Book Reviews

Why am I doing this to myself? The thought occurred to me as I reached the bottom of Page 20 in Kristin Hannah’s new novel, “The Women.” Barely three chapters...

THERE is a long tradition of publishing letters sent to a community or individuals and finding in them something that speaks to others, something that leads to a deepening of...

Franz Kafka wanted most of his writing and artwork burned after his death. Photo: GettyTomorrow marks the ­centenary of Franz Kafka’s death. The Prague-based J­­ewish writer is ­perhaps the most...

This summer, we bid farewell to two long-running mystery series heroines who are making their marks in wartime. We’ll start with Maisie Dobbs, the plucky and resourceful British investigator and...

This month’s thrillers are full of women grappling with misdeeds — in some cases their own, but mostly those of men.We start in Dublin, where Lou Manson, a college professor,...

The way to evaluate a political speech — I mean as a literary critic, not as a pundit or a partisan — is to examine how the rhetoric rises to...

In Eden, Kentucky, the air is thick with dust. The dying coal town is the fictional setting of Alix E. Harrow's "Starling House," and the smog of fading power and...

This new mono-God is fiercely interventionist, and he seems to possess a plan that his dim-sighted human creations can barely make out. He banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden...

And so, we come to the end. The end of an exemplary crime fiction trilogy and the self-chosen end of a popular author’s writing career. But I’ve gotten ahead of...

“I daily listen to your words with more attention than one would believe, and perhaps I shall not be thought impertinent in wishing to be heard by you,” wrote the...