All Book Reviews
'The Kindness of Enemies' is Caine Prize-winner Leila Aboulela鈥檚 most ambitious novel to dateA professor, her student, and his mother must learn to see beyond stereotypes.聽聽聽
'Why the Right Went Wrong' parses the frustration of today's GOPDionne bases his premise on the rightward shift of conservatism since the Goldwater years of the 1960s.
'The Black Calhouns': five generations of life in an African American familyHistorian Gail Lumet Buckley's new book is a cross between history and memoir, examining the African American experience through the lives of a single family.
'Trade Secrets' returns to ancient Rome with 'Philip Marlowe in a toga'This is the 17th outing for star sleuth Marcus Corvinus, a tough-talking nobleman in the Rome of the earliest Caesars.
'Empire of Imagination' is the first full biography of 'Dungeons & Dragons' creator Gary GygaxThe ironic reality is that Gary Gygax was, in many ways, the embodiment of American virtue, despite his professedly unintentional foray into fantasy gaming.
'Only the Animals' pairs critter-protagonists with literary figuresAll of these stories are narrated by the soul of an animal reporting from the afterlife, and the tales only get taller from there.
'The Firebrand and the First Lady': how two great women came togetherThis thoroughly researched book chronicles the peripatetic career of Pauli Murray and her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt.
'Living On Paper' wonderfully displays the many faces of Iris MurdochIt is a compulsively discursive, doggedly happy Iris Murdoch who dominates 'Living on Paper' and fills it with the kind of smart, nimble-footed smalltalk that is always the principal joy of reading letter collections.
'Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist' turns recent history into literatureSunil Yapa's fictional treatment of the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle seeks out a 'higher law' in the chaos of competing causes.
'In Europe's Shadow' is a serious yet impassioned survey of RomaniaVeteran regional specialist Robert Kaplan takes a hard-nosed yet caring view of Romania.
'Our Spoons Came from Woolworth's' is a quirky delightThe reprint of this novel gives readers a chance to discover an unpredictable English novelist who never turned away from the black comedy of life.
'The Dogs of Littlefield' is one of the funniest new books of the yearA paradisal suburb is set on its ear by a proposed dog park, with acerbic laughter as a result.
'Bookishly Ever After' is a YA novel that entertains 鈥� and then challengesFor high school geek Phoebe, real life can鈥檛 possibly measure up to bestselling fiction. What happens if she fails at her first attempt at romance outside a book?
'Ostend' evokes Belgium in the summer of 1936, as Europe stood on the brinkIn this novelistic telling of history, Joseph Roth and Stefan Zweig 鈥� whose friendship is characterized by both admiration and resentment 鈥� encounter a series of other authors and cultural figures displaced by the intellectual unrest that preceded the carnage of World War II.
'The Dictator' completes the Robert Harris trilogy about the great CiceroHarris brings Cicero to life with wit, verve, and vanity.
'Sailor and Fiddler' is Herman Wouk's nonchalantly charming memoir'Sailor' and 'Fiddler' are both in the same key: anecdotal, glancing, casual, and far more concerned with sharing fun facts about Wouk鈥檚 career than divulging anything especially intimate.
'The Past' ruefully explores childhood memories of a beloved family homeA family of adult siblings must decide whether their money can stretch far enough to fix the roof of their grandparents' cottage or whether it鈥檚 time to let Kington go.
'Their Promised Land' follows the author's grandparents in wartime EnglandThe descendants of German Jewish emigre families, Bernard and 'Win' both pride themselves from the beginning on their assimilated British status.
'The Road to Little Dribbling': yet another chance to walk with Bill BrysonBryson walks the length of his adopted country, lamenting as he goes.
'But You Did Not Come Back' recalls a father lost to the HolocaustMarceline Loridan-Ivens writes a love letter her father and begs readers not to forget the victims of atrocity.
