GOOD MATERIAL, by Dolly AldertonAndy, the 35-year-old struggling comedian who narrates most of Dolly Alderton’s new novel, “Good Material,” has been freshly dumped by his ex, Jen, for mysterious reasons....
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CHOICE, by Neel MukherjeeNeel Mukherjee’s “Choice” is a novel full of characters deciding how much truth to tell. As in “The Lives of Others,” the author’s 2014 Booker Prize-shortlisted novel,...
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BURMA SAHIB, by Paul TherouxGeorge Orwell died of tuberculosis in 1950, at the age of 46. Yet today, over 70 years later, his long shadow remains as dark and well...
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NIGHT WATCH, by Jayne Anne PhillipsJayne Anne Phillips’s new novel, “Night Watch,” about a woman and her daughter in a genteel asylum in West Virginia around the time of the...
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IF YOU CAN’T TAKE THE HEAT: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury, by Geraldine DeRuiterGeraldine DeRuiter, the pungent voice behind the Everywhereist blog, knows how to rant.You may have read...
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Well. How about this one, from an essay about cats?A cat, I realize, cannot be everyone’s cup of fur.Or this one, from an essay about sports and other obsessions:I have...
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The costive and the envious might wonder if she’s spreading herself too thin, but Rothfeld’s rigor and eloquence suggest that in her case, as the title of one essay has...
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THE RULEBREAKER: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters, by Susan PageMuch of the material in “The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters” has been told before, with...
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YOU DREAMED OF EMPIRES, by Álvaro Enrigue. Translated by Natasha Wimmer.The Mexican writer Álvaro Enrigue’s new novel has a soft, nebulous title: “You Dreamed of Empires.” Its cover is forgettable,...
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INVERNO, by Cynthia ZarinI once taught a seminar for graduate fiction writers called A Poet’s Prose. The reading list consisted of prose works written by distinguished contemporary poets. I was...
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