Book Reviews

THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY, by Claire Messud“Maman and Papa had always talked about how much they loved Algiers, how much a part of them it was … the most beautiful...

WE WERE THE UNIVERSE, by Kimberly King ParsonsWhen you hear the phrase “grief novel,” relentless, wildly entertaining horniness probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But that’s what...

Our F5 tornado of fantastic reviews this week includes Michiko Kakutani on Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Ron Charles on Kristi Noem’s No Going Back, Christine Smallwood Miranda...

Loury didn’t abandon his academic ambitions. In 1970, he was admitted to Northwestern University, where he was recognized as a major mathematics talent. He received his graduate degree from M.I.T....

Decolonization, said Frantz Fanon, began a new chapter of history. It’s common enough for the politically engaged to magnify their engagement, if only to sustain themselves through the cycles of...

FAT LEONARD: How One Man Bribed, Bilked, and Seduced the U.S. Navy, by Craig WhitlockIn ports throughout the Western Pacific, the brave officers of the United States Navy gulped down...

Leah Hager Cohen’s seventh novel, “To & Fro,” is a literary jewel with multiple facets. Its two storylines form a satisfying jigsaw puzzle of cleverly interlocking parts, yet these separate...

SKIES OF THUNDER: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World, by Caroline Alexander“You and your outfit have been assigned one of the most important military...

Recent writing about perception by neuroscientists and philosophers has tended toward a disconcerting message: we have nothing like the simple, direct contact with the world around us that we might...

ALL FOURS, by Miranda JulyErica Jong’s Isadora Wing feared flying, but womanned up to attend the first psychoanalytic conference in Vienna since the Holocaust. Fifty years later, the unnamed heroine...