Salon Directory › b › Book reviews (1915 stories)

Book reviews

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Why Ronald Reagan didn't completely suck
In "The Age of Reagan," liberal historian Sean Wilentz reckons with the enormous, ongoing influence of the teflon president.
By Louis Bayard May 13, 2008
Is everything we know about American history wrong?
Forget the Pilgrims. America's roots are older and more twisted, what Tony Horwitz calls a "primordial slime of false starts and mutations."
By Louis Bayard May 9, 2008
"The Rabbi's Cat"
A graphic novel celebrates a lost Algerian-Jewish way of life and wonders what it means to live as a person of faith in a world that doesn't share it.
By Douglas Wolk May 7, 2008
Hospital, USA
This fascinating portrait of a Brooklyn, N.Y., hospital is about much more than white coats and beeping consoles -- it's 21st-century America in a microcosm.
By Laura Miller May 6, 2008
Ursula K. Le Guin celebrates early Rome
The unlikely heroine of "Lavinia" leaps out of the Aeneid and brings an ancient culture -- deeply bound by "duty, order and justice" -- to life.
By Laura Miller May 1, 2008
Flagging America's racial divide
An infamous 1976 photo captured a violent encounter between white Bostonians and a black lawyer during an anti-busing rally. A new book explains why this image continues to haunt and define us.
By Louis Bayard Apr 28, 2008
Tangled up in Dylan
Suze Rotolo, the musician's first muse, has written an entertaining memoir about their love affair that is also a remarkable portrait of living and making art in the 1960s.
By Stephanie Zacharek Apr 26, 2008
The witty detective
Karen Joy Fowler's follow-up to bestseller "The Jane Austen Book Club" is a detective novel about a mystery writer whose tales come back to haunt her.
By Louis Bayard Apr 18, 2008
Criminals of the world, unite and take over
In "McMafia," author Misha Glenny takes us on a startling tour of the new international underworld, documenting the hidden costs of an unregulated global free market.
By Laura Miller Apr 16, 2008
King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Rob Neyer's latest "Big Book" debunks some baseball legends and confirms a few, all without spoiling the fun.
By King Kaufman Apr 16, 2008
Where have all the bohemians gone?
Richard Florida has made a career out of explaining the economic importance of the creative class. His latest book is a field guide to their moving and mating habits.
By James Hannaham Apr 11, 2008
Sins of the mothers
Jonathan Coe's graceful new novel is the tale of daughters destined to repeat the failures of their mothers.
By Laura Miller Apr 10, 2008
Through a bong, darkly
A new book argues that the '60s counterculture achieved nothing of lasting importance. So why does the era continue to fascinate us?
By Gary Kamiya Apr 9, 2008
How "Slaughterhouse Five" was born
Kurt Vonnegut's new posthumous collection reveals the seeds of a modern masterpiece.
By Steve Almond Apr 7, 2008
Can Stephen Colbert save America?
A new book argues that Colbert, Jon Stewart and Bill Maher are good for democracy. But is it taking late-night comedy too seriously?
By Louis Bayard Apr 5, 2008
Terror and loathing
Martin Amis may not know much about Islam and 9/11, but he knows what he hates.
By Laura Miller Apr 2, 2008
Seduced by the Dalai Lama
He may be a global icon of goodness, as Pico Iyer's biography reminds us. But is the Dalai Lama the political leader Tibet needs?
By Louis Bayard Mar 25, 2008
Panic in the pages
Did comic books -- and the firestorm they touched off in the 1950s -- do more than rock 'n' roll to create the generation gap?
By Laura Miller Mar 24, 2008
Writing through the rubble
While clouds of destruction hang over Iraq, a set of new books sheds light on how America bungled the war, and on the hope that lingers in small Iraqi towns.
By Salon staff Mar 21, 2008
Guerrillas rise up in Nazi-occupied Britain
A haunting new alternative history imagines an invading German army living alongside the natives in rural Wales.
By Laura Miller Mar 18, 2008
The rise of the superclass
Are Bill Clinton, Rupert Murdoch, the pope and Osama bin Laden part of a new global power elite that may make traditional governments obsolete?
By Laura Miller Mar 14, 2008
Richard Price's criminal intelligence
"Lush Life," Price's latest tour of down-low urban America, is an acute portrait of the Darwinian adaptations required to survive in our city jungles.
By Richard B. Woodward Mar 10, 2008
Die, Daddy, die!
After a lifetime of competing with his father, writer David Shields has had enough. But the aged patriarch remains "cussedly, maddeningly alive."
By Louis Bayard Mar 4, 2008
The unlikeliest gangbanger
A Grateful Dead-loving sociology student wormed his way into a Chicago gang -- and then stuck around to write a compelling portrait of life in the projects.
By Laura Miller Feb 28, 2008
War goes graphic
"Age of Bronze," a masterly graphic novel series about the Trojan War, is fit for the gods.
By Douglas Wolk Feb 21, 2008
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Salon Directory › b › Book reviews (1915 stories)

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