Book review

On the Cover of Sunday's Book Review 'House of Holes ' By NICHOLSON BAKER Reviewed by SAM LIPSYTE Nicholson Baker's hilarious, extremely dirty novel is an episodic assortment of fantasies that celebrate desire, frailty and the comedy of life.  Up Front: Sam Lipsyte  Profile of Nicholson Baker Also in the Book Review 'One Day I Will Write About This Place' By BINYAVANGA WAINAINA Reviewed by ALEXANDRA FULLER Finding refuge in fiction, Binyavanga Wainaina becomes a writer in this coming-of-age memoir.  Excerpt: 'One Day I Will Write About This Place' 'The Devil All the Time' By DONALD RAY POLLOCK Reviewed by JOSH RITTER The characters in Donald Ray Pollock's violence-soaked novel march in a parade of betrayals, sacrifices, suicides, rapes and executions.  Excerpt: 'The Devil All the Time'  Profile of Donald Ray Pollock 'My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz' Edited by SARAH GREENOUGH Reviewed by DEBORAH SOLOMON An annotated selection of the voluminous correspondence between the painter and the photographer. 'The Beginning of Infinity' By DAVID DEUTSCH Reviewed by DAVID ALBERT The inexhaustibly curious physicist David Deutsch offers views on everything from subatomic particles to the shaping of the universe itself. 'The Echo Chamber' By LUKE WILLIAMS Reviewed by JAN STUART In this novel, a shy writer with tinnitus embraces the quiet relief of storytelling. 'Ghost in the Wires' By KEVIN MITNICK Reviewed by J. D. BIERSDORFER A pioneer of the corporate-computer break-in recounts the hacking exploits that led him on a nearly 20-year cat-and-mouse game with law enforcement. 'All About Love' By LISA APPIGNANESI Reviewed by JUDITH SHULEVITZ Lisa Appignanesi examines the "unruly emotion" of love and its impact throughout the course of our lives. 'The Big Scrum' By JOHN J. MILLER Reviewed by JUDY BATTISTA This history of football's early years examines how, over a century ago, the sport's opponents wanted it banned; then Theodore Roosevelt stepped into the huddle. 'Retromania' By SIMON REYNOLDS Reviewed by TOM PAYNE Simon Reynolds laments how pop culture feeds on its own history, borrowing from a past that is ever more immediate. 'If Sons, Then Heirs' By LORENE CARY Reviewed by ROY HOFFMAN Lorene Cary's latest novel explores a family's struggle involving race and inheritance in the South. 'Rules of Civility' By AMOR TOWLES Reviewed by LIESL SCHILLINGER The characters in Amor Towles's first novel try to reinvent themselves in 1930s New York. Nonfiction Chronicle By TARA McKELVEY Books about the Monty Python actor Michael Palin, sex abuse within the Mormon Church and murder and racial issues in 1960s New York; and a collection of essays by Edward Hoagland.

VIDEO: Babar at 80 Pamela Paul, the Book Review's children's books editor, sits down with Laurent de Brunhoff, who has kept his father's Babar character alive for 80 years. BEST SELLERS Combined Print & E-Book Fiction Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction Hardcover Fiction Hardcover Nonfiction Paperback Trade Fiction Paperback Mass-Market Fiction Paperback Nonfiction All the Lists RELATED COLUMNS TBR: Inside the List Editors' Choice Paperback Row Back Page ESSAY Dragons Ascendant: George R. R. Martin and the Rise of Fantasy By DAVID ORR The titanic success of George R. R. Martin's gritty "Song of Ice and Fire" series has swept away the traditional, "aren't we a little old for this?" view of fantasy. Book Review Podcast Featuring Sam Lipsyte on Nicholson Baker's "House of Holes"; and Deborah Soloman on the letters of Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. The 80th Anniversary of Babar Sales Soar for Newly Minted Poet Laureate A New York Poem by the New Poet Laureate REVIEWS BY THE TIMES'S CRITICS 'The Persistence of the Color Line' by Randall Kennedy 'A First-Rate Madness' by Nassir Ghaemi 'The Long Night ' by Steve Wick 'Playing With Fire' by Pamela Constable 'House of Holes: A Book of Raunch' by Nicholson Baker