Book Reviews
Feb. 8, 2011
“Madame Bovary” translated by Lydia Davis
Lydia Davis’s wonderful new translation of Flaubert’s masterpiece *Madame Bovary* feels quite modern.
Tags: featured posts · Flaubert · realism
Oct. 13, 2010
“Next”
James Hynes’s *Next* is the best novel I’ve read in a very long time.
Tags: featured posts · James Hynes
Jun. 30, 2010
Man Out of Time: “The Disenchanted” by Budd Schulberg
In *The Disenchanted,* Budd Schulberg wrote the final act in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tragedy.
Tags: Budd Schulberg · F. Scott Fitzgerald · featured posts · The Disenchanted
May. 31, 2010
“Matterhorn”
“Matterhorn” by Karl Marlantes is original, authentic, and heartfelt. The book of the moment, it is as good as advertised.
Tags: Karl Marlantes · Vietnam
Mar. 23, 2010
“Wolf Hall”
Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning “Wolf Hall” re-imagines Henry VIII’s chief minister and henchman Thomas Cromwell as the true modern man and the sainted Thomas More as a mad, hair-shirted religious zealot.
Tags: featured posts · Hilary Mantel · Wolf Hall
Jan. 26, 2010
“Little Dorrit”: Dickens’ Teeming World
Why modern realism just doesn’t feel like reality.
Tags: Charles Dickens · featured posts · Little Dorrit
Dec. 4, 2009
“Tamburlaine Must Die”
Louise Welsh’s “Tamburlaine Must Die” recounts the final days of the Elizabethan poet Christopher Marlowe, whose murder in 1593 is one of the great unsolved historical mysteries beloved by conspiracy theorists.
Tags: Louise Welsh
Nov. 20, 2009
“This Is Where I Leave You”
“This Is Where I Leave You” by Jonathan Tropper is a terrific novel, smart, raunchy, touching, keenly observed, and very funny.
Tags: Jonathan Tropper
Oct. 16, 2009
“City of Thieves”
David Benioff’s World War II adventure novel “City of Thieves” is a great speed-read. Fast, smart, cinematic.
Tags: David Benioff
Jul. 17, 2009
The Definitive Boston Crime Novel: “The Friends of Eddie Coyle”
“The Friends of Eddie Coyle” is my favorite crime novel, a lean, gritty story set in a Boston that has long since vanished.
