 | No Comment
This Book Will Shoot You

Shifting from a Vietnam epic, newly-minted National Book Award winner Denis Johnson goes noir in Nobody Move; John Matthew Fox leads us down these new mean streets.

Not A Boating Accident
By Steve Donoghue – Jun 2009 | No Comment
Not A Boating Accident

It wouldn’t be summer without a giant killer shark novel, so Steve Donoghue goes for a fun swim with the, er, mother of them all, Meg: Hell’s Aquarium.

Joseph Conrad’s Tragic Predicament Joseph Conrad’s Tragic Predicament

“A sorry business this scribbling,” Joseph Conrad once confessed, and we remember him problematically. John Rodwan reappraises the murky nature of his books.

Rom Zom Com
By Deirdre Crimmins – May 2009 | No Comment
Rom Zom Com

Exiled to the basement, pelted with garbage, and unlucky in love: zombies have it rough in S.G. Browne’s new novel Breathers. Dierdre Crimmins lends a sympathetic ear (figuratively, of course).

Roots Into Entrails
By Karen Vanuska – May 2009 | No Comment
Roots Into Entrails

A Nazi picaresque wouldn’t seem to be a likely read, but Karen Vanuska reviews a new reprint of Jakov Lind’s 1962 World War II novel Landscape in Concrete and finds its grim, absurd power undimmed by the years.

Lightning Strikes and Pen Strokes
By Sharon Fulton – May 2009 | No Comment
Lightning Strikes and Pen Strokes

Veteran comics illustrator David Mazzucchelli takes center stage writing and drawing his first full-length graphic novel, Asterios Polyp, and Sharon Fulton takes a look at the result.

How to Wreck a Planet
By Karen Vanuska – May 2009 | No Comment
How to Wreck a Planet

Jeanette Winterson has made a career of pushing her prose poetry into different worlds. But by abandoning Earth altogether, has she left her readers stranded? Karen Vanuska heretically challenges The Stone Gods.

A Deadly Serious Kind of Farce
By Bryn Haworth – Apr 2009 | No Comment
A Deadly Serious Kind of Farce

Rare indeed these days for mention of Iran to provoke smiles—and so Iraj Perezkzad’s beloved farce My Uncle Napoleon gains new relevance. Bryn Haworth takes a fresh look at an old friend.

Cue Chaos
By Julie McGinley – Apr 2009 | One Comment
Cue Chaos

Oprah favorite Wally Lamb has co-opted the Columbine shootings, the Iraq war, and Hurricane Katrina for his latest bestseller, The Hour I First Believed. Julie McGinley directs a pointed look at his formula that makes tragedy equal growth.

Message in a Klein Bottle
By Lianne Habinek – Apr 2009 | No Comment
Message in a Klein Bottle

Celebrated young novelist Jesse Ball’s latest, The Way through Doors, twists and pulls at the nature of narrative itself. Lianne Habinek threads the labyrinth.

It’s a Mystery: “I’ve got a mind like a comic book”
By Irma Heldman – Apr 2009 | No Comment
It’s a Mystery: “I’ve got a mind like a comic book”

Bernie Gunther is back! In the newest incarnations of Philip Kerr’s crime series, the charismatic, cynical P.I.—more ready with a ribald wisecrack than a gun—has survived the decadent dog days of the Weimar Republic only to get down and dirty on the mean streets of Munich. Irma Heldman tags along after him.

The Flâneur
By Sam Sacks – Apr 2009 | No Comment
The Flâneur

Arthur Phillips’ new novel, The Song Is You, takes a sentimental bachelor’s soundtrack and sets it to adult themes of family tragedy. Sam Sacks listens to hear whether the opus reveals new growth in the novelist—and whether it will grow on the reader.

Rescue Pieces
By Karen Vanuska – Apr 2009 | No Comment
Rescue Pieces

Much critical buzz has accompanied Philipp Meyer’s debut novel American Rust (there’s talk of a Pulitzer)—Karen Vanuska cuts through the hype and attempts to nail down the thing itself.

Amen to That Amen to That

Anne Easter Smith’s The King’s Grace builds its plot around the mystery of the Princes in the Tower—and borrows its conceit from Josephine Tey’s classic A Daughter in Time. Finch Bronstein-Rasmussen examines the book and the mystery.

Foreign Items, Quality Various
By Sam Sacks – Mar 2009 | No Comment
Foreign Items, Quality Various

China’s burgeoning modern literature – by citizens and expats alike – presents challenges to Western audiences (and sometimes to Chinese censors). Sam Sacks samples three new novels, including Yiyun Li’s The Vagrants.

Second Glance: The Wit and Woe of Mavis Gallant
By Karen Vanuska – Mar 2009 | No Comment
Second Glance: The Wit and Woe of Mavis Gallant

Mavis Gallant wrote some of the best – though too often neglected – short stories of the 20th century. In this regular feature, Karen Vanuska unearths the treasures.

Frank Lloyd Wright Annex
By Caedmon Haas – Mar 2009 | No Comment
Frank Lloyd Wright Annex

T.C. Boyle is the latest writer to dramatize the story of the women in Frank Lloyd Wright’s life. Caedmon Haas tours The Women and blueprints how well Boyle’s latest biographical novel stands up.

On Finding That My Novel Can Be Bought on Amazon.com for $0.01
By Martha Moffett – Mar 2009 | No Comment
On Finding That My Novel Can Be Bought on Amazon.com for $0.01

Here today, gone tomorrow – remaindered on Amazon.com the day after that! Martha Moffett turns in a cautionary tale of the tangled fate of one novel.

The Sounds Are Not the Flowers
By Sam Sacks – Feb 2009 | No Comment
The Sounds Are Not the Flowers

In her new novel Lark and Termite, Jayne Anne Phillips grapples with the challenge of using intricate language to convey wordless innocence. Sam Sacks is sympathetic to her goal, but he can’t help thinking of William Faulkner …

Going Off Course with Melville and Liebling Going Off Course with Melville and Liebling

Two seemingly dissimilar figures in the American literary landscape – Herman Melville and A. J. Liebling – shared at least one thing aside from a way with words: they weren’t afraid of a little digression now and then. John G. Rodwan Jr. follows along for the stories.