Book News and Reviews
Nancy Doherty
Joe McGinniss
Joe McGinniss searches for “the real Sarah Palin” by moving in next door to her.
Newly Released Books
By SUSANNAH MEADOWS
Among this month’s releases: an outlandish plot (“Boxer, Beetle”), a Mennonite community in Mexico (“Irma Voth”) and a memoirist’s chronicle of building a cabin (“Cabin”).
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
Picture Books About Boys at Play
Reviewed by PAMELA PAUL
“Anton Can Do Magic,” “My Rhinoceros” and “Where’s My T-R-U-C-K?” are three new picture books that capture the singularity, stubbornness and sweetness in the ways young boys play.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Here Comes Trouble’
By MICHAEL MOORE
Reviewed by DWIGHT GARNER
“Here Comes Trouble,” by the documentarian Michael Moore, is almost but not quite a memoir.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘You Deserve Nothing’
By ALEXANDER MAKSIK
Reviewed by ADAM LANGER
“You Deserve Nothing” follows a high school teacher who has an affair with a student.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Destiny of the Republic’
By CANDICE MILLARD
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
The historian Candice Millard zeroes in on the 1881 assassination attempt on President James A. Garfield and the dreadfully misguided medical efforts to save his life.
Michael Hart, a Pioneer of E-Books, Dies at 64
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Mr. Hart began the digital library Project Gutenberg after a July 4 fireworks display, when he typed up the Declaration of Independence and made it available for download.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘The Arrogant Years’
By LUCETTE LAGNADO
Reviewed by ALANA NEWHOUSE
In Lucette Lagnado’s book “The Arrogant Years,” two young women are cut down at the height of their self-confidence.
Sunday Book Review
‘That Used to Be Us’
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN AND MICHAEL MANDELBAUM
Reviewed by DAVID FRUM
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre
The Continental Motors plant in Detroit, Michigan.
Stepping forward as “frustrated optimists,” Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum address the grim situation of a slumping American economy.
‘Arguably: Essays’
By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Reviewed by BILL KELLER
Christopher Hitchens’s latest essays bear “the full consciousness that they might be my very last.”
‘The Art of Fielding’
By CHAD HARBACH
Reviewed by GREGORY COWLES
This first novel revolves around a gifted but vulnerable ballplayer.
Arab Springs
‘Anatomy of a Disappearance’
By HISHAM MATAR
Reviewed by ROBERT F. WORTH
In the Libyan writer Hisham Matar’s second novel, the protagonist’s father, an exiled dissident, is kidnapped.
‘Rock the Casbah ’
By ROBIN WRIGHT
Reviewed by MOHAMAD BAZZI
Robin Wright contends that the Arab world’s young people are at the vanguard of a sweeping and seductive cultural revolution.
‘The Missing Martyrs’
By CHARLES KURZMAN
Reviewed by BERNARD HAYKEL
A decade after 9/11, a sociologist says the mystery isn’t why so many Muslims turn to terrorism, but why so few.
‘Literary Brooklyn’
By EVAN HUGHES
Reviewed by SHARIFA RHODES-PITTS
Writers have been flocking to Brooklyn since the time of Walt Whitman.
‘Crossbones’
By NURUDDIN FARAH
Reviewed by HIRSH SAWHNEY
Nuruddin Farah’s novel offers a close look at Somalia, and its pirates.
‘Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman’
By PATRICIA BOSWORTH
Reviewed by VANESSA GRIGORIADIS
Actor, sex kitten, political activist, exercise guru, philanthropist: Jane Fonda is constantly evolving.
‘Birds of Paradise’
By DIANA ABU-JABER
Reviewed by CRISTINA GARCÍA
Diana Abu-Jaber’s novel presents the lushness of Miami, and a teenager lost in it.
‘Holy War’
By NIGEL CLIFF
Reviewed by ERIC ORMSBY
Vasco da Gama hoped to recruit Indian Christians against Islam.
‘The Arrogant Years’
By LUCETTE LAGNADO
Reviewed by DEB OLIN UNFERTH
Lucette Lagnado’s tenacious mother is at the heart of this memoir, a follow-up to “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit.”
‘The Neighborhood Project’
By DAVID SLOAN WILSON
Reviewed by JERRY A. COYNE
David Sloan Wilson wants to apply the principles of evolutionary biology to solve everyday community problems.
‘The Girl in the Polka-Dot Dress’
By BERYL BAINBRIDGE
Reviewed by WILLIAM BOYD
Robert Kennedy’s assassination and a 20-something Englishwoman come together in Beryl Bainbridge’s posthumous novel.
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PRINT & E-BOOKS
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HARDCOVER
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PAPERBACK
Back Page
LETTER FROM CAIRO
What Do Egypt’s Writers Do Now?
By NEGAR AZIMI
The revolution has shaken up Egypt’s literary scene, making each witness to Mubarak’s fall “a potential new writer.”
From Opinion
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
When Quoting Verse, One Must Be Terse
By DAVID ORR
American poetry criticism faces a major problem, one that has nothing to do with poetry, or readers, or anything remotely literary: copyright law.
Book Review Podcast
Featuring Op-Ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman, co-author of “That Used to Be Us,” on America’s decline; and Bill Keller on the career of Christopher Hitchens.
This Week's Book Review Podcast (mp3)
Madoffs on Madoff: Publisher Moves Up Release of Book
September 15, 2011
Happy Birthday, Roald and James
September 13, 2011
Book Review Features
TBR
Inside the List
By GREGORY COWLES
Entering the hardcover fiction list at No. 4 with “A Trick of the Light,” Louise Penny gets most of her ideas as she drives around in a 2006 powder blue Volkswagen Beetle convertible.
Best Sellers Weekly Graphic: Inside the Bush White HouseMetropolitan
BOOKSHELF
Teenage Immigrant Dreams in the City
By SAM ROBERTS
New books explore the International High School in Brooklyn, list the reasons to leave New York and teach the alphabet through city vistas.
Dining
A French Feast From a Political Pot
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
A deputy in the National Assembly of France asked her colleagues to contribute a favorite recipe from their regions for a cookbook promoting French gastronomy.
Home
Q&A
Susan Orlean on Rin Tin Tin and Her Own Menagerie
By EMILY WEINSTEIN
The New Yorker writer and author of a new biography of Rin Tin Tin, the famous German shepherd, on the way we live with animals.
Slide Show
Your Dream Line-up
Anatomy of a Scene: 'Drive' With Director Nicolas Winding Refn
