Sunday Book Review
Leanne Shapton
‘A Book of Secrets’
By MICHAEL HOLROYD
Reviewed by TONI BENTLEY
A noted biographer retells the love story of Vita Sackville-West and Violet Keppel in unprecedented depth.
HORROR
The State of Zombie Literature: An Autopsy
By TERRENCE RAFFERTY
Does our 21st-century fascination with these hungry hordes stem from a general anxiety about overwhelming, uncontrollable threats?
‘Northwest Corner’
By JOHN BURNHAM SCHWARTZ
Reviewed by JULIE MYERSON
John Burnham Schwartz’s new novel returns to the broken families of “Reservation Road.”
‘The Rules of the Tunnel’
By NED ZEMAN
Reviewed by EMMA FORREST
A depressed writer searches for answers to his problems in the lives of kindred sufferers.
‘The Pirates of Somalia’
By JAY BAHADUR
Reviewed by JOSHUA HAMMER
At great personal risk, a Canadian journalist explores the rise of modern piracy.
‘The Night Train’
By CLYDE EDGERTON
Reviewed by ADAM MANSBACH
In this novel, set in the civil-rights-era South, two aspiring musicians fight to preserve a forbidden friendship.
‘The Theory That Would Not Die’
By SHARON BERTSCH McGRAYNE
Reviewed by JOHN ALLEN PAULOS
The controversial history of the mathematical theorem that tells us when we should change our minds.
‘Paradise Lust’
By BROOK WILENSKY-LANFORD
Reviewed by ANDREA WULF
A history of the eccentric searchers who have sought the real Garden of Eden, in the Arctic, Chinese Turkestan and rural Ohio.
‘Tiger Trap’
By DAVID WISE
Reviewed by TARA McKELVEY
David Wise assesses the impact of Chinese spying in America.
‘Other People’s Money’
By JUSTIN CARTWRIGHT
Reviewed by MALENA WATROUS
Contributors to the financial collapse of 2008 emerge in Justin Cartwright’s novel.
‘Devotions’
By BRUCE SMITH
Reviewed by STEPHEN BURT
Bruce Smith’s tough-guy poems call attention to the male experience.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
‘A Storm Called Katrina’
By MYRON UHLBERG
Reviewed by PAMELA PAUL
A fictional but realistic account of a 10-year-old boy who lives in New Orleans during the great hurricane of 2005 and its aftermath.
Book News and Reviews
Caroline Forbes
Michael Holroyd
The biographer Michael Holroyd’s new book reads like a series of short stories linking the lives of several women around whom more famous men revolve.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘The Family Fang ’
By KEVIN WILSON
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
Kevin Wilson portrays a married couple, performance artists, who feature their son and daughter in their work, to the detriment of the children, who grow up to be damaged adults.
THE ART OF SUMMER
The Words We Live By
By DWIGHT GARNER
A day of wandering the semantic landscape of Manhattan with an eye out for everyday words: the language of street signs and menus, MetroCards and T-shirts.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Humiliation’
By WAYNE KOESTENBAUM
Reviewed by DWIGHT GARNER
In his quite good and very bad new book, Wayne Koestenbaum explores the many varieties — and, for him, pleasures — of shame.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Rock the Casbah’
By ROBIN WRIGHT
Reviewed by MICHIKO KAKUTANI
“Rock the Casbah,” a new book by Robin Wright, examines the causes and repercussions of the recent Arab Spring and broader trends in the Islamic world.
BOOKS OF THE TIMES
‘Bed’
By DAVID WHITEHOUSE
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
David Whitehouse’s “Bed” concerns an obese man and the family members who care for him.
For New Yorker on iPad, Words Are the Thing
By JEREMY W. PETERS
With a minimum of bells and whistles and a focus on a readable format, The New Yorker attained iPad sales higher than those of any other iPad edition sold by Condé Nast.
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.
- Fiction
- Nonfiction
PRINT & E-BOOKS
- Fiction
- Nonfiction
HARDCOVER
- Trade Fiction
- Mass-Market Fiction
- Nonfiction
PAPERBACK
Back Page
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?
CRIME
Grimm Lessons
By MARILYN STASIO
Mystery novels by Reginald Hill, Will Lavender, Michael Harvey and Judy Clemens.
The Mad Scientist of Smut
By CHARLES McGRATH
The novelist Nicholson Baker lives a quiet life in Maine. But boy, does his mind wander.
Book Review Podcast
Featuring Brook Wilensky-Lanford on the search for the Garden of Eden; and Toni Bentley on “A Book of Secrets” by Michael Holroyd.
This Week's Book Review Podcast (mp3)
Book Review Podcast: Michael Holroyd's 'Book of Secrets'
August 5, 2011
Graphic Books Best Sellers: Spider-Man No. 666
August 5, 2011
National Endowment Announces Humanities Grants
August 3, 2011
MOTHERLODE BLOG
"No Biking in the House Without a Helmet"
By LISA BELKIN
A new book club book -- and a collection of things you never thought you would EVER say as a parent.
Book Review Features
TBR
Inside the List
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
Amor Towles’s “Rules of Civility,” hits the hardcover fiction list at No. 16. Not bad for a first novel by a money manager.
Best Sellers Weekly Graphic
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