Book Reviews

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 1

Short shorts born of the worldwide web.

The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael

A collection of tell-it-like-she-thinks film reviews.

The Flame Alphabet

So shut up already.

Smut

Don’t let the title fool you.

The Adventures of Hergé

The creator of Tintin in his own adventures.

The Artist of Disappearance

Weak vessels can’t carry strong ideas.

The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories

DeLillo’s first short story collection.

The Art of Fielding

Shouldn’t have waived him home.

Pulphead

Stunning essays of compassion and wit.

The Marbled Swarm

A language all its own.

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout

An illuminating personal and scientific history.

Blabber Blabber Blabber: Volume 1 of Everything

This is where Everything starts.

Believing Is Seeing (Observations on the Mysteries of Photography)

Musings on photography and the nature of knowledge.

Mrs. Nixon

Wishing won’t make it so.

We the Animals

A fiercely written family affair.

House of Holes: A Book of Raunch

A raunchy little romp.

Blueprints for Building Better Girls

How to be a woman eight different ways.

R. Crumb: The Complete Record Cover Collection

An era of music filtered through an iconic artist.

Blue Nights

Truth hits everybody.

Lamb

A harrowing headtrip.

MetaMaus

The ultimate companion to a survivor’s tale.

Assumption

Nothing is as it seems.

Listen to This

Entertains while it edifies.

The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists

A Golden Age of cartooning draws to a close.

Stone Arabia

Spiotta’s finest work to date.

The Death-Ray

The kids are not alright.

The Hare with Amber Eyes

An utterly unique story.

Humiliation

This could happen to you.

The Orange Eats Creeps

Teen vampire hobo junkie looks for her long lost sister.

The Night Circus

A mixed bag of entertaining magic tricks.

Lightning Rods

Sex in the workplace takes on a whole new meaning.

The Marriage Plot

Contender for best book of the year.

The Devil All the Time

Violence and death soil the Midwest.

Lost Memory of Skin

Guilt is in the eye of the beholder.

Habibi

A love story that transcends time and place.

The Diviner’s Tale

A witchy tale about life and death.

The Submission

Good intentions aren’t enough.

Feynman

He had life down to a science.

Bad Marie

Nice girls finish last.

Salvage the Bones

Family portrait – with hurricane.

Train Dreams

One of Johnson’s best.

The Spot

Fascinating but spotty.

Driving on the Rim

The legacy of Camus in small town Montana.

Paying For It

A cartoonist’s candid look at his experiences with prostitutes.

George Sprott: (1894-1975)

A playful examination of an enigmatic man.

Beautiful Children

What happens in Vegas isn’t all glitter.

Volt

Uneven collection from a talented writer.

Three Delays

Love is a drug in this romantic picaresque.

Ether

Ether could use some breathing room.

Mr. Peanut

A postmodern marital noir.

Noir

A well played homage to a gritty genre.

Appassionata

The political gets personal.

Orientation and Other Stories

You are not your job.

Day of the Oprichnik

Damning satire of contemporary Russia.

If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This

A thoughtful short story debut.

The Seamstress and the Wind

A complex, rewarding metaphor about storytelling.

Zazen

A dystopian vision matched by a dark new voice in… >>

Once Upon a River

One of the best books of the year.

The Sisters Brothers

The Sisters Brothers is a pitch-perfect page-turner.

Room

A young woman and her son make a break for… >>

Never Any End to Paris

Charming view into one writer’s beginnings.

JUICE!

JUICE! is a bitter mouthful.

The Old Romantic

The Old Romantic doesn’t kindle any flames.

The Artificial Silk Girl

The Artificial Silk Girl marks the return of a spirited… >>

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

A singular writer takes on two cities to explore approaches… >>

New Impressions of Africa

A hidden gem of avant-garde innovation.

Suicide

A moving investigation into the implications of suicide.

Culture of One

Culture of One is a fascinating and demanding book.

Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer

A novel of music, modernism, and murder.

The Illumination

It hurts so bright.

The Great Night

The mortal world collides with the immortal in Chris Adrian's… >>

Someday This Will Be Funny

Tillman’s sentences are marvels of language.

The Tragedy of Arthur

The play’s the thing.

A Widow’s Story

Joyce Carol Oates on her late husband and literary collaborator… >>

Pulse

Julian Barnes’ Pulse is strong but uneven.

Toxicology

Hagedorn’s characters suffer for their art.

Kitchen

Two stories about two sets of mourners don’t quite make… >>

Mister Wonderful

Clowes’ latest breaks some new ground.

The Pale King

This one’s for the completists.

I Curse the River of Time

Mom’s dying, the wife is leaving, but memories stay put.

Pym

Pym loses its way.

What I Loved

A dark tale of overlapping New York families, arts, and… >>

The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim

A toothless satire from a talented writer.

The Lover’s Dictionary

A structurally pleasing ode to love and language.

The Cardboard Valise

Idiosyncratic graphic novel with a sharp bite.

Monkeys

A family of nine becomes a family of eight… >>

Swamplandia!

Gators and ghosts take center stage in Karen Russell’s Floridian… >>

Open City

Open City is a fascinating, impressive first novel.

Gryphon

Charles Baxter brings the mythic to the Midwest with Gryphon.

Visitation

A powerful meditation on time, history, and family.

Portraits of a Marriage

Márai’s look at class, love, and loss is flawed but… >>

Enough About Love

A light and breezy novel that’s actually quite serious.

Night Soul and Other Stories

Intellectual rigor paired with a humane and hopeful impulse.

An American Dream

Norman Mailer lets the crazy out in this man-kills-wife psychodrama.

One with Others

Captures the Jim Crow era in a complex mosaic.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

A concierge and a poor little rich girl wax poetic… >>

The Brothers Ashkenazi

A missing gem of literature is restored.

Fishboy

The lunacy of the high seas finds a rich storyteller… >>

Long, Last Happy

A retrospective of exquisitely crafted stories from the one and… >>

How to Beat Up Anybody

Self-defense tips from the World Champion of the World.

While the Women Are Sleeping

A minor work from a major writer.

By Nightfall

A middle-aged man discovers the beastly truths of beauty when… >>

Everything Matters!

Ron Currie Jr. makes apocalypse as funny and life-affirming as… >>

The Clash of Images

A mesmerizing glimpse into Morocco, old and new.

Lint

Chris Ware's view of an unredeemed life.

The Road

A significant addition to an important literary corpus.

The Safety of Objects

A. M. Homes stuns with bleak visions of American life.

The Thing Around Your Neck

Harsh wisdom in well-balanced prose.

Great House

Four narrators and zero climax make for a tedious portrayal… >>

Like You’d Understand, Anyway

Legendary Greeks and young American geeks come alive under the… >>

Jernigan

Misery never sounded as good as it does in this… >>

After Claude

Comes out swinging and connects more than it misses.

Comedy in a Minor Key

A classic is reborn.

The Death of the Adversary

A fascinating and surprisingly uplifting book.

Palo Alto

Not as bad as you’d think… sorry, schadenfreuders.

The Eden Hunter

An intimate look at early America’s “lost tribes.”

Self Portraits: Fictions

A surreal and tender collection narrating all the lives a… >>

Stories in the Worst Way

A wordsmith cobbles together awe-inspiring sentences but sometimes falls short… >>

Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever

Not quite attuned to the true voices of Generation Y.

Arriving in Avignon

A philosophical inquiry into love, language, and memory.

The Quick and the Dead

Charmingly morbid young girls’ lives tangle strangely following the deaths… >>

Bound

A moving examination of family, loyalty and friendship.

C

C is an utterly unique cabinet of curiosities.

Thumbsucker

A thumb-sucking, pill-popping, Bible-toting joyride through middle-American ennui.

Freedom

Too much Freedom can be bad for you.

Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man

An amazing true story of a promising life spun out… >>

Aliss at the Fire

The past overpowers the present in Aliss at the Fire.

Role Models

In Role Models, John Waters does it his way.

Vida

Vida may be too cool for its own good.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

Schemers and dreamers populate this tableau of feudal Pakistan.

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

A country smaller than a New York City apartment is… >>

The Gone-Away World

An epic sci-fi thriller featuring bombs, ninjas, and a smart… >>

The Book of Night Women

The Book of Night Women is a powerhouse of a… >>

One More Story: Thirteen Stories in the Time-Honored Mode

Germany’s literary golden boy makes a moral call to arms… >>

Holding Still for As Long As Possible

Lovers are swapped like baseball cards in this novel about… >>

The Shawl

Cynthia Ozick contributes a dense and accomplished gem to the… >>

The Street of Crocodiles

An hallucinatory tableau of life in Drogobych, Poland.

The History of Love

Love and literature are the life-blood of this remarkable novel.

Super Sad True Love Story

A super funny, not-quite sad love story for the Facebook… >>

Atmospheric Disturbances

Love and doppelgangers receive a psychological examination in this playful… >>

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

A demon child acts as her sister’s keeper in… >>

The Sweet Hereafter

A small town grieves after a tragic bus crash.

Zeitoun

A gut-wrenching chronicle of Hurricane Katrina.

Jesus’ Son

Mind-altering drugs take center stage in this boozy collection of… >>

Fast Lanes

Seven short stories ironically attain a sense of cohesion through… >>

The Foundation Pit

The Foundation Pit marks the reemergence of an important voice.

At Swim-Two-Birds

A writer writes about a writer writing, and literature literally… >>

The Quickening

A solid debut from a writer to watch.

The Exquisite Corpse

A radical search for identity.

You Remind Me of Me

A Midwestern epic depicting the reconnection of two brothers separated… >>

How Did You Get This Number

Sloane Crosley solidifies her position as America’s zaniest literary ingénue… >>

Eat the Document

Idealism on the run.

Old Men in Love

Alasdair Gray’s reach exceeds his grasp in Old Men in… >>

How the Dead Dream

A conscientious rich guy isn’t an oxymoron in this Lydia… >>

Forest Gate

A brutal depiction of the devastation facing contemporary London’s black… >>

Weathercraft

Weathercraft dazzles, mystifies and deals out a healthy dose of… >>

Willoughby & the Moon

An eye-popping kid-tested, parent-ogled picture book.

An American Type

An American Type brims over with vitality, but squanders its… >>

Tinkers

Filigreed sentences mark each minute of this Pulitzer Prize-winning tale… >>

What He's Poised to Do

Snail mail makes a comeback in these short stories.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

A refreshing take on the mystery genre, complete with a… >>

American Salvage

American Salvage seeks redemption in despair.

Invisible Cities

Mysterious ancient cities rise and fall throughout these 55 dreamy… >>

The Lost Books of the Odyssey

A debut novelist/computer scientist experiments with Greek lore.

Nox

Nox gives new form to mourning as well as writing.

Giovanni’s Room

A wonderfully compressed vision of a man destined for loneliness.

A Single Man

A Single Man is a moving and singular reading experience.

What Was Mine

Love is a four-letter word in these stories of bourgeois… >>

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union

Hardboiled crime meets Jewish tradition meets alternate history in this… >>

Chronicles: Volume One

America’s greatest songwriter opens up.

Every Man Dies Alone

Every Man Dies Alone is a devastating story of resistance… >>

The Drinker

The Drinker makes for an uncomfortably riveting reading experience.

Triangular Road

Paule Marshall’s memoir, Triangular Road, offers a moving meditation on… >>

The Abyss of Human Illusion

Sorrentino’s last work is poisoned by its own sting.

The Book of Genesis Illustrated

R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis could use a bit more… >>

The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake

A posthumous gem.

Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

A sad little world in which the only requirements for… >>

The True Deceiver

Deception runs through Tove Jansson’s cunning novel The True Deceiver.

The Body

Botox, boob jobs, and butt implants? These seem the stuff… >>

Asterios Polyp

A brilliant graphic odyssey of one eccentric man’s life that… >>

American Pastoral

A New Jersey golden boy loses hope when his daughter… >>

Brother, I’m Dying

Danticat examines Haiti’s turbulent political past and immigrant experience in… >>

Point Omega

Rich with implied and unanswered questions, DeLillo’s latest is a… >>

Austerlitz

W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz is a stately meditation on time and… >>

Samuel Johnson Is Indignant

Davis is up to her old metafictional tricks again with… >>

Just Kids

A brilliant memoir about two kids and one ambition.

Home Game

An antic, surreal tale of the greatest baseball game ever… >>

I'm Dying Up Here

A surprisingly compelling overview of how Hollywood became stand-up's center… >>

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

A warmhearted, generous memoir of the comedian's childhood and early… >>

Inherent Vice

Even post-modernists need a good beach read now and then.

Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music

An essential read for anyone who has ever used phrases… >>

Birds of America

Disaffected, afraid, and confused, Moore’s characters move trance-like and displaced… >>

To Kill a Mockingbird

This American classic deserves its legendary status.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

A broken-hearted deaf mute becomes the confidante of loners.

The Basketball Diaries

It takes a city of sex, drugs, and basketball to… >>

The Corrections

In their abundance of meat and potatoes and inalienable rights,… >>

A Gate at the Stairs

An ambitious cave dive into the depths of postmodern disenfranchisement.

Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music

The birth of rock 'n' roll cultural studies.

American Gods

A dazzlingly inventive road trip through an America riddled with… >>

The Best of LCD: The Art and Writing of WFMU

Reasons to Live

With grace and wit, Hempel illuminates the struggles and regrets… >>

Atonement

A Rashomon-like tale of love, family, and betrayal.

The Road

A mesmerizing post-apocalyptic novel that compels you to keep reading… >>

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Murakami’s masterful novel is at once a supernatural whodunit, a… >>

Nothing to Be Frightened Of

Novelist Julian Barnes faces up to death and dying in… >>

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas is a gorgeously crafted work of fiction comprised… >>

Infinite Jest

A brilliantly maximalist tour de force that delves deep into… >>