Book Review

On the Cover of Sunday's Book Review

'The Information'

By JAMES GLEICK
Reviewed by GEOFFREY NUNBERG

James Gleick argues that information is more than just the contents of our libraries and Web servers: human consciousness, life on earth, the cosmos - it's bits all the way down.

'Almost a Family: A Memoir'

By JOHN DARNTON
Reviewed by SUSAN CHEEVER

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist investigates the story of his own family and searches for the father he never knew.

'Modigliani: A Life'

By MERYLE SECREST
Reviewed by HOLLAND COTTER

Meryle Secrest reassesses the painter Modigliani's notoriously self-destructive life and his place in the modernist firmament.

'The Paris Wife'

By PAULA McLAIN
Reviewed by BRENDA WINEAPPLE

Hemingway's first wife, Hadley Richardson, narrates this novel about their marriage.

'The Trinity Six'

By CHARLES CUMMING
Reviewed by JACOB HEILBRUNN

Charles Cumming's thriller posits a sixth man among Britain's notorious Cambridge spies.

'Becoming George Sand'

By ROSALIND BRACKENBURY
Reviewed by NANCY KLINE

A novel intertwines the narratives of a modern professor and the 19th-century French writer George Sand.

'Nocturne'

By JAMES ATTLEE
Reviewed by DOMINIQUE BROWNING

A physical and intellectual journey in search of undiluted moonlight.

'Jerusalem, Jerusalem'

By JAMES CARROLL
Reviewed by DAMON LINKER

James Carroll covers a lot of territory in this messy book about just about everything, religion and violence in particular.

'Art and Madness'

By ANNE ROIPHE
Reviewed by JOYCE JOHNSON

The novelist Anne Roiphe examines her youthful compulsion to be a muse to "a man of great talent."

'Tiger Hills'

By SARITA MANDANNA
Reviewed by TANIA JAMES

A first novel spanning much of the 20th century depicts a love triangle in the Coorg district of India.

'My Korean Deli'

By BEN RYDER HOWE
Reviewed by CORBY KUMMER

How a Paris Review editor and his lawyer wife embraced a world of "lottery tickets, wine coolers and penny candy."

'The Most Human Human'

By BRIAN CHRISTIAN
Reviewed by DAVID LEAVITT

An account of a contest between artificial intelligence programs and people to see who sounds the most human.

'The Company We Keep'

By ROBERT BAER and DAYNA BAER
Reviewed by DAVID ROHDE

A pair of C.I.A. operatives describe the dangers and deceptions of the career they abandoned, and how they came to marry.

'American Idol: The Untold Story'

By RICHARD RUSHFIELD
Reviewed by JON CARAMANICA

How a lightly regarded British import called "Pop Idol" became America's most-watched television series.