domingo, 10 de julio de 2011

Book Review


Sunday Book Review

‘Absolute Monarchs’

Illustration by Lorenzo Petrantoni
John Julius Norwich’s popular history of the papacy finds that the truly great popes were outnumbered by the corrupt, the inept, the venal, the lecherous and the mediocre.
Stieg Larsson and Eva Gabrielsson on a train in 1980.

‘‘There Are Things I Want You To Know’ About Stieg Larsson and Me’

Eva Gabrielsson recalls her 32-year partnership with the best-selling author of the Millennium trilogy.
Clarence Darrow in 1902.

Biographies of Clarence Darrow

A pair of biographies about the trial lawyer Clarence Darrow draw on newly unearthed documents.
Dana Spiotta

‘Stone Arabia’

In Dana Spiotta’s novel, a woman struggles with the loss of her brother, an unrecognized rock star.
Lee Krasner, circa 1940, with one of her paintings.

Biographies of Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell

Two biographies examine the spiritedness and formidable success of the Abstract Expressionist painters Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell.
“Problem” player: Curt Flood refused to be traded in 1969.

‘A Level Playing Field’

A provocative and lively collection of lectures and essays about the intersection of race and sports, from a professor of American culture.
Horacio Castellanos Moya

‘Tyrant Memory’

Through one family’s ordeal, the Salvadoran novelist Horacio Castellanos Moya depicts a country in the grip of a despot.

‘The Wreckage’

Michael Robotham’s thriller borrows from real events, like the financial crisis and the disappearance of billions of dollars in Iraq.

‘When the World Spoke French’

A magisterial study of the role of the French language in its 18th-century heyday, when it was it was still the international idiom of choice.
George Zoritch and Nini Theilade in “Rouge et Noir,” circa 1939.

‘René Blum and the Ballets Russes’

A look at René Blum, who made a place in history running the Ballets Russes.
“Deux Frères d'Armes”: French soldiers at the Battle of Inkerman in 1854.

‘The Crimean War: A History’

Orlando Figes explains how the Crimean War, a major turning point in European and Middle Eastern history, resonates today.
Book News and Reviews
William P.O'Donnell/The New York Times
Rock ’n’ roll memoirs are selling well for publishers and bring large advances for their authors.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES

‘Reasonable Doubt’

The writer Peter Manso recounts a Cape Cod murder case that wound up involving him.
EXHIBITION REVIEW
The First Folio no. 1 on display at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington.

Venerating Sacred Relics of Shakespeare

A show at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington traces the veneration of First Folios as much as objects as literature.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
Will Lavender

‘Dominance’

In Will Lavender’s second novel, “Dominance,” a Vermont college becomes the setting for a copycat murder.

Picture Books for Children Who Want Pets and Parents Who Don't

Four new picture books about the sometimes difficult realities of caring for a pet.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES

‘Tomatoland’

In “Tomatoland,” Barry Estabrook delivers a withering criticism of the tactics of the tomato industry in South Florida, where the soil is as devoid of plant nutrients as a pile of moon rocks.
Her writing, said Yoani Sánchez, above in her Havana apartment, describes “the sentiments of one person but sums up the reality of many people.”

In Cuba, the Voice of a Blog Generation

Yoani Sánchez, a 35-year-old writer in Havana, has increasingly drawn attention as a chronicler of daily life under Castro.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
Sapphire

‘The Kid’

“The Kid” by Sapphire traces the life of the son of Precious, the heroine of Sapphire’s novel “Push.”
BOOKS OF THE TIMES

'A Death in Summer' and 'Tigerlily's Orchids'

The Irish novelist Benjamin Black (a pseudonym for John Banville) and the British mystery writer Ruth Rendell have new books.
Book Review Back Page
ESSAY

The Writer as Detective

All writers are mystery writers, mucking around in a world studded with clues, in pursuit of bad guys.

Book Review Podcast

Featuring Bill Keller on a new history of the papacy; and Eva Gabrielsson on her life with Stieg Larsson.
  •  This Week's Book Review Podcast (mp3)
The Times's Critics
Recent reviews by:
Magazine
THE 6TH FLOOR BLOG

As if You Don't Have Enough to Read, Fiction Edition

After digesting your additions to, and critiques of, our nonfiction list, we decided to reconvene our panel of nonexperts (ourselves) and come right back at you with a list of the best fiction of all time.
Business
OFF THE SHELF

Investment Tips for the Accident-Prone

Two new personal finance books are intended to keep investors from tripping over their own feet.
Metropolitan
BOOKSHELF
TYCOONS A cartoon portraying competing railroad magnates, with Jim Fisk illustrated at right.

An Era When the City Roared

Books about New York in the ’20s, a Wall Street man in a fatal love triangle and the evolution of a town house overlooking the East River.
Book Review Features
TBR
Alexander and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril, who write under the pseudonym Lars Kepler.

Inside the List

Should serial best-seller writers be banned from the list after one appearance, to make way for new blood? The authors of the latest grisly crime thriller out of Sweden might say yes.

Editors’ Choice

Recently reviewed books of particular interest.

Paperback Row

Paperback books of particular interest.


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