“Il n’y a pas d’Israël pour moi”
/In Michel Houellebecq’s uncannily timely new novel, the triumph of an Islamist government relieves the dreary banality that defines the secular France of the 21st century.
Read MoreThinking in Quotations
/On its schematic blueprints, the latest book by noted literary polymath Alberto Manguel is "about" Dante's Divine Comedy - but as Robert Minto discovers, this author is at his best when he's digressing.
Read MoreUnconditional
/An Orwellian dystopia, a deposed humanity, and a cat passionately in love with a dog - Justin Hickey reviews Robert Repino's fiendishly clever novel Mort(e).
Read MoreRuins, Mourning, and Cigarettes
/Set in the precarious territory between fiction and history, Nicolas Rothwell’s beautiful, haunting Belomor explores the ways storytelling serves as an impetus for self-discovery.
Read MoreRealism and Russia’s Fate
/The star translating team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (aided this time by Richard Nelson) translate Turgenev's A Month in the Country, with predictably disruptive results. Jack Hanson reviews.
Read MoreShallow Sargasso Sea
/Can you improve on a classic? A new novel retells George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda — but much more is lost than gained in the attempt.
Read MoreBook Review: On Elizabeth Bishop
/In the latest Princeton "Writers on Writers" installment, novelist Colm Toibin writes about poet Elizabeth Bishop
Read MoreBook Review: The War That Used Up Words
/At the outbreak of the First World War, American writers flocked to Europe and headed for the Western Front in order to find their Muse - and to make some quick cash. A new book follows a handful of these earliest chroniclers
Read MoreBook Review: Those Who Write For Immortality
/"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work," Woody Allen famously quipped; "I want to achieve immortality through not dying." Robert Minto reviews a new book on what it takes to make it big in the literary afterlife
Read MoreBook Review: Oscar Wilde's Chatterton
/For over a century, Oscar Wilde's notebook on Thomas Chatterton has been regarded as a 'smoking gun' of Wilde's plagiaristic tendencies. A new book radically re-examines the issue
Read MoreInheritance of Anger
/The great Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa claims he became a writer in order to annoy his father; his new novel takes up this age-old theme of the strife between fathers and sons.
Read MoreKafka with a Happy Ending
/As we should expect from someone whose previous work is both experimental and kinky, Miranda July has written a first novel that refuses to play by the rules.
Read MorePros and Con Men
/Despite his iconic status today, in the 19th century Sherlock Holmes was neither the alpha nor the omega of crime fighters: a fascinating new book introduces us to his many contemporaries.
Read MoreLeviathan in the Offing
/Ron Howard's adaptation of Nathaniel Philbrick's bestselling In the Heart of the Sea will soon appear, but even the trailers raise rich questions: Why does this story still have the power to fascinate? A Moby-Dick fan ponders.
Read MoreFlail and Thrash
/When we say of someone that they died too early, does this posit that there is a perfect time? How does the meaning of a life change the longer it’s lived. Jenny Erpenbeck’s new novel End of Days explores some answers.
Read MoreThe Familiar is Strange
/Stalking the pages of Thomas Pierce's debut story collection, where the surreal shares quarters with the ordinary, are dwarf mammoths, genetically modified guard dogs, baby Pippin monkeys, and a parakeet named Magnificent.
Read MoreThe Only Relevant Thing
/Matthew Lippman's third poetry collection sings of the joys and sorrows of married life - and ventures onto broader societal stages as well. The result shows the reader in new detail a world they thought they knew.
Read MoreBook Review: Table Talk
/For twenty-five years, the "Table Talk" feature of The Threepenny Review has offered occasional musings on a wide range of topics by some of the best freelance writers and critics in the business. A new hardcover collects a generous helping of highlights
Read MoreGrudge Sliver
/In Alice Fulton's new book Barely Composed, her poems flash across the whole of the language, whip it into a froth, playfully distort it, and sometimes bypass it altogether. Open Letters' Poetry Editor reads along.
Read More"Why, It's I!"
/Any new translation of a classic like Anna Kareninainevitably raises an awkward question: what was wrong with all the old translations? Debut writer Zach Rabiroff takes it line-by-line
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