On the Cover of Sunday's Book Review

'A Widow's Story: A Memoir'

By JOYCE CAROL OATES
Reviewed by ANN HULBERT

Joyce Carol Oates's memoir of her husband's death is more painfully self-revelatory than anything she dared produce as a fiction writer or critic.

'Widow: Stories'

By MICHELLE LATIOLAIS
Reviewed by LEAH HAGER COHEN

These stories present a world wrapped in spiked barbed wire, while also containing passages of searing tenderness.

Also in the Book Review

'When the Killing's Done'

By T. CORAGHESSAN BOYLE
Reviewed by BARBARA KINGSOLVER

A habitat restorer and an animal lover square off in T. C. Boyle's rollicking novel set in California's Channel Islands.

Poetry, Prose and Letters

By ELIZABETH BISHOP
Reviewed by WILLIAM LOGAN

Three new collections illuminate the life and work of Elizabeth Bishop, including her time as a poet for The New Yorker.

VISUALS

Irreverence You Can Almost Touch

By STEVEN HELLER

Visual histories of fanzines, horror magazines and banned comics, and of the Italian shelter magazine Abitare.

•  Slide Show: New Visual Books

'The Hemlock Cup'

By BETTANY HUGHES
Reviewed by WALTER ISAACSON

Bettany Hughes examines the life and death of Socrates, and the city that nurtured and killed him.

'The Old Romantic'

By LOUISE DEAN
Reviewed by SYLVIA BROWNRIGG

An acerbic comic novel about an old divorced couple gradually finding a spark of reconnection.

'Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War'

By DEB OLIN UNFERTH
Reviewed by JULIA SCHEERES

The author, 18 and in love, dropped out of college and headed for Central America to hunt for a revolution.

'West of Here'

By JONATHAN EVISON
Reviewed by MIKE PEED

Jonathan Evison's panoramic novel contrasts a group of visionary settlers with their