Displaying articles for: June 2010

An American Type

The final posthumous volume of autobiographical fiction from Henry Roth—seven decades after his legendary debut, Call It Sleep.

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Radical

Before Saul Alinsky, there was no such thing as a "community organizer."

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Work Song

Morrie Morgan is back, hiding out from Chicago gangsters in a Montana mining town.

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Lives Like Loaded Guns

The familial passions, jealousies, and deceit that swirled around the Belle of Amherst accentuate the rareness of her gifts.

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The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

A tale of love and intrigue set in the cultural cross-currents of 19th-century Nagasaki, from the author of Cloud Atlas.

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Dark Harbor

The shadowy allure of New York City's once-vibrant port, and the scandal that inspired On the Waterfront.

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A Fierce Radiance

A World War II effort to develop antibiotics—and the ethical complications that arise—are seen through the lens of a photographer's eye.

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Trials of the Diaspora

A lawyer assembles a remarkably detailed history of English anti-Semitism, from the Middle Ages to the present.

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Whirl

The pianist and composer returns to the keyboard with tunes both classic and fresh. Read more...

A Lost King

A long-out-of-print American classic that played the familiar melody of a family struggle in an exuberant new key.

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The Subtle Body and The Great Oom

Two new books unfold the improbable journey of yoga from Hindu practice to global obsession.

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Before Roe v. Wade

A journalist and a law professor collect documents that illuminate one of our era's most divisive court battles.

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Two Women's Modern Odyssey

How two American women, Sylvia Beach and Margaret Anderson, helped row James Joyce’s Ulysses to shore.

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Imperial Bedrooms

The author revisits the characters of his debut novel, Less Than Zero, in a Los Angeles haunted by dread.

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The Passage

Justin Cronin's hefty new work of modern fantasy promises to transport the reader away from everyday cares—but can it deliver?

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Cognitive Surplus

An internet guru's audacious explanation of how the web is turning free time into a shared global resource of inspiring dimensions.

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Parisians

The acclaimed biographer of Balzac and Victor Hugo reveals the secret history of Paris, from Marie Antoinette to Mitterand.

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Still Evolving: New Jazz Recordings

A critic's recent listening suggest reports of jazz's death have been greatly overstated. Read more...

Extra Lives

A dedicated gamer's reflections on the power, the potential, and the price of ever-multiplying virtual worlds. Read more...

Edward Said: The Charisma of Criticism

A new book on the life of the controversial writer, teacher, and thinker is a labor of thwarted scholarly love. Read more...

On the Outskirts of Normal

A single mother's affecting memoir of adoption, small town life, and constructing moments of order amid life's chaos.

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The Shallows

A cogent and thoroughly researched articulation of the growing fear that the Internet is driving us to dangerous distraction.

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The Eitingons

Tracing her family history leads the author into a forest of Cold War mysteries.

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Strong Horses and Small States

Two recent books about conflict in the Middle East reveal the limitations of thinking simplistically about the region.

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Witz

In this overstuffed, satirical tale, the last Jew alive becomes the object of the world's fascination, desires, and fears.

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The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham

Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was the richest and most successful writer of his time, but his life—as this superlative biography reveals—was a mess.

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May 24: Joseph Brodsky was born on this day in 1940 in Leningrad. Brodsky's constitutional skepticism was not compatible with the official Soviet alternatives, and by age twenty-five he was in prison, wrapped in cold, wet sheets as…

Angry robots! Aren't they all? Well, not the line of fine science fiction and fantasy books that comes to readers under the rubric Angry Robot. In fact, their offerings…

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Books, CDs, DVDs to know about now
The Philadelphia Chromosome

Expounding the well-known link between genetics and cancer, this scientific history recounts the initial discovery of a gene mutation that eventually led to enormous breakthroughs in the fight against leukemia. 

She Left Me the Gun

Emma Brockes' mother Paula escaped from South Africa with a smuggled pistol and a dark secret.  A daughter unravels her family's covert past -- and a suspenseful legal drama -- in this hard-boiled memoir of survival.

Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking

Expand your memory, puzzle-solving skills, and sense of metaphysical wonder with philosopher Daniel C. Dennett's tasting menu of user-friendly neuroscience and poetic lingual pursuits.