In Brief

Displaying articles for: September 2009

September 30, 2009

The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics

Edited by FRANCOISE MOULY and ART SPIEGELMAN
Reviewed by Paul Di Filippo

An anthology for the child (with a stash of well-read comic books) in everyone. Read more...

September 28, 2009

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

By ALLISON HOOVER BARTLETT
Reviewed by Alexandra Mullen

A bibliophile gone bad is the center of this intriguing investigatory work. Read more...

September 24, 2009

Rose's Heavenly Cakes

By ROSE LEVY BERANBAUM
Reviewed by Heller McAlpin

An excursion to a bakers' paradise, guided by the author of The Cake Bible. Read more...

September 23, 2009

Mathilda Savitch

By VICTOR LODATO
Reviewed by Katherine A. Powers

In this first novel, we find an adolescent Mathilda Savitch all abuzz with urgent questions and unsettling emotions... Read more...

September 21, 2009

Truelove's Gutter

RICHARD HAWLEY
Reviewed by David Greenwald

"Anyone here like rockabilly?" It was December 2007, and Richard Hawley was asking his audience at Los Angeles' Troubadour if they were ready for an upbeat number from his then-latest album, Lady's Bridge... Read more...

September 21, 2009

No Impact Man

By COLIN BEAVAN
Reviewed by Michael O'Donnell

Michael O'Donnell reviews a journalist's record of his attempt to live in harmony with the earth -- from his Manhattan apartment. Read more...

September 14, 2009

Born Round

By FRANK BRUNI
Reviewed by Jennifer Weiner

Jennifer Weiner savors Frank Bruni's memoir. Read more...

September 14, 2009

The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard

By J.G. BALLARD
Reviewed by Chris Barsanti

In J.G. Ballard's stories, the world is always ending. Read more...

September 14, 2009

Wind's Poem

MOUNT EERIE
Reviewed by Lucas Hanft

Mount Eerie mastermind Phil Elverum calls the music on Wind’s Poem "black metal." Read more...

September 14, 2009

You Were Always Mom's Favorite!

By DEBORAH TANNEN
Reviewed by Heller McAlpin

Heller McAlpin on the new book by the author of You Just Don't Understand. Read more...

September 7, 2009

The Weeping Goldsmith

By W. JOHN KRESS
Reviewed by Peter Lewis

"One of my jobs," writes Smithsonian Institution botanist Kress, "is to travel to remote areas to document the remaining unknown plant diversity." ... Read more...

September 7, 2009

The Human Condition

Directed by MASAKI KOBAYASHI
Reviewed by Thomas DePietro

The mother of all war movies, Masaki Kobayashi’s The Human Condition clocks in at almost ten hours and features an all-star Japanese cast... Read more...

September 7, 2009

The Love Children

By MARILYN FRENCH
Reviewed by Amy Benfer

By the time of her death at age 79, in the late spring of this year, Marilyn French had published five novels and many works of nonfiction... Read more...

September 7, 2009

Glover's Mistake

By NICK LAIRD
Reviewed by Amelia Atlas

David Pinner, the caustic, self-absorbed malcontent at the center of Nick Laird’s new novel, is a tough sell... Read more...

September 7, 2009

That Summertime Sound

By MATTHEW SPEKTOR
Reviewed by Sarah Norris

Former film executive Matthew Specktor makes his fiction debut with this gossamer yet feverish coming-of-age novel about a nameless 19-year-old lost boy who spends the summer of 1987 slinking around Columbus, Ohio... Read more...

September 7, 2009

Stitches

By DAVID SMALL
Reviewed by Heller McAlpin

A stitch in time can save nine, but Caldecott-winning children’s book author David Small’s unloving parents spared him not a one... Read more...

Daybook

June 18: George Orwell's "As One Non-Combatant to Another" was published on this day in 1943. Orwell's poem arguing against pacifism quotes from Churchill's "finest hour" speech, delivered to Parliament and the nation on this day in…

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Previously in Daybook
In the Margin

Very few debut novels exhibit the charm, assurance, emotional depth and bravura fabulation which the lucky reader will discover in Helene Wecker's

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Earlier Posts
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The Long List
Books, CDs, DVDs to know about now
The New York Review Abroad

This new collection of some of the best of overseas reportage includes articles from Joan Didion, Tim Judah and Susan Sontag, with topics ranging from impromptu theater in conflict-ridden Sarajevo to a gravediggers’ strike in Liverpool. 

Hour of the Red God

In this searing African crime novel, former Maasai warrior Detective Mollel must defy a corrupt Nairobi government to solve the case of a murdered tribe woman.

The Wonder Bread Summer

This Tarantino-esque thriller finds shop girl Allie and a Wonder Bread bag full of cocaine on the run from a vindictive hit man - after she discovers her dress shop is a front for a narcotics ring.