Book News and Reviews
Jo Perry
Thomas Perry
The Butcher’s Boy, Thomas Perry’s unflappable hired killer, is forced out of retirement to settle old scores in “The Informant.”
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
‘Hooray for Amanda and Her Alligator!’
By MO WILLEMS
Reviewed by PAMELA PAUL
Mo Willems’s latest picture book features a little girl and her stuffed animal. But in contrast to his Knuffle Bunny series, this one is told from the toy’s point of view.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Evel: The High-Flying Life of Evel Knievel’
By LEIGH MONTVILLE
Reviewed by DWIGHT GARNER
In “Evel,” a former Sports Illustrated writer recounts the daredevil life and times of Evel Knievel.
A Comedian Laughs All the Way to Dystopia
By DAVE ITZKOFF
The comedian Albert Brooks, who publishes his debut comic novel, “2030,” next Tuesday, finds humor amid misery.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘A Singular Woman’
By JANNY SCOTT
Reviewed by Catherine Lutz
In “A Singular Woman,” the author Janny Scott goes beyond what we know about Barack Obama’s mother — a “white woman from Kansas” — to portray a woman who took a more difficult path than her peers’.
Milestones: The Life of Obama's MotherARTSBEAT
A Survey of Books About Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Since 9/11, there's been an outpouring of books about Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda, the September 11th attacks and the war in Afghanistan. Here is an annotated list of some of the more useful books on those subjects.
Norman Mailer’s Eclectic Life, as Seen Through His Last Home
By JOSEPH BERGER
Norman Mailer’s apartment, now for sale, is filled with furnishings, photographs and knickknacks that evoke the writer’s life.
In Book, Ryan Is Ryan, Like It or Not
By GREG BISHOP
In his book, “Play Like You Mean It,” Rex Ryan has produced an inside look of his first two years as Jets coach and managed to spark myriad reactions.
From a Novelist, Shock Treatment for Mother Russia
By ELLEN BARRY
Vladimir Sorokin, one of Russia’s most celebrated writers, has spent decades puncturing readers’ expectations.
Author of Memoir About Harper Lee Insists She Had Lee’s Cooperation
By JULIE BOSMAN
Marja Mills and her publisher, the Penguin Press, insisted that she had the cooperation of Harper Lee in writing a memoir of the writer.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘33 Revolutions Per Minute’
By DORIAN LYNSKEY
Reviewed by DWIGHT GARNER
“33 Revolutions Per Minute” by Dorian Lynskey is a history of protest songs as vehicles for propaganda or broad social change.
A Whim, A Book, And, Wow!
By REYHAN HARMANCI
A book by Adam Mansbach, “Go the — to Sleep,” was not to be published until October, but pre-orders have already sent it into the Top 10 of Amazon’s best-seller list.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘The Tragedy of Arthur’
By ARTHUR PHILLIPS
Reviewed by MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Arthur Phillips’s “Tragedy of Arthur,” about the discovery of what is reputed to be a lost Shakespeare play, turns the author into a central player in his own novel, a puzzle box that is as entertaining as it is brainy.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Iphigenia in Forest Hills’
By JANET MALCOLM
Reviewed by DWIGHT GARNER
Janet Malcolm observes a murder trial involving the Bukharan-Jewish community in Queens while attacking the way journalists covered it.
Sunday Book Review
‘The Tragedy of Arthur’
By ARTHUR PHILLIPS
Reviewed by STEPHEN GREENBLATT
Illustration by Christoph Niemann
Arthur Phillips’s splendidly devious novel consists of a Shakespearean play of his own virtuosic creation and an “introduction” that devastatingly reveals the psychological life of its author.
‘Iphigenia in Forest Hills: Anatomy of a Murder Trial’
By JANET MALCOLM
Reviewed by EMILY BAZELON
Janet Malcolm studies the case of a cultivated doctor convicted of hiring a hit man to kill her estranged husband in 2007.
‘My New American Life’
By FRANCINE PROSE
Reviewed by RON CARLSON
Francine Prose’s wry novel of a young Albanian immigrant in New Jersey sets America in high relief, mordant and comic, light and dark.
‘33 Revolutions Per Minute’
By DORIAN LYNSKEY
Reviewed by SEAN WILENTZ
A British music critic explores the tradition of protest music through chapters centered on particular songs.
‘The Summer Without Men’
By SIRI HUSTVEDT
Reviewed by MARIA RUSSO
While her husband pursues an affair, this sprightly novel’s heroine becomes immersed in an all-female world.
‘On Black Sisters Street’
By CHIKA UNIGWE
Reviewed by FERNANDA EBERSTADT
Chika Unigwe tells the stories of four African sex workers sharing an apartment in a Belgian red-light district.
‘Money and Power’
By WILLIAM D. COHAN
Reviewed by PAUL M. BARRETT
A definitive account of how Goldman Sachs became the most profitable and influential investment bank of the modern era.
‘There Is No Year’
By BLAKE BUTLER
Reviewed by JOSEPH SALVATORE
Blake Butler’s new novel is a family drama presented as a puzzle in diverse forms, from Whitmanesque to minimalist.
‘Liberty’s Exiles’
By MAYA JASANOFF
Reviewed by THOMAS BENDER
A Harvard historian considers those — rich and poor, white, black and red — who fled the American Revolution.
‘In the Basement of the Ivory Tower’
By PROFESSOR X
Reviewed by CALEB CRAIN
Professor X, an adjunct instructor and self-described academic hit man, disputes the idea that college is for everyone.
‘The Union War’
By GARY W. GALLAGHER
Reviewed by ERIC FONER
A Civil War historian argues that a commitment to national survival, much more than abolition, motivated the North to fight.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Picture Books About Fearless Women
By CHRIS VAN ALLSBURG and MARISSA MOSS
Reviewed by PAMELA PAUL
“Queen of the Falls” follows Annie Edson Taylor over Niagara Falls in a barrel; and “Nurse, Soldier, Spy” tells the story of the cross-dressing Civil War hero Sarah Emma Edmonds.
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- Nonfiction
PRINT & E-BOOKS
- Fiction
- Nonfiction
HARDCOVER
- Trade Fiction
- Mass-Market Fiction
- Nonfiction
PAPERBACK
ESSAY
How Writers Build the Brand
By TONY PERROTTET
Today’s literary publicity stunts pale before the sandwich boards, hot-air balloons and beer ads of yore.
Book Review Podcast
Featuring Arthur Phillips on Shakespeare, literary forgery and his new novel, “The Tragedy of Arthur.”
This Week's Book Review Podcast (mp3)
Obituaries
Richard Cornuelle, Libertarian Author, Dies at 84
By MARGALIT FOX
Mr. Cornuelle’s book, “Reclaiming the American Dream,” promoted volunteerism to help solve social problems.
Ernesto Sábato, Argentina’s Conscience, Is Dead at 99
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Mr. Sábato was an acclaimed novelist who led a commission that documented the atrocities committed by Argentina’s military dictatorship.
Arts & Leisure
TELEVISION
Facing Age With a Saucy Wink
By FRANK BRUNI
At 89, Betty White is riding high. And she has a new memoir of sorts, “If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t).”
Video
Slide Show
Talking About Her Love of McCullers
By ALAN LIGHT
The singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega branches out, writing and performing a play with music, “Carson McCullers Talks About Love,” that has gestated for 30 or so years.
Travel
In a Quiet Corner of Italy ... Trieste
By ADAM BEGLEY
On Italy’s northeastern shore, Trieste doesn’t preen for tourists. Yet it is possessed of an odd magic, one that echoes its literary past.
Business
OFF THE SHELF
The Aging of America, as Opportunity
By NANCY F. KOEHN
In “The Big Shift,” Marc Freedman describes a new, potentially productive “encore stage” of life — the time between midlife and age-induced infirmity.
Metro
BOOKSHELF
Baseball, Tabloids and the Mad Bomber
By SAM ROBERTS
Books about the integration of Major League Baseball, newspapers and the 1950s manhunt for the so-called Mad Bomber.
Book Review Features
Up Front: Stephen Greenblatt
By THE EDITORS
A few years ago, the Harvard professor and noted Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt found himself struggling to cook up a fraudulent piece of Shakespeare.
TBR
Inside the List
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
It’s only a few weeks since Barack Obama declared his candidacy for re-election, and already the right is winning the best-seller list.
Editors’ Choice
Recently reviewed books of particular interest.
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