Books

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  Book Review Drew Magary: Someone Could Get Hurt

  With his first parenting book, a sports writer joins a crowded genre.

  May 20, 2013 | 12:01am -

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  Book Review Brandon Sanderson: The Rithmatist

  Established genre tropes weaken an interesting premise in Sanderson’s first foray into YA.

  May 20, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Julie Sarkissian: Dear Lucy

  A lack of plotting and character authenticity make for a slow, wandering read.

  May 13, 2013 | 12:01am -

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  Book Review John Le Carré: A Delicate Truth

  A master at spycraft finally channels his anger into a concise narrative.

  May 13, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Christopher Hacker: The Morels

  An arresting debut novel picks apart the details and consequences of sexual taboos.

  May 13, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Marc Maron: Attempting Normal

  A gifted comedian doesn’t quite hit the mark with his second book.

  May 6, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review David Sedaris: Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls

  The humorist’s newest effort stretches for incisive observation via contrived wackiness.

  May 6, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review DC Pierson: Crap Kingdom

  Coming-of-age fantasy explores the ethics of artificial self-improvement.

  May 6, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Joe Hill: NOS4A2

  The author of Horns and Locke & Key returns with his biggest, most expansive, funniest horror-fantasy to date.

  April 29, 2013 | 12:02am -

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  Book Review Ryan McIlvain: Elders

  This novel about young Mormon “elders” isn’t as fun as Book Of Mormon, but it has plenty to say about the church.

  April 29, 2013 | 12:01am -

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  Book Review Elizabeth Strout: The Burgess Boys

  Elizabeth Strout’s follow-up to her Pulitzer-winning Olive Kitteridge is surprisingly absorbing for a low-key family drama.

  April 29, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Neil Gaiman: Unnatural Creatures

  A fantasy master curates a lumpy group anthology about fantasy beasties.

  April 22, 2013 | 12:02am -

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  Book Review Manil Suri: The City Of Devi

  Unlikely partners seek out their mutual lover in terrorist-torn India in this colorful but unlikely novel.

  April 22, 2013 | 12:01am -

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  Book Review Napoleon Chagnon: Noble Savages: My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes

  A famed anthropologist clears up his controversial research, flames his detractors, and reveals the vulgar practical jokes his tribal subjects played on him.

  April 22, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Jonathan Cott: Days That I’ll Remember: Spending Time With John Lennon And Yoko Ono

  A Rolling Stone writer swoons over John Lennon and angrily defends Yoko Ono in this memoir of meetings and interviews with the ex-Beatle and his wife.

  April 15, 2013 | 12:01am -

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  Book Review Michael Moss: Salt Sugar Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us

  This entertaining, horrifying look at food-industry tricks and secrets is long on chilling reveals, but short on fixes or answers.

  April 15, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review William Friedkin: The Friedkin Connection: A Memoir

  One of the 1970s’ premier directors exorcises his past with self-aware frankness.

  April 15, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review David Toomey: Weird Life: The Search For Life That Is Very, Very Different From Our Own

  From SETI to the ocean depths, a writer sums up how scientific exploration has expanded the definition of “alive.”

  April 8, 2013 | 12:01am -

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  Book Review Carol Burnett: Carrie And Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story

  A comedian’s memorial to her daughter takes the form of a scrapbook of her life and work.

  April 8, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Melanie Warner: Pandora’s Lunchbox: How Processed Food Took Over The American Meal

  An experiment to see how quickly processed foods decay becomes an eye-opening book about the things we eat that aren’t really food anymore.

  April 8, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review David Shields: How Literature Saved My Life

  This quick-hitting collection of erudite thoughts on many topics is the literary equivalent of a Girl Talk album.

  April 1, 2013 | 12:01am -

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  Book Review Amity Gaige: Schroder

  Based on a famous case of false identity and family kidnapping, this novel tells a rich story, but pulls too many punches.

  April 1, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Glen Weldon: Superman: The Unauthorized Biography

  A smart, savvy overview of 75 years of Superman tracks how the character has changed to meet the needs of every era.

  April 1, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Richard Hell: I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp

  The pioneering punk behind Television and The Voidoids alternates between conventional and eccentric in an autobiography that ends too soon.

  March 25, 2013 | 12:01am -

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  Book Review Ron Currie Jr.: Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles

  This bizarre piece of autobiographical fiction features the author faking his own death to become famous, somewhat inadvertently.

  March 25, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Owen King: Double Feature

  Stephen King’s son and Joe Hill’s brother joins the family profession with this debut novel about a debut film gone terribly wrong.

  March 25, 2013 | 12:00am -

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  Book Review Alexander Theroux: The Grammar Of Rock: Art And Artlessness In 20th Century Pop Lyrics

  Are modern rock lyrics all banal and empty? A particularly cranky novelist and biographer thinks he’s the first person to ask.

  March 18, 2013 | 12:02am -

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  Book Review Jamaica Kincaid: See Now Then 

  Poetry trumps content in this lyrical, emotive novel about divorce, which follows the author’s life in some respects.

  March 18, 2013 | 12:02am -

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  Book Review Sam Lipsyte: The Fun Parts: Stories

  The author of The Ask returns with a collection of stories about the hapless and the helpless. 

  March 18, 2013 | 12:02am -

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  Book Review Jay Farrar: Falling Cars And Junkyard Dogs

  The Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt vet takes potshots at his former bandmate Jeff Tweedy in this dull memoir, but that’s its only spark of life.

  March 11, 2013 | 12:02am -