All Reviews

• On Losing It and Other Chick Stuff

  Samantha Dunn reviews three memoirs dealing with relationships, abstinence, and religion.

  Samantha DunnMar 2, 2014
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  Familiarizing and Humanizing an “Exotic” Language

  Jason D. Patent on the pros and cons of Perry Link’s An Anatomy of Chinese.

  Jason D. PatentMar 1, 2014
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  How About Love: Gilbert Hernandez’s "Julio’s Day"

  Anne Elizabeth Moore offers a frank review of Gilbert Hernandez’s Julio’s Day and a little love, too.

  Anne Elizabeth MooreFeb 28, 2014
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  Serial Reader

  Which books does Wendy Lesser love best? J.C. Hallman finds out ...

  J. C. HallmanFeb 27, 2014

  • Literary Criticism

  • Literary Fiction

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  All Too Human: On Kurt Vonnegut’s Legacy

  Tally proposes many specific interpretations of Vonnegut's novels, though his ultimate motive is to lay the broad foundation for ongoing critical studies of Vonnegut.

  Matthew Gannon, Wilson TaylorFeb 27, 2014

  • Literary Criticism

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  Patron Saint of the Underdog

  For Vlautin and his characters, part of the awfulness of freedom is that there are things humans can never be free from.

  William BoyleFeb 26, 2014
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  Talking about Collaborators

  Neve Gordon looks at two works on collaborators during wartime.

  Neve GordonFeb 25, 2014
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  The Book that Launched a Thousand Ships

  Everything seems thinly veiled in Harry Hervey's Congai.

  Pico IyerFeb 24, 2014
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  Here’s Johnny

  Henry Bushkin writes about his complicated relationship with the late Johnny Carson, his friend, client, and confidante.

  Lary WallaceFeb 24, 2014
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  The Only People Here: Lorrie Moore’s Latest

  Lorrie Moore's Bark, says Laurie Winer, gives "a shimmering sense of life passing in all of its aching beauty."

  Laurie WinerFeb 23, 2014

• A Western Family’s China Saga

  China Mission is an engrossing group biography and a valuable overview of a country’s turbulent transformations

  Sheila K. JohnsonFeb 23, 2014

  • Travel

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  The Demilitarized Soldier: Andrew Bacevich, American Foreign Policy and Breach of Trust

  A demilitarized soldier brings some honesty to a foreign policy addicted to war. Special art/multimedia needs:

  Tom GallagherFeb 22, 2014
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  Perfectly Natural: Science and Sustainability

  Ian Scheffler juxtaposes Donald E. Canfield’s Oxygen with Bill McKibben’s Oil and Honey to explain the forever mutability of nature.

  Ian SchefflerFeb 22, 2014
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  Bob Fosse and the Bejeweling of Horror

  Fosse is a book celebrating a life, even though, as Sam Wasson writes, Bob Fosse “had the jazzman’s crush on burning out.”

  Dina GachmanFeb 22, 2014
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  Beat Biographer

  Biography, rather than literary criticism, has become the dominant genre in the canonization of the Beats.

  Loren GlassFeb 21, 2014
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  Global Warming and Other Hyperobjects

  Stephen Muecke reviews Timothy Morton’s “bold, stimulating, and provocative” new work.

  Stephen MueckeFeb 20, 2014