Book Reviews

Dear readers,What I admire about the thrillers I recommend today (and I say this as someone so skittish that I read Henry James with a paw clamped over one eye):...

Is Rachel Cusk’s​ new book a novel, a series of essays or a philosophical inquiry? Parade sends the coin spinning on its edge every time you flip it. It’s the...

Women have never had to look far for condescending advice about why they should embrace the joys of child-rearing, but lately the guidance has sounded unusually suspect.In March, during a...

I wrote last week about how finding something interesting to watch has been a challenge in recent months. In these moments, I turn to books. If we can agree that...

MacNicol explored these same questions in her searching, intimate debut, “No One Tells You This,” which chronicled the tumultuous year following her 40th birthday, when her beloved mother heartbreakingly succumbed...

“Exhibit,” the second novel by R.O. Kwon, begins with the legend of a Korean curse. “No kisaeng, paid to sing, jig, and flirt in public, had the right to wed...

ANIMALS ALBUMS FROM A TO Z, by Cece BellThe vinyl renaissance has been on for at least a decade, but I didn’t think LP love had penetrated beyond Gen Z...

A LIFE IMPOSSIBLE: Living With ALS: Finding Peace and Wisdom Within a Fragile Existence, by Steve Gleason with Jeff DuncanAfter you turn 70, as I will this year, any celebration...

Our fist of furiously good reviews this week includes Nick Hornby on Rufi Thorpe’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Becca Rothfeld on Jill Ciment’s Consent: A Memoir, Lucy Atkins on Rachel...

When asked about the case, Arthur Conan Doyle himself declared that it would be an “ideal Sherlock mystery” but that he would “confine his attention to the Ward family alone,...