Sunday Book Review
‘This Beautiful Life’
By HELEN SCHULMAN
Reviewed by MARIA RUSSO
Illustration by office of Paul Sahre
In this timely novel, a family’s Manhattan life comes crashing down when their 15-year-old forwards a sexually explicit video made for him, unsolicited, by a girl two years younger.
THE MECHANIC MUSE
The Jargon of the Novel, Computed
By BEN ZIMMER
We like to think modern fiction is free from the artificial stylistic pretensions of the past. But computer analysis reveals that linguistic tics unique to fiction writing endure.
‘Age of Greed’
By JEFF MADRICK
Reviewed by SEBASTIAN MALLABY
Jeff Madrick traces the regulatory and cultural changes that led to America’s current financial trouble.
‘Weeds: In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants’
By RICHARD MABEY
Reviewed by ELIZABETH ROYTE
A British nature writer is impressed by the ubiquitous resiliency of what we call weeds.
‘The Kid’
By SAPPHIRE
Reviewed by DANIELLE EVANS
In this sequel to “Push,” Precious has died, and her son finds himself in a world of brutality.
‘Jamrach’s Menagerie’
By CAROL BIRCH
Reviewed by BENJAMIN HALE
In Carol Birch’s historical novel, a young boy is lured on a sea voyage to hunt for a Komodo dragon in the East Indies.
‘Are You Serious?’
By LEE SIEGEL
Reviewed by DONNA RIFKIND
Lee Siegel explains how seriousness has evolved in Western society, from the age of Socrates to that of contemporary TV hosts.
‘True Things About Me’
By DEBORAH KAY DAVIES
Reviewed by REBECCA BARRY
A sexual obsession pulls this novel’s heroine into her darkest self.
‘The Astral’
By KATE CHRISTENSEN
Reviewed by DANIEL HANDLER
The hero of this novel, a Brooklyn poet, is thrown out by his wife for adultery he didn’t commit.
‘A Billion Wicked Thoughts’
By OGI OGAS and SAI GADDAM
Reviewed by WESLEY YANG
Two computational neuroscientists analyze Web searches to identify sexual desires and preferences.
‘Perplexities of Consciousness’
By ERIC SCHWITZGEBEL
Reviewed by NICHOLAS HUMPHREY
A philosopher argues that we have a poor understanding of our conscious experience.
‘Mr. Speaker!’
By JAMES GRANT
Reviewed by NORMAN ORNSTEIN
A life of Thomas Reed, the Gilded Age Congressional leader.
‘Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany’
By FREDERICK TAYLOR
Reviewed by MARK MAZOWER
A history of the occupation of Germany after 1945, where there was little resistance to the Allies even as Hitler’s influence lingered.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Pirate Picture Books Ahoy!
By PAMELA PAUL
Four new picture books about pirate brutes and the pleasures of not bathing, brushing your teeth or speaking proper English.
Book News and Reviews
Melissa Forman
In “Northwest Corner,” John Burnham Schwartz picks up the story of his novel “Reservation Road” 12 years later.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Books About Joseph Heller’
By TRACY DAUGHERTY and ERICA HELLER
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
Two books about Joseph Heller, by his daughter, Erica Heller (“Yossarian Slept Here”) and Tracy Daugherty (“Just One Catch”).
A Publisher Plays Coy With Book Release
By JULIE BOSMAN
Bookstore buyers are in the dark as Little, Brown & Company coyly offers the fall release “Untitled” by Anonymous, marketed as “the inside story of life with one of the most controversial figures of our time.”
Paperback Publishers Quicken Their Pace
By JULIE BOSMAN
E-books are helping to alter the time-honored schedule for life after hardcover, with softcover versions of novels and nonfiction works being released earlier and earlier.
HUMANITIES 2.0
Digital Maps Are Giving Scholars the Historical Lay of the Land
By PATRICIA COHEN
Many-layered mapmaking is helping scholars recreate vanished landscapes and envision history.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little’
By CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON
Reviewed by DWIGHT GARNER
The branding consultant Christopher Johnson explains how to think big and write small when we compose all those little bits that are now a part of our online lives.
A Mystical Tale, From Tee to Green
By CHARLES McGRATH
After years of development, Michael Murphy’s “Golf in the Kingdom” has been turned into a film by the director Susan Streitfeld and the producer Mindy Affrime.
Early Media Prophet Is Now Getting His Due
By IAN AUSTEN
Events in Europe, Washington and three Canadian cities last week honored the centennial of Marshall McLuhan, who introduced ideas like “the medium is the message” and “the global village” into everyday use.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘The Memory of All That’
By KATHARINE WEBER
Reviewed by BEN BRANTLEY
The novelist Katharine Weber brings many famous and glamorous names to her memoir, including that of her grandmother’s lover, George Gershwin.
BOOKS
Their Zeal Changed Lives, if Not the System
By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D.
Dr. David A. Ansell writes about his years working at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, where treating patients was often a medical and political struggle.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘This Beautiful Life’
By HELEN SCHULMAN
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
In “This Beautiful Life” Helen Schulman traces an e-mail caper at a New York private school that goes out of control.
Puerto Rico in History, Imagined and Real
By FELICIA R. LEE
Esmeralda Santiago’s latest work is a sweeping historical novel set on a plantation in her native Puerto Rico.
- Fiction
- Nonfiction
PRINT & E-BOOKS
- Fiction
- Nonfiction
HARDCOVER
- Trade Fiction
- Mass-Market Fiction
- Nonfiction
PAPERBACK
Book Review Back Page
SKETCHBOOK | WENDY MACNAUGHTON
Snacks of the Great Scribblers
Walt Whitman began the day with oysters and meat. The novelist Vendela Vida swears by pistachios. Lord Byron sipped vinegar to keep his weight down.
From the Aug. 7 Book Review
ESSAY
The Great Fleet Street Novel
By THOMAS JONES
Evelyn Waugh’s 1938 novel “Scoop” features journalists and the police in cahoots, and a press lord with a cult of personality. Sound familiar?
Book Review Podcast
Featuring Helen Schulman on her new novel, “The Beautiful Life”; and the linguist Ben Zimmer on what computer analysis reveals about the jargon of fiction.
This Week's Book Review Podcast (mp3)
Metropolitan
BOOKSHELF
Giving Voice to Immigrants, Past and Present
By SAM ROBERTS
A collection of oral histories that recounts the hopes and dreams of immigrants, the best urban sanctuaries in the city and the legacy of Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood.
Style
NOTICED
What Would Che Say?
By GUY TREBAY
Michael Dweck’s new book of photographs includes the creative types who may shape the new Cuba.
Dining
‘The Camping Cookbook’
By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Annie Bell, an English food writer, shows how to cook and serve with no real counter space and limited sources of clean water.
Your Money
SHORTCUTS
Options for Self-Publishing Proliferate, Easing the Bar to Entry
By ALINA TUGEND
A wide range of options exists for authors who choose to forgo traditional book publishing.
Obituaries
George Lascelles, Lord Harewood, Dies at 88; Wrote Opera Reference
By MARGALIT FOX
A first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, Mr. Lascelles was best known to American readers as the longtime editor of Kobbé’s Complete Opera Book.
