Lynn Coady, The Antagonist
A funny, subtle, and honest long dark night of the soul, with a Canadian accent. Gordon Rankin, aka Rank, the protagonist of Lynn Coady’s The Antagonist, has the body of a comic book villain. His huge,...
View ArticleLouise Erdrich, The Round House
A wrenching look at the grey areas of justice, sex, family and ethnic identity.Returning to the some of the same characters and geographies as in her 2008 novel The Plague of Doves, Louise Erdrich’s...
View ArticleHenri Charrière, Papillon
The world's greatest escapee tells his own storyPapillon, Henri Charrière’s bestselling memoir of his incarceration and escape from the French penal colony of Devil’s Island, has seen many iterations:...
View ArticleJohn Boyne, The Absolutist
A fresh look at the fog of war — and loveWar is John Boyne’s topic; his best-known novel is the concentration camp soul-crusher The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. In his latest, The Absolutist, the...
View ArticleMegan Abbott, Dare Me
Bring It On in a Blue Velvet worldMegan Abbott’s Dare Me is Bring It On in a Blue Velvet world. Abbott describes a Lynchian speed-and-sex-fueled, rotten-to-the-core suburbia full of maniacally...
View ArticleBrian Castner, The Long Walk
An Iraq veteran deals with his trauma in a revealing memoirThe last few years have produced a plethora of memoirs, articles, movies and — more significantly — investigations over the post traumatic...
View ArticleStephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett, The Long Earth
A product of two sci-fi mastersFans of the 1990s disaster that was the Jerry O’Connell-vehicle Sliders will be pleased to know that The Long Earth incorporates all of the cool parts of that show...
View ArticleDave Eggers, A Hologram for the King
Twisting Eggers's international focus around the average, recession-era American businessmanDave Eggers’s latest protagonist, A Hologram for the King‘s Alan Clay, is a hollow man. Not in the T. S....
View ArticleEtgar Keret, Suddenly, a Knock at the Door
Stories about loneliness, alienation, depression and death in worlds of magical realism It might seem a bit odd to call Etgar Keret’s collection Suddenly, a Knock at the Door a delight. It’s 35 stories...
View ArticleJenny Lawson, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened
A side-splittingly funny debutListening to Jenny Lawson — often better known by her nom de web The Bloggess — read her side-splittingly funny formal debut Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, is to be...
View ArticleSanjay Gupta, Monday Mornings
A taut medical drama for fans of surgical soapsFans of surgical soap operas like Grey’s Anatomy, ER and the late, great St. Elsewhere will find much to enjoy in CNN star physician Sanjay Gupta’s first...
View ArticleEmma Straub, Other People We Married
A promising collection from a bold new writer Take Lorrie Moore’s wit and combine with Annie Proulx’s sparseness, add a dash of Maile Meloy’s melancholy, and the result is Emma Straub’s captivating...
View ArticleKaui Hart Hemmings, The Descendants
An examination of the guts of generational and familial conflictIt may be hard for some to separate Matt King, the protagonist of Kaui Hart Hemmings’s tragicomic debut novel The Descendants, from...
View ArticleSam Lipsyte, The Ask
A social comedy worthy of WodehouseIf one were to boil Sam Lipsyte’s gloriously cynical The Ask down to a single exchange, it might be when everyman hero Milo plaintively asks of his colleague, “If I...
View ArticleStephen Greenblatt, The Swerve
An accessible window into the evolution of modern thought Perhaps it’s not surprising that Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How the World Became Modern is no lightweight listen. It is, after all, an...
View ArticleMichael Ondaatje, The Cat’s Table
A novel paced in the manner of an exhilarated youngster unburdening a secret Infused with gauzy memories, Michael Ondaatje’s slight, gorgeous new novel The Cat’s Table shares its time-shifting...
View ArticleGeorge Pelecanos, The Cut
A post-modern detective novels set in D.C.’s tumultuous underworld Spero Lucas, star of George Pelecanos’s The Cut, is a war-tested sex magnet oozing machismo…who also happens to be a foodie and a...
View ArticleAmor Towles, Rules of Civility
Snappy dialogue and glamorous settings lend Rules the air of an old fashioned caper Amor Towles’ Rules of Civility is a romp through the 1930s Manhattan glamour scene. His effervescent heroine, Katey...
View ArticleSimon Van Booy, Everything Beautiful Began After
An unapologetically unironic novel about love and language Simon Van Booy’s luscious Everything Beautiful Began After is not for cynics. In fact, it’s unapologetically unironic. “To love again,” we are...
View ArticleSugar Ray Leonard, The Big Fight: My Life In and Out of the Ring
Sugar Ray, the man and the brand At what point does a personal brand become indistinguishable from the person? For boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, it was in September of 1981 after defeating Thomas “Hitman”...
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