Category: Book Reviews

January 1, 2011

Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson

Set in Nazi-occupied Europe, this novel, appearing only now in English, is a mid-century masterpiece by the centenarian Keilson, who served in the Dutch resistance.

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January 1, 2011

Eclipse of the Sunnis by Deborah Amos

If I were developing a reading list for newcomers to the Middle East, Amos’s slim but powerful volume would be the last assigned book, the...

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January 1, 2011

Berlin: City of Stones, Berlin: City of Smoke by Jason Lutes

Using the medium of the graphic novel to great effect, Jason Lutes’s Berlin: City of Stones and Berlin: City of Smoke offer a history of the...

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January 1, 2011

Map of the Invisible World by Tash Aw

Tash Aw’s brilliant novel Map of the Invisible World explores the lure of home and family. It takes place in 1965, during a particularly bloody crackdown...

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January 1, 2011

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

This super-sad, super-funny novel not only showcases its author’s super-caffeinated comic gifts, but also uncovers his abilities to write movingly about love and heartbreak. Set...

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December 25, 2010

Peony in Love by Lisa See * (of 4)

Hard to believe this sold as many copies as it did. The veil over this novel, that belongs on the mass market Romance shelf with...

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December 4, 2010

Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux **** (of 4)

Fresh out of college in the mid 1960s, just before he became famous as one of the great travel writers of a generation, Paul Theroux...

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November 23, 2010

The Tenth Parallel by Eliza Griswold ** (of 4)

Griswold travels the around the globe hanging out approximately 10 degrees north of the equator. In Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines it’s...

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November 13, 2010

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen *** (of 4)

A depression era circus full of interpersonal and interspecies drama occurs as characters and the circus menagerie travel by train from city to city. The...

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October 31, 2010

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston **** (of 4)

Written in 1937, Hurston captures the lives of post-slavery, southern African Americans battling to overcome poverty and profound segregation. Janie, the story’s protagonist, is married...

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