Mandarin Duck avec Sartre
/Exile, displacement, and polyglot discovery fill the verses of Fiona Sze-Lorrain; Edward McFadden journeys through Water the Moon.
Read MoreDamage Assessment
/Perennially underrated novelist Pete Dexter’s latest, Spooner, continues his fascination with damaged characters. Sam Sacks tours a body of work composed mostly of battered bodies.
Read MoreHurricanes, Murders, and Music
/Ned Sublette pens a loving portrait of New Orleans before Katrina struck. Ingrid Norton reviews The Year Before the Flood.
Read MoreTomb It May Concern
/In a new work of Egyptology, bestselling author James Patterson claims he’s cracked the oldest murder case this side of Cain and Abel, but is Ascanio Tedeschi convinced?
Read MoreChaos, and a Stranger Arrives
/Hairy slugs, warring souls, and sexy goblins – Young Adult Fiction is alive and well. Kristin Walker hunkers down with three recent thrillers.
Read MoreNaught for the Naughty
/In The Children’s Book, A.S. Byatt tells the long and complicated story of a family’s secrets; Karen Vanuska sheds some light in the corners.
Read MoreSeger Unsettled
/Midwest Rock icon Bob Seger’s former tour manager gives us a behind the scenes look at old time rock & roll; John G. Rodwan, Jr. turns the page.
Read MoreThe Word Made Full-Figured
/Counter-culture icon R. Crumb has produced an illustrated version of the Book of Genesis—sincere tribute, or sacrilege? Brad Jones adjudicates.
Read MoreConfessions of an Armchair Dictator
/Tropico 3 tempts its players to become petty, manipulative tyrants; Phillip A. Lobo will permit you (unworthy though you are) of reading his musings on the game.
Read MoreSurely I’m Convinced
/a poem by John Williams
Read MoreFun, with Zombies
/Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland straddles the divide between light family fare and flesh-eating mayhem; Deirdre Crimmins is naturally intrigued.
Read MoreHorace in the Afternoon
/He was everybody’s friend, and his poetry breathes with life even today. He was Horace, and “A Year with the Romans” makes his acquaintance.
Read MoreSuper-Semi-Quasi-Kinda-Sorta-Pseudo-Maybe-Dude-Whateveronomics
/The writers of Freakonomics are at it again, this time in super-sized form; Arthur Brock scrutinizes their findings.
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