Book Reviews

Rock 'n' roll rebellion is mainstream today, but Peter Bebergal's new book summons a more shadowed past, when artists like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin brought an occult mystique to the music.

The author of Reading Lolita in Tehran returns, this time with a paean to the importance of literature in a democratic society. Reviewer Heller McAlpin says Azar Nafisi may be preaching to the choir.

Greg Bear's latest space adventure goes from the Earth to Mars and back again with a grizzled group of "Skyrines" (Sky Marines, get it?) on the trail of a mysterious alien treasure.

Oscar Pistorius, superstar athlete, was back in court this week for his sentencing hearing, after a culpable homicide conviction. Journalist Mandy Wiener says his case reminds her of a favorite book.

A new biography of the Russian political prankster/author/revolutionary Edward Limonov asks what turns out to be an unanswerable question: What's Limonov thinking, and what does he really want?

It's not often that a book can mix machetes with hedge funds. Then again, few industries are as chaotic, and compelling, as debt collection — which Jake Halpern's book reveals in alarming detail.

Blake Butler's new novel, 300,000,000, is not for the squeamish. This portrait of a serial killer and the detective who hunts him will curdle the blood — and possibly the soul — of any reader.

In his second poetry collection, The New Testament, Jericho Brown weaves together strains of religious invocations with his uneasy identity as a southern, gay, black man into a beguiling self myth.

Author G. Willow Wilson and artist Adrian Alphona introduce the new Ms. Marvel — a 16-year-old Muslim girl from Jersey City — with elegant line work and utterly believable characterizations.