"Perception at the Pitch of Passion"
/A catch-all collection of James Baldwin's essays, letters, and speeches reveals a social commenter whose observations retain their relevance and universality to this day
Read More"What Seems Simple"
/"Pride and Prejudice" has been so thoroughly revised, modernized, and sequelized that its subtleties risk being overlooked. A new annotated edition seeks to yield up its many secrets.
Read MoreThe Sorcerer
/Donald Sturrock's hefty new biography of Roald Dahl shows both the troubled, temperamental family man and the conjurer of wicked, entrancing stories
Read MoreEncountering Kundera
/"Art is dying," Milan Kundera writes in his essay collection "Encounter," "because the need for art is dying"; John G. Rodwan, Jr. assesses his attempt to re-stoke that need
Read MoreBeyond the Pillars of Hercules
/In addition to their gods and goddesses, the ancient Greeks worshiped youth and athletic prowess, and their foremost bard was Pindar.
Read MoreDame Alice
/Alice Perrers is reviled by history for insinuating her way into Edward III’s bed and Queen Phillipa’s jewels. Now Emma Campion’s new novel aims to rescue her tattered reputation.
Read MoreThe Sound and the Furry
/As our freelancer Khalid Ponte validly points out, the problem with werewolves is literature, not lycanthropy: they lack a foundational text! Although an excellent recent anthology offers some likely candidates.
Read MoreCrazy in the City
/In Craig Dilouie's new thriller Tooth and Nail, American troops are called home to New York from war-torn Iraq, only to find there are some horrors far worse than those of war
Read MoreOn the Bunny Slopes of Helicon
/Steven Moore's big new book seeks to give an 'alternative history' to that most familiar of literary forms, the novel. But at what point does history become wishful thinking?
Read MoreLost, Well-Lost
/In his study of the poetry and life of dissolute writer Alexander Trocchi, our intrepid corespondent follows him into the dark corners he described, and consorts with smoky ghosts.
Read MoreThe Idea of Her
/Her stature has only grown over time, dominating bookstores, television, movie theaters, and now the Internet. She's Jane Austen, the world's least likely pop star.
Read MoreLike Some Chalice of Old Time
/From Wyatt to Wordsworth to Bishop (and not forgetting that Shakespeare fellow), that waltz of verse, the sonnet, has survived and thrived. A new collection has some fresh faces.
Read MoreCounterfeit Wit
/Liars and impostors have been Peter Carey's bread and butter for 30 years--so he's up to mischief when he takes on the beloved and upright Alexis de Tocqueville in a new novel.
Read MoreThe Playground of the Gods
/Hermes, god of thieves and liars, is the narrator of John Banville's new novel The Infinities. Janet Potter looks into the story he's got to tell.
Read MoreCarson McCullers and Her Crowd
/She's been praised by Oprah and cut by Joyce Carol Oates; the nature of Carson McCullers' prose has always confounded some readers and pleased others. We read her again.
Read MoreAdeste Fideles
/Woe to the critic who calls Edith Grossman's translations "seamless." In her combative new treatise she argues for a greater recognition of the artistry of translation--but how many liberties can a translator take while staying true to the original?
Read MoreThe Once and Future Arthur
/He pulled a sword from a stone and became a legend, and for a thousand years, that legend has changed and shifted. Two new Young Adult novels take up the old familiar story in new ways.
Read MoreShe Paints for Them
/Sofonisba Anguissola was the best-known female painter of the Renaissance, but before that, she was art instructor to a willful young queen. A new novel revives those sad, glorious days.
Read MoreAs If In a Glorious Hell
/In her debut collection of stories, Tiphanie Yanique attempts to capture in prose the complexities of modern-day life and racial identity in a Caribbean behind the tourism ads.
Read MoreArtifice and Discipline
/The personas and poetics of five new books by American women are examined in with an eye toward concealment and of revelation: Matthea Harvey, Katy Lederer, Brenda Shaugnessey, Robyn Schiff, and Karen Volkman.
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