A compendium of notable reviews
by Kat Warren
» “A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould’s Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano” by Katie Hafner
from Salon
“A piano, a piano tuner and his insane client.”
» “Telex from Cuba” by Rachel Kushner
from The New York Times Book Rview
This “novel [is] a dreamy, sweet-tart meditation on a vanished way of life and a failed attempt to make the world over in America’s image. Out of tropical rot, Kushner has fashioned a story that will linger like a whiff of decadent Colony perfume.”
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A compendium of notable reviews
by Kat Warren
>> “Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West” by Deanne Stillman
from The Los Angeles Times
“One cannot read Mustang ... without realizing there is no way to even consider the history of the American West without first considering the horse.”
>> “Mustang” by Deanne Stillman
from The Economist
Meanwhile, it takes a UK reviewer to show Stillman’s book is an obituary-in-advance of a species.
>> “Breath” by Tim Winton
from The Washington Post
Reviewer Carolyn See is pretty much gobsmacked by Winton’s latest novel, which she pronounces stunning.
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A compendium of notable reviews
by Kat Warren
>> “The Kiss and Other Stories” by Anton Chekhov
from The Independent
Julian Evans scooped up this book in a secondhand bookshop and wonders why anyone ever would part with it; “the book of a lifetime” he proclaims.
>> “The Sea of Poppies” by Amitav Ghosh
from The Financial Times
The reviewer notes flaws “but Poppies remains a hugely absorbing and enjoyable book. It is observant, intelligent and passionately written, and deserves to be placed on the same shelf as such masterpieces of anti-Imperial fiction as Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda and Barry Unsworth’s Sacred Hunger.”
>> “Supercapitalism” by Robert Reich
from The Australian
“Robert Reich, one of the more readable economists, believes both capitalism and democracy would work better if we stopped pretending the two are somehow connected.”
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A compendium of notable reviews
by Kat Warren
>> “Phallic Frenzy, Ken Russell and His Films” by Joseph Lanza
from The London Times
“This delightful biography of the eccentric British film director could be the most fun you’ll have with a book this summer.”
>> “Slumberland” by Paul Beatty
from The Los Angeles Times
“An L.A. disc jockey leaves white America for what he believes is a more tolerant Berlin but instead finds a city with its own historical baggage.”
>> “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle” by David Wroblewski
from The Chicago Tribune
Bruce Olds, a sometime Rvillian, loves this debut novel even unto its modest flaws “diminish[ing] the incandescent power of a novel that can only be declared a critical success. Is it not, after all, the blemish in beauty that most enchants us?”
Continue reading "The Week in Reviews" »
A compendium of notable reviews
by Kat Warren
>> “Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939” by Katie Roiphe
from The London Times Book Review
Roiphe “succeeds triumphantly” in her gifted examination of the unconventional marriages of Rebecca West and H.G. Wells, Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry, Elizabeth von Arnim and John Francis Russell, Vanessa and Clive Bell, Ottoline and Philip Morrell, Radclyffe Hall and Una Troubridge, Vera Brittain and George Catlin. I lust after this tome.
>> “The Legend of Colton T. Bryant” by Alexandra Fuller
from The New York Times Book Review
“[W]hew boy, can Alexandra Fuller write.”
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A compendium of notable reviews
by Kat Warren
>> “The Enchantress of Florence” by Salman Rushdie
from The Los Angeles Times
Amy Wilentz says that for some “the winks of brilliance” may suffice, but overall “[t]he writer bumbles and fumbles, and finally the reader crumbles.”
>> “The Garden of Last Days” by Andre Dubus III
from The Boston Globe
John Dufresne says up front this isn’t a feel-good novel but it is “storytelling of the finest kind: unforgettable and desperate characters caught up in a plot thundering toward catastrophe.”
>> “Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science” by Richard Preston
from The Denver Post
Preston writes “movingly about a wild menagerie of brilliant mathematical geniuses who are able to obliterate their own time and space while chasing obscure truths about the universe.” I can’t wait to get my hands on this collection of essays!
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A compendium of notable reviews
by Kat Warren
>> “Dear American Airlines” by Jonathan Miles
from The Chicago Tribune
You might call this a just-in-time novel considering American’s latest luggage announcement.
>> “Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population” by Matthew Connelly
from The Economist
“The road to controlling population growth in the 20th century was paved with good intentions and unpleasant policies that did not work.”
>> “The Secret Scripture” by Sebastian Barry
from The Guardian
“Joseph O’Connor is impressed by Sebastian Barry’s lyrical and energetic novel of troubled Irish memories.” [O’Connor is Sinéad's brother.]
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A compendium of notable reviews
by Kat Warren
>> “The End of Food” by Paul Roberts
from The New Yorker
Is the world’s food system collapsing?
>> “Netherland” by Joseph O’Neill
from The New York Times Book Review
Dwight Garner pronounces this “the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we’ve yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell.”
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