Sunday Book Review
‘The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning’
By MAGGIE NELSON
Reviewed by LAURA KIPNIS
Andy Warhol Foundation/Art Resource, NY
Andy Warhol’s “Five Deaths,” circa 1963.
Maggie Nelson’s meditation on violence in our culture aims its criticisms at the fine arts, literature, theater and even poetry.
‘Railroaded’
By RICHARD WHITE
Reviewed by MICHAEL KAZIN
The historian Richard White sees the 19th-century American railways as a Gilded Age extravagance that worked social, political and environmental havoc.
‘The Big Roads’
By EARL SWIFT
Reviewed by TOM VANDERBILT
Earl Swift’s account of the creation of the U.S. expressway system is textured and nuanced, easy on the asphalt, long on personalities.
‘Conquistadora’
By ESMERALDA SANTIAGO
Reviewed by GAIUTRA BAHADUR
Esmeralda Santiago’s heroine, a feminist before her time, runs a sugar plantation in 19th-century Puerto Rico.
‘The Last Werewolf’
By GLEN DUNCAN
Reviewed by JUSTIN CRONIN
A novel narrated by a werewolf, morally as well as physically ambiguous, who is tortured by the spirits of his victims and ready to surrender to his pursuers.
‘Turn of Mind’
By ALICE LaPLANTE
Reviewed by ZOË SLUTZKY
This haunting first novel’s deeply unreliable narrator is a former surgeon with Alzheimer’s and the prime suspect in her best friend’s murder.
‘Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet’
By TIM FLANNERY
Reviewed by ANDREW C. REVKIN
While detailing the great harm done by humans, Tim Flannery also writes hopefully about the earth’s future.
‘Tangled Webs’
By JAMES B. STEWART
Reviewed by JEFFREY ROSEN
James B. Stewart warns of the risks of a perjury epidemic that has “infected nearly every aspect of society.”
‘A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman’
By MARGARET DRABBLE
Reviewed by NANCY KLINE
Margaret Drabble’s short-story collection reflects the last half of the 20th century.
Children's Books
From “Orani”
‘Orani: My Father’s Village’
By CLAIRE A. NIVOLA
Reviewed by TOMIE dePAOLA
This picture book documents an American girl’s adventures in her father’s native Sardinia.
‘Small Town Sinners’
By MELISSA WALKER
Reviewed by CARLENE BAUER
In Melissa Walker’s young adult novel, a girl coming of age in an evangelical community begins to test boundaries and question absolute faith.
‘Dreams of Significant Girls’ and ‘Dancing Home’
Reviewed by VERONICA CHAMBERS
A novel of girls at an elite Swiss boarding school in the 1970s, and another of two Mexican-American fifth-graders struggling with assimilation.
Bookshelf: America
By PAMELA PAUL
Children’s and young adult books about baseball, Ben Franklin, Lewis and Clark and more.
‘Level Up’
By GENE LUEN YANG
Reviewed by PAMELA PAUL
A graphic novel about video games, growing up Asian-American and the challenges of meeting parental expectations.
Book News and Reviews
Karolina Webb
George R. R. Martin
The latest installment in George R. R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” cycle is like a sprawling 19th-century novel turned out in fantasy motley, more Balzac and Dickens than Tolkien.
MOVIE REVIEW | 'HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2'
Class Dismissed
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Childhood ends with tears and howls and swirls of smoke, the shock of mortality and bittersweet smiles in the grave, deeply satisfying final movie in the “Harry Potter” series.
Timeline: Harry PotterTHE HOT LIST | BOOKS
A Prescient Novel Retains Its Power
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Michiko Kakutani says Don DeLillo’s 1997 novel, “Underworld,” is well worth rereading.
THE HOT LIST | BOOKS
A Great Guide (Apologies to Its Author)
By DWIGHT GARNER
Dwight Garner revisits “Hooked,” the ninth collection of Pauline Kael’s film reviews from The New Yorker.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Sex on the Moon’
By BEN MEZRICH
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
The latest book from Ben Mezrich, the baloney artist who wrote the Facebook story “The Accidental Billionaires,” concerns the theft of priceless Moon rock samples.
Book Challenges Obama on Mother’s Deathbed Fight
By KEVIN SACK
The book suggests that the president mischaracterized a central anecdote about Ann Dunham’s deathbed dispute with her insurance company.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class’
By OWEN JONES
Reviewed by DWIGHT GARNER
Writing with wit and outrage, Owen Jones offers a portrait and a defense of the British working class.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Stone Arabia’
By DANA SPIOTTA
Reviewed by MICHIKO KAKUTANI
In Dana Spiotta’s new novel, a Los Angeles musician’s family feels the fallout from his devotion to what might have been.
Writer Remains Literary Voice of Knockemstiff
By CHARLES McGRATH
Donald Ray Pollock has followed his 2008 short-story collection, “Knockemstiff,” with a novel, also set in the Ohio town of that redolent name.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Shock Value’
By JASON ZINOMAN
Reviewed by TY BURR
“Shock Value” tells the story of how the seminal shockers of the late 1960s and early ’70s came to be and how a handful of films and filmmakers brought the scary horror movies back to life.
- Fiction
- Nonfiction
PRINT & E-BOOKS
- Fiction
- Nonfiction
HARDCOVER
- Trade Fiction
- Mass-Market Fiction
- Nonfiction
PAPERBACK
Book Review Back Page
ESSAY
The Me My Child Mustn’t Know
By DANI SHAPIRO
Can a memoirist write with total honesty if she is worried about what her son might think?
Poetry Chronicle
By JEFF GORDINIER
Poetry by Michael Dickman, Ross Gay, C. Dale Young and Chris Martin.
Book Review Podcast
Featuring conversations with the novelists John Banville, a k a Benjamin Black, and Esmeralda Santiago.
This Week's Book Review Podcast (mp3)
Graphic Books Best Sellers: Ghost Stories
July 15, 2011
A Single Pleasure Ere Summer Fades
July 14, 2011
A Book Critic at the Ballet
July 14, 2011
Magazine
MAGAZINE PREVIEW
Miranda July Is Totally Not Kidding
By KATRINA ONSTAD
She is the most honest, uninhibited filmmaker of our time. Or: She’s twee, precious and maddening. Discuss. Nicely.
FIRST
Let’s Ban Books, Or at Least Stop Writing Them
By BILL KELLER
Why do so many reporters at The Times want to write books? Why, in fact, would anyone want to?
Business
OFF THE SHELF
Compelling Tales, Rarely Told Well
By BRYAN BURROUGH
I find the quality of too many business books, well, underwhelming. There. I said it.
Home
BOOKS
A History of Design Gets an Update
By ELAINE LOUIE
The second edition of “A History of Design from the Victorian Era to the Present” is being published this week, more than four decades after the first edition.
MOTHERLODE BLOG
Motherlode Book Club: 'Origins'
By LISA BELKIN
The latest selection in the Motherlode Book Club: “Origins,” by Annie Murphy Paul
Obituaries
Henry Carlisle, Aided Oppressed Writers, Dies at 84
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Mr. Carlisle wrote novels of his own, edited Camus and helped translate and publish Solzhenitsyn.
Theodore Roszak, ’60s Expert, Dies at 77
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Mr. Roszak popularized the term “counterculture” in referring to a generation that rebelled against war and sought new ways of thinking.
Book Review Features
TBR
Inside the List
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
Wherein we ready ourselves for the onslaught of George R. R. Martin’s fantasy blockbuster “A Dance With Dragons.”
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