Displaying articles for: September 2009

The Good Soldiers

An infantry battalion's journey -- physical and psychological -- into combat, and back again. Read more...

Juliet, Naked

The author of High Fidelity returns to a favorite subject: the heart of the pop music fan. Read more...

Her Fearful Symmetry

A new literary haunting from the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife. Read more...

There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby

A new collection of stories from the Russian author stages 21st-century crises in a dream-haunted world. Read more...

Word Upon Word: Reading in a Foreign Language

A reader sets sail on the high seas of another tongue. Read more...

The Locust and the Bird

The acclaimed author of Women of Sand and Myrrh reimagines her mother’s life in the Beirut of the '30s and '40s. Read more...

True Compass

The long-awaited memoir from the Lion of the Senate testifies to the centrality of the Kennedy identity in his life and career. Read more...

Dancing in the Dark

The odyssey of the Joads and the screwball antics of Grant and Hepburn are both part of this landmark overview of the culture of the Great Depression. Read more...

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

A musically themed suite of stories, from the author of The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go. Read more...

Hardball

Sara Paretsky's groundbreaking private detective is back, reluctantly digging up family secrets. Read more...

The Pattern in the Carpet

Heller McAlpin reviews an intriguing puzzle of a memoir. Read more...

Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?

A legendary teacher and scholar on one of the thorniest questions in philosophy. Read more...

Runaway Dream

In May of 1974, Jon Landau saw a little-known band open for Bonnie Raitt in Harvard Square, then went home and penned perhaps the most famous line in all of pop music criticism: "I saw rock and roll's future and its name is Bruce Springsteen." Read more...

The Anthologist

A poet's struggles with the quotidian make up the plot of the new novel from the author of Human Smoke. Read more...

Where Men Win Glory

Jon Krakauer investigates an uncommon soldier's death, and uncovers a tale of tragic dimensions. Read more...

The Lost Symbol

Sarah Weinman on Dan Brown's narrative alchemy, at work once again. Read more...

Homer & Langley

The strange true tale of the Collyer brothers becomes a fable of Rip Van Winkles in Manhattan. Read more...

Redactor Agonistes

An editor's diagnosis of the crisis in book publishing. Read more...

A Gate at the Stairs

In the new novel from the author of Birds of America, a nanny, her charge, and the girl's adoptive mother form an uneasy triangle. Read more...

Await Your Reply

Six characters in search of identity. Read more...

Shooting Stars

Portrait of the hoopster as a young man. Read more...

The Magician’s Elephant

From the award-winning author, a tale in the tradition of Hans Christian Andersen. Read more...

Dawn Light

The early bird gets more than the worm. Read more...

The Adderall Diaries

An attempt to delve into an enigmatic murder case yields a book that deliberately clouds the border between memoir and fiction. Read more...

The Skating Rink

Intrigue on ice -- and not all the blades are on the skates. Read more...

Crow Planet

In the croak of the raven, a naturalist hears the echo of human song. Read more...

February 10: The Dreadnought Hoax, a practical joke at the British Navy's expense, occurred on this day in 1910. Among the young Bloomsbury conspirators was Virginia Woolf (then Virginia Stephen) and, though she played only a minor…

Once held close to the chest and protected by well-understood laws, the valuable information about our lives that we blithely disclose with our every keystroke has the potential…

Books CDs, DVDs to know about now
Alice James

"The moral and philosophical questions that Henry wrote up as fiction and William as science," Jean Strouse writes of her subject's more famous brothers, "Alice simply lived." It took a biographer of sensitivity and brilliance to give that "simply" the profundity it deserves, and the resulting book, now reissued in the peerless NYRB Classics series, is one of the richest life stories you'll ever read.

Midnight in Austenland

The world of Jane Austen's fiction has long been an imaginative playground for writers and readers of a certain stripe. Shannon Hale's Austenland wittily took the next step, setting comic romance in a faux-Pemberly resort for the Darcy-smitten. Her latest returns for more Regency fun, but with a twist: does murder stalk Pembrook Park?

Humble Homes, Simple Shacks...

Childlike retreat? Arts and crafts challenge? Frugal and eco-friendly living option? The notion of the "tiny house" has the surprising potential to fire the imagination. In this exuberant volume of sketches, plans, and commentary, the artist Derek Diedricksen shares his infectious enthusiasm for the idea of the micro-mansion.