Book Reviews

Jessica Abel's comic Trish Trash, Rollergirl of Mars isn't just a sports story and a coming-of-age tale, it's a masterful critique of capitalism that stays engaging despite a few wobbles.

Stefan Zweig's famous book is as much about its own context as an execution 300 years ago; its archness signals a time capsule, except that the rhetoric around women in power has changed so little.

Prolific crime writer Val McDermid's latest catches up with plainspoken cold-case detective Karen Pirie as she deals with personal troubles, machinations at work and a mystery going back decades.

Olivier Schrauwen's new graphic novel is cold and rejecting, giddy and uncontrolled, all at the same time. It's semi-autobiographical and loosely sci-fi, set in an unsettlingly minimalist future.

Author George Howe Colt's choice to delve into the lives of the players and coaches in his new book, as well as the turbulent year itself, makes his writing about the actual game pay off beautifully.

Cuban writer Wendy Guerra has lived under surveillance in her home country, and she works that experience into her intense new novel about a young poet in Havana whose success causes trouble.

Anna Burns' new novel — which won the Man Booker prize — follows a never-named young woman who's being harassed by a powerful paramilitary figure during Ireland's Troubles.

Linguist Gaston Dorren's book is endlessly interesting — and you don't have to have any linguistic training to enjoy it: He has a talent for clearly explaining even the most difficult concepts.

Mathias Énard's novel — newly translated from French — imagines what would have happened if Michelangelo had accepted an offer from the Ottoman ruler to design a bridge across the Golden Horn.

Helen Schulman splices together an old-school family drama with high-tech fantasy in her new novel, a rich, closely observed story about regrets and risk-taking in the Internet age.