Book Review: 'The Convert's Song' By Sebastian Rotella
Alan Cheuse reviews "The Convert's Song" by Sebastian Rotella.
Book Reviews
The Ethics Of Torture, Explored In A Painful Fable
This week, the Senate released a report that details the interrogation techniques used by the CIA after Sept. 11. Author Laila Lalami grapples with the questions it raises by turning to literature.
'The B-Side' Sings A Sad, Sad Song
Ben Yagoda uses the battle between music licensing organizations ASCAP and BMI to sketch out a broader lament about the long fade-out of the American Songbook and the segue to modern pop music.
A Cool, Painstaking Account Of A Difficult Past In 'Fatherland'
Nina Bunjevac tackles two troublesome subjects in Fatherland: Her Serbian nationalist father, and the occasionally violent, extremist history of his country — all in a controlled, icy-cool style.
Resurrections, Do-Overs, And Second Lives: A 2015 Poetry Preview
After the troubles of 2014, critic Craig Morgan Teicher offers up a full shelf of poetry for a brand new year — offering no solutions, but full of ambivalence and precision, balm and fire.
'Whipping Boy' Is Part Memoir, Part Crime Thriller
Allen Kurzweil's new book Whipping Boy starts out as the story of his obsessive 40-year search for the boy who bullied him at boarding school — but it becomes something much deeper and stranger.
Dark, Disturbing And Playful, 'Seventh Day' Takes On Modern China
In Yu Hua's new novel, a recently dead man decides to attend his own funeral and ends up wandering a strange sort of afterlife, full of characters whose stories reflect the troubles of modern China.
It's A Chump's Life In 'Amnesia'
Peter Carey's new novel starts with a sad-sack disgraced reporter tasked with writing the biography of a notorious hacker, but reviewer Jason Sheehan says there's a jarring change of gears halfway.
The Consolations (And Controversies) Of Philosophy In 'The Just City'
In Jo Walton's new novel, the goddess Athene assembles a history-spanning group of thinkers and sets them to creating Plato's famed Just City — but then she makes the mistake of inviting Socrates.
'Binary Star' Is A Hard, Harrowing Look Into Inner Space
Sarah Gerard's new novel follows a young woman suffering from an eating disorder, and her alcoholic boyfriend. Reviewer Jason Heller says the book balances real-world issues and emotional punch.