Book Reviews

Books
Arts

Dorothea Lange's 'Migrant Mother' Inspires The Story Of 'Mary Coin'

1:00pm February 28, 2013

by Maureen Corrigan

Marisa Silver's new novel imagines the meeting of a Depression-era photographer and her now-iconic subject. Giving the characters different names but similar stories to their real-life counterparts, Silver tackles big questions about the morality of art.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

Under Ogawa's Macabre, Metafictional Spell

7:23pm February 25, 2013

by Alan Cheuse

Fiction is reality and reality fiction in Revenge, Yoko Ogawa's absorbing cycle of interlinked, eerie tales. Readers may detect the shadows of Murakami, Borges and Poe, but, says critic Alan Cheuse, Ogawa's delicious tales cast their own singular spell.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

Karen Russell's 'Vampires' Deserve The Raves

2:39pm February 21, 2013

by Maureen Corrigan

The author of Swamplandia! has a new collection of short stories called Vampires in the Lemon Grove. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the stories are daring and devastating, and with them Russell establishes herself as one of the great American writers of our young century.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

'The Dinner' Offers Food For Thought

6:11pm February 20, 2013

by Rosecrans Baldwin

The novel by Herman Koch is structured around a five-course meal shared by two couples. But it's not all fun and food. What's really going on at this meal is much more gruesome. Reviewer Rosecrans Baldwin says the novel offers a fresh, modern take on basic moral questions.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

Tales Of Transformation Make 'Vampires In The Lemon Grove' A Stunner

7:54pm February 15, 2013

by Meg Wolitzer

Karen Russell's new collection of short stories has dead presidents reincarnated as horses, girls turning into silkworms, and vampires who quench their thirst for blood with lemons. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer says that in Russell's world we aren't fixed in space and time but can change at any moment.

Queue Listen Now

A businesswoman and businessman shake hands.

Books
Arts

A Soured Student-Teacher Friendship Threatens 'Everything'

2:55pm February 12, 2013

by Maureen Corrigan

In a new memoir, James Lasdun describes how a former-student-turned-friend stalked and slandered him online. Give Me Everything You Have is a meditation on what it means to control your reputation on the Internet — and the book is Lasdun's attempt to fight back.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

A Mystery That Explores 'The Rage' Of New Ireland

2:40pm February 06, 2013

by John Powers

Reporter-turned-novelist Gene Kerrigan sets his story in Ireland after the 2008 financial crisis. The Rage is a boundlessly readable portrait of a country in which ordinary citizens have been hit the hardest and all the old certainties have vanished.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

War Writ Small: Of Pushcarts And Peashooters

7:55pm January 31, 2013

by Adam Mansbach

Jean Merrill's classic children's book The Pushcart War explores war, peace and pushcarts on the streets of New York. Author Adam Mansbach writes that the story still resonates. Do you have a favorite children's book that deals with heavy themes? Tell us in the comments.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

Jane Austen's 'Pride And Prejudice' At 200

6:38pm January 28, 2013

by Maureen Corrigan

As the classic novel celebrates its bicentennial, Paula Byrne's The Real Jane Austen examines some of the key objects in Austen's life and how they reveal a much more cosmopolitan awareness of the world than is commonly credited to her.

Queue Listen Now

The Book Club Catches 'The Andromeda Strain'

1:08pm January 25, 2013

This month, the book club discusses Michael Crichton's 1969 best-selling science fiction thriller The Andromeda Strain. Writer Richard Preston joins the club to talk about Crichton's writing style, and what it was like to work on Crichton's unfinished final manuscript, Micro.

Queue Listen Now