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sábado, 7 de mayo de 2011

Book Review

On the Cover of Sunday's Book Review

'The Boy in the Moon'

By IAN BROWN
Reviewed by ROGER ROSENBLATT

In this memoir, the journalist Ian Brown tries to understand his profoundly disabled son.

'The Year We Left Home'

By JEAN THOMPSON
Reviewed by JONATHAN DEE

In this sympathetically witty novel, which spans 30 years, a Midwestern family struggles for economic and emotional stability.

'The Constitution of Liberty'

By F. A. HAYEK
Reviewed by FRANCIS FUKUYAMA

The definitive edition of the economist Friedrich A. Hayek's monumental work, which argues that no central government can know enough to organize society as efficiently as the market.

'Netsuke'

By RIKKI DUCORNET
Reviewed by MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM

As his wife chases after beauty, the narrator of this novel, an aging psychoanalyst, obsessively sleeps with his patients.

The Soviets distributed this picture of Shostakovich, said to be at work on his Seventh Symphony under siege in Leningrad in 1941.

'Music for Silenced Voices: Shostakovich and His Fifteen Quartets'

By WENDY LESSER
Reviewed by EDWARD ROTHSTEIN

A critic speculates about what Shostakovich was really expressing in his string quartets.

'The Silent Land'

By GRAHAM JOYCE
Reviewed by KEVIN BROCKMEIER

After an avalanche, a couple on a skiing holiday notice changes to their existence, in this eerie fantasy of isolation, marital love and the afterworld.

George Washington directing field workers at Mount Vernon.

'Founding Gardeners'

By ANDREA WULF
Reviewed by PAULA DEITZ

A history of the founding father's passion for agriculture and botany, and how those pursuits reflected their political ideas.

Mohamed ElBaradei during the Tahrir square protests in January.

'The Age of Deception'

By MOHAMED ELBARADEI
Reviewed by LESLIE H. GELB

Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel prize-winning former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a major player in the revolution in Egypt, describes his quest to stem the atomic tide.

'The Great Night'

By CHRIS ADRIAN
Reviewed by LAURA MILLER

Chris Adrian's novel is a loose retelling of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," set in contemporary San Francisco.

Spiritual guide: The Cambridge philosopher Henry Sidgwick, circa 1890.

'The Immortalization Commission'

By JOHN GRAY
Reviewed by CLANCY MARTIN

John Gray, a philosopher, explores a century or so of investigations into immortality by mystically inclined intellectuals.

Paul Allen and his business partner in 1982.

'Idea Man'

By PAUL ALLEN
Reviewed by GARY RIVLIN

The Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen charts his uneasy relationship with Bill Gates during the software giant's early years.

'You Are Free: Stories'

By DANZY SENNA
Reviewed by POLLY ROSENWAIKE

Race, class and gender affect the identity struggles of the nuanced characters in Danzy Senna's story collection.

'This Life Is in Your Hands'

By MELISSA COLEMAN
Reviewed by MEGAN MAYHEW BERGMAN

A memoir of a family sundered by their return to the land in the 1960s.

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.