Reviews & Essays

Displaying articles for: September 2008

October 01, 2008

An Evil Guest

By GENE WOLFE
Reviewed by Paul Di Filippo

A Broadway-bound actress has her eyes on the stars -- but the stars have eyes of their own. Read more...

September 30, 2008

Planet Google

By RANDALL STROSS
Reviewed by Barbara Spindel

How two Stanford grads and a legion of spiders caught the world in their web. Read more...

September 29, 2008

Ms. Hempel Chronicles

By SARAH SHUN-LIEN BYNUM
Reviewed by Tess Taylor

A middle school is the setting for this novel of an adult?s education. Read more...

September 26, 2008

Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency

By BARTON GELLMAN
Reviewed by Tom Carson

A portrait of the vice president as 21st-century Richelieu. Read more...

September 25, 2008

Alfred and Emily

By DORIS LESSING
Reviewed by Sarah Norris

The Nobel laureate imagines a personal history in which she was never born. Read more...

September 24, 2008

When Will There Be Good News?

By KATE ATKINSON
Reviewed by Emily Chenoweth

Dickensian coincidences pile high as a murder out of the past comes back to Jackson Brodie's life. Read more...

September 23, 2008

Concrete Reveries

By MARK KINGWELL
Reviewed by Matthew Battles

As humanity concentrates itself in ever-larger cities, Mark Kingwell explores the way they shape our species. Read more...

September 22, 2008

The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

By VICTOR PELEVIN
Reviewed by Jonathan Liu

A darkly whimsical fantasia anatomizes the Russian soul in the age of Putin. Read more...

September 22, 2008

The Hunger Games

By SUZANNE COLLINS
Reviewed by Lisa Von Drasek

Lisa Von Drasek looks at a young-adult dystopia. Read more...

September 19, 2008

Exit Music

By IAN RANKIN
Reviewed by Katherine A. Powers

Can this be the last case for Edinburgh?s long-suffering Inspector Rebus? Read more...

September 18, 2008

Indignation

By PHILIP ROTH
Reviewed by Mark Sarvas

From Newark to Winesburg, Ohio, in the shadow of the Korean War. Read more...

September 17, 2008

Nothing to Be Frightened Of

By JULIAN BARNES
Reviewed by Daniel Menaker

The novelist peeks into the land of the dead -- while he still has time. Read more...

September 16, 2008

The Forever War

By DEXTER FILKINS
Reviewed by Richard Pious

A report from the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq. Read more...

September 15, 2008

A Manuscript of Ashes

By ANTONIO MUNOZ MOLINA
Reviewed by Christopher Byrd

A literary mystery haunted by the legacy of the Spanish Civil War. Read more...

September 12, 2008

Anathem

By NEAL STEPHENSON
Reviewed by Jeff VanderMeer

A society of scientist-monks is at the heart of the new saga from the author of Cryptonomicon. Read more...

September 11, 2008

Like Eating a Stone: Surviving the Past in Bosnia

By WOJCIECH TOCHMAN
Reviewed by Brian Hall

A journey through the aftermath of war and atrocity in Bosnia. Read more...

September 10, 2008

Real World

By NATSUO KIRINO
Reviewed by Amy Benfer

A close-knit circle of Japanese teenagers find their friendship threatened by violence. Read more...

September 08, 2008

Home

By MARILYNNE ROBINSON
Reviewed by Amelia Atlas

A prodigal?s return is the subject of a novel that parallels the author?s award-winning Gilead. Read more...

September 08, 2008

A Gas-Lit Century: Historical Mysteries Part III

By Sarah Weinman
Part three of an occasional survey of historical mysteries.

Why crime fiction loves the Victorian era. Read more...

September 05, 2008

The Night of the Gun

By DAVID CARR
Reviewed by Michelle Goldberg

A reporter chronicles his own wasted and perilous time. Read more...

September 04, 2008

How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone

By SASA STANISIC
Reviewed by Stefan Beck

War and remembrance through a child?s eye. Read more...

September 03, 2008

The Other Half: The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America

By TOM BUK-SWIENTY
Reviewed by Barbara Spindel

Portrait of a muckraking photographer. Read more...

September 02, 2008

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

By MURIEL BARBERY
Reviewed by Alexandra Mullen

Cinderella as Parisian concierge in an international bestseller. Read more...

September 01, 2008

Sustainable Culture

Essay by Edward Champion

Edward Champion on the intergalactic ambitions of Iain M. Banks?s series of speculative novels. Read more...

September 01, 2008

Grand New Party

By ROSS DOUTHAT AND REIHAN SALAM
Reviewed by Ezra Klein

A prescription for Republican renewal. Read more...

Daybook

May 20: Blue jeans celebrate their unofficial 140th birthday today, the dry goods merchant Levi Strauss and the tailor Jacob Davis receiving a patent on May 20, 1873 for "a new article of manufacture, a pair of pantaloons having the…

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Previously in Daybook
In the Margin

Ethan Rutherford and Matt Burgess (Dogfight: A Love Story) on the writing of Rutherford's surreal and fiercely funny story collection The Peripatetic Coffin. 

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Earlier Posts
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The Long List
Books, CDs, DVDs to know about now
My Struggle, Book Two

A controversial sensation in Norway, A Man in Love is the second book of six in the series, detailing Knausgaard’s separation from his wife, his move to Stolkholm and the dogged pursuit of a mesmerizing poet.

Minotaur

This newly reissued Cold War classic profiles an Israeli spy obsessed with an English girl half his age, and his attempts to win her love without ever revealing his true identity.

The Innocence Game

Three Chicago journalism students attend an “innocence” seminar that will teach them how to release the wrongfully accused from prison. But as innocents are jailed, a killer roams free, and the students are next on the hit list.