Boy, Interrupted
/For the protagonist of Jim Shepard's heartbreaking novel The Book of Aron it is terrible to be a poor Jew in anti-Semitic prewar Poland – but it is hardest of all to be a child, at the mercy of everyone else.
Read MoreKnow Your Name
/Game of Thrones is remarkably faithful to George R. R. Martin’s original epic series, except for one vital element: it transforms his subversive morality into conventional fantasy.
Read MoreKnowledge of the Life
/What are literary biographies good for, anyway? Do they provide insight into the work or just tittle-tattle about the life? Scott Donaldson's The Impossible Craft offers a brief on this endlessly alluring genre.
Read MoreMoving at the Speed of Love
/Poet Alex Caldiero's Some Love is tangled in the poetic complexities of love, and yet, as reviewer Scott Abbott discovers, the poems here can be every bit as fleshy and uncomplicated as the real thing.
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “The only species that is dangerous to humans is other humans”
/A mystery trio: Louise Penny’s 11th Gamache novel is a stellar addition to the series; Elsa Hart’s debut is a fine historical murder mystery set in 18th-century China; Bernhard Aichner’s first appearance in English is spine-chilling.
Read MoreAn Impressionistic Outlier
/Lesser-known - and perhaps just plain lesser? - French Impressionist painter Gustave Caillebotte gets his first major American retrospective.
Read MoreBook Review: Mycroft Holmes
/A debut adventure starring the smarter older brother of Sherlock Holmes
Read MoreBook Review: Chasing the Phoenix
/Michael Swanwick's terrific new novel features a con artist and a genetically modified dog-man seeking riches and power in a post-post-apocalyptic China
Read MoreBook Review: Agents of Empire
/In the continents-spanning 16th-century clash between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, a crucial role was played by Albania - and by two families at the heart of events
Read MoreBook Review: The Automobile Club of Egypt
/The celebrated author of "The Yacoubian Building" returns with another panoramic look at life in modern Egypt during a pivotal era
Read MoreBook Review: The Daughters
/In Adrienne Celt's remarkably rich debut novel, an opera singer is worried that the birth of her daughter has robbed her of her singing voice
Read MoreBook Review: The Trials
/In the wake of professional betrayal and global catastrophe, the heroes of Linda Nagata's "Red" Trilogy are confronted by a new threat as the series barrels on
Read MoreBook Review: Death in Florence
/At the end of the 14th century, Lorenzo de' Medici and the friar Savonarola began a series of clashes in palace and pulpit that would end up altering the course of the city's history. A lively new book tells the story.
Read MoreBook Review: Browsings
/Book critic Michael Dirda's latest collection offers more personal musings on the subject he loves most
Read MoreClassics Reissued: Salvaged Pages
/A new edition of this collection of Holocaust diaries by young people captures the voices and the worries of the Nazis' most innocent victims
Read MoreBook Review: Bismarck
/A newly-reprinted biography of the "Iron Chancellor" Otto von Bismarck is noticeably short - what kind of a job does it do?
Read MoreBook Review: Beirut, Beirut
/Bloomsbury publishes a lovely new English-language translation of Sonallah Ibrahim's great novel about the Lebanese Civil War
Read MoreBook Review: The Casualties
/You wouldn't bet on a little street in Edinburgh - or its eccentric inhabitants - surviving a series of world-battering catastrophes, but that's both the starting and the ending point of Nick Holdstock's fascinating first novel
Read MoreBook Review: After Nature
/In his brilliant new book, Jedediah Purdy argues that humanity must face the collapse of nature using the three tools it knows best: politics, policy, and cold, hard cash
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