E-Mail this
A Writer’s Long Journey to Trace the Great Migration
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 10:00:07 PM CST
“The Warmth of Other Suns,” Isabel Wilkerson’s book about the Great Migration of blacks in America, took 15 years and much hands-on research to finish.
E-Mail this
Books of The Times: At This School, Misfits Make Up the Student Body
Thursday, September 9, 2010 4:00:03 AM CST
“Skippy Dies” by Paul Murray has a lot on its mind: M-theory, lost youth, Irish history and parallel dimensions, not to mention sex, drugs and schoolboy humor.
E-Mail this
Currents | Q&A: The Father of Modern Architectural Minimalism
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 10:30:10 PM CST
Questions for the British architect John Pawson, who has a new monograph out next month.
E-Mail this
Elizabeth Jenkins, Woman of Letters, Dies at 104
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 2:56:37 PM CST
In novels and biographies, Ms. Jenkins looked at lives with a psychological dimension.
E-Mail this
Books of The Times: Many Kinds of Universes, and None Require God
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 12:26:51 PM CST
Stephen Hawking’s pop-science book about the origins of our universe got attention for a passage about God.
E-Mail this
Books of The Times: How Colombia Meets America, but Not Quite
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 4:46:07 AM CST
In “Vida,” Patricia Engel’s world is caught between Colombia and the United States, and truly at home in neither.
E-Mail this
Beach Reads Finished, It’s Time for the Big Books
Monday, September 6, 2010 10:10:11 PM CST
Publishing’s fall schedule includes books by Bob Woodward, Keith Richards, George W. Bush and Jon Stewart.
E-Mail this
Dark Mysteries, Written From a Bright Beach
Monday, September 6, 2010 10:23:20 PM CST
The British novelist Colin Cotterill, who lives on a Thai beach, stands apart from his books’ setting, the Communist Laos of the 1970s.
E-Mail this
Books of The Times: War Intrudes on a Man’s Bucolic Idyll
Sunday, September 5, 2010 10:00:04 PM CST
Existential concepts like authenticity and selfhood, and people’s ability or inability to apprehend reality, lie at the heart of Tom McCarthy’s disappointing and highly self-conscious new novel.
E-Mail this
Books of The Times: Simon Wiesenthal, the Man Who Refused to Forget
Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:41:11 PM CST
A detailed biography of the legendary Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal shows him to be a complicated hero, an angel with dirty wings.
E-Mail this
Book Sets Off Immigration Debate in Germany
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 8:30:57 PM CST
Thilo Sarrazin, a former official who has been criticized as espousing racist views, has set off a discussion about Germany’s immigration policy.
E-Mail this
Books of The Times: At the Center of the Storm, but Still a Mystery
Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:36:52 AM CST
Tony Blair’s memoir, “A Journey,” sheds little light on his political vision or on why he took Britain to war against Iraq.
E-Mail this
Books of The Times: Young Man Seeks Poetry in World War II’s Ruins
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 10:30:04 PM CST
A British author links his grandfather’s World War II bombing missions to the war poetry of the time.
E-Mail this
Roger Ebert: No Longer an Eater, Still a Cook
Friday, September 3, 2010 10:30:03 AM CST
After losing his lower jaw to cancer, the film critic, who can’t eat, has written a cookbook that is an ode to the rice cooker.
E-Mail this
Books of The Times: Preppily Perplexed? A New Guidebook
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 8:47:21 PM CST
“True Prep,” Lisa Birnbach’s successor to “The Official Preppy Handbook,” addresses the adult world of funerals and second marriages and the post-1980 world of cellphones, the Internet and synthetic fleece.
E-Mail this
Freedom Trains
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 10:59:51 AM CST
Isabel Wilkerson’s masterly account of the Great Migration tells the story of the six million African-Americans who moved away from the South between 1915 and 1970.
E-Mail this
Simian Says
Friday, September 3, 2010 10:45:10 PM CST
Sara Gruen’s busy novel, which concerns six bonobos and the people who conduct language studies with them, addresses a vast sweep of animal-human issues.
E-Mail this
Bringing It All Back Home
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:01:17 PM CST
The historian Sean Wilentz situates Bob Dylan in a long continuum of American music, literature, religion and politics.
E-Mail this
Stormy Weather
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:01:31 PM CST
This novel’s protagonist is a World War II meteorologist.
E-Mail this
Worlds in Collision
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:00:07 PM CST
A Brahmin astrophysicist and his Dalit assistant are the interdependent poles of Manu Joseph’s novel.
E-Mail this
No. 1 Sleuth
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:00:07 PM CST
A history of the beloved matinee detective Charlie Chan.
E-Mail this
Hannibal Rising
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 10:07:35 AM CST
A history of the Battle of Cannae in 216 B.C., where Hannibal obliterated the Roman army.
E-Mail this
Lost Tribe
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:01:30 PM CST
A New Yorker travels to Israel to make amends with her settler sister in this novel about American Jews in the Holy Land.
E-Mail this
Living in Your Head
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:01:39 PM CST
Charles Yu wraps his lonely story of a time machine repairman in glittering layers of gorgeous meta-science-fiction.
E-Mail this
Science Fiction Chronicle
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:00:07 PM CST
Science fiction by Karen Lord, Ian McDonald, Karin Lowachee and Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud.
E-Mail this
Words Cannot Express
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:00:07 PM CST
Guy Deutscher’s argument about the basis of language is informed by the way we perceive and name colors.
E-Mail this
Ghost, Come Back Again
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:00:07 PM CST
Paul Murray’s smart comic novel, set in a Dublin boys’ school, is an elegy to lost youth.
E-Mail this
Endless War
Friday, September 3, 2010 10:00:54 PM CST
Andrew J. Bacevich forcefully denounces 60 years of American militarism in this bracing and intelligent polemic.
E-Mail this
Unhappy Days
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:00:07 PM CST
The historian Laura Kalman looks at the Ford and Carter years.
E-Mail this
Immortal Beloved
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:00:07 PM CST
A man loses his wife to death but finds her somewhere else in this debut novel.
E-Mail this
Hardcover Fiction
Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:11:56 AM CST
Top 5 at a Glance
1. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, by Stieg Larsson
2. THE POSTCARD KILLERS, by James Patterson and Liza Marklund
3. SPIDER BONES, by Kathy Reichs
4. THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett
5. BEARERS OF THE BLACK STAFF (LEGENDS OF SHANNARA), by Terry Brooks
E-Mail this
Hardcover Nonfiction
Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:14:02 AM CST
Top 5 at a Glance
1. CRIMES AGAINST LIBERTY, by David Limbaugh
2. _____ MY DAD SAYS, by Justin Halpern
3. OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell
4. THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, by Rebecca Skloot
5. EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON, by S. C. Gwynne
E-Mail this
Paperback Trade Fiction
Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:14:27 AM CST
Top 5 at a Glance
1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
2. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
3. LITTLE BEE, by Chris Cleave
4. CUTTING FOR STONE, by Abraham Verghese
5. FORD COUNTY, by John Grisham
E-Mail this
Paperback Mass-Market Fiction
Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:15:04 AM CST
Top 5 at a Glance
1. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson
2. FORD COUNTY, by John Grisham
3. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, by Stieg Larsson
4. TRUE BLUE, by David Baldacci
5. DEMON FROM THE DARK, by Kresley Cole
E-Mail this
Paperback Nonfiction
Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:16:00 AM CST
Top 5 at a Glance
1. EAT, PRAY, LOVE, by Elizabeth Gilbert
2. THREE CUPS OF TEA, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
3. WHERE MEN WIN GLORY, by Jon Krakauer
4. THE GLASS CASTLE, by Jeannette Walls
5. MY HORIZONTAL LIFE, by Chelsea Handler
E-Mail this
Essay: The End of Tenure?
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 11:05:37 AM CST
Two recent books resurrect the debate over universities and the supposedly pampered people who teach there.
E-Mail this
Crime: My Flesh Is Your Canvas
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 10:03:11 AM CST
Mystery novels by Sara Paretsky, Charles Todd, Jeff Lindsay and Susan Hill.
E-Mail this
A Physician Examines His Novels
Saturday, September 4, 2010 4:55:31 AM CST
The literature of Hans Keilson, a doctor who escaped to the Netherlands from Nazi Germany, is getting new attention in America.
E-Mail this
Archive: Book Review Podcast
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:24:28 AM CST
Featuring Isabel Wilkerson on her history of the Great Migration, “The Warmth of Other Suns”; and Sean Wilentz on his book “Bob Dylan in America.”
E-Mail this
Questions for Deepak Chopra: Imagining the Prophet
Friday, September 3, 2010 10:30:02 PM CST
The spiritual guru talks about his new novel about Muhammad.
E-Mail this
Cultural Studies: Are You Reading What He’s Reading?
Monday, September 6, 2010 12:00:36 PM CST
Talk of an “Obama bump” for authors comes at a moment when the flavor of public conversation around books has gone from genteel Earl Grey to Tea Party red.
E-Mail this
Living With Music: A Playlist by Rob Sheffield
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 10:26:45 AM CST
Sheffield's most recent memoir is "Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut."
E-Mail this
Author Spotlight | Charles Yu
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 8:48:11 AM CST
Yu, the author of the novel "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe," is also a full-time lawyer. We asked, If writing became lucrative enough, would he ever quit the day job?
E-Mail this
Book Review Podcast: Isabel Wilkerson
Friday, September 3, 2010 12:14:15 PM CST
Featuring Isabel Wilkerson on her history of the Great Migration, "The Warmth of Other Suns"; and Sean Wilentz on his book "Bob Dylan in America."
E-Mail this
Deepak Chopra's 'Muhammad' to Be Released Early as E-Book
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 3:18:00 PM CST
Dr. Chopra's fictionalized biography about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, will go on sale early in e-book form, weeks ahead of the print book's publication date of Sept. 21.
E-Mail this
In Blair Memoir, Is It the Queen or 'The Queen'?
Wednesday, September 8, 2010 11:42:39 AM CST
Peter Morgan, the screenwriter of "The Queen," sees a similarity between his script for that film and a scene from Tony Blair's memoir, "A Journey."
E-Mail this
Up Front: Ander Monson
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:00:08 PM CST
No one medium can contain Ander Monson. Luckily, we live in an age when no one medium needs to.
E-Mail this
TBR: Inside the List
Friday, September 3, 2010 7:59:26 AM CST
This week’s hardcover fiction list offers plenty of armchair travel to exotic locales, including Eliza Griswold’s “Tenth Parallel.”
E-Mail this
Editors’ Choice
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:01:30 PM CST
Recently reviewed books of particular interest.
E-Mail this
Paperback Row
Friday, September 3, 2010 11:00:07 PM CST
Paperback books of particular interest.
E-Mail this
The New York Times Book Review: Back Issues
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 11:51:48 AM CST
Complete contents of the Book Review since 1997.