Books: Literary Review Of Canada – October 2022
Tag Archives: Books
Reviews: ‘The Book Report’ Best Reading For Fall 2022
When Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize in literature last year, most Americans had never read anything by this fascinating author.
Born in 1948 in Tanzania, Gurnah fled to England after the 1964 uprising in Zanzibar. Over the years, he’s written 10 critically-acclaimed novels.
The latest, “Afterlives” (Riverhead), offers an intimate look at village life in East Africa during the period of German colonialism at the start of the 20th century. This is a book that reclaims forgotten history and honors lost people in a way that’s heartbreaking and revelatory.
“Afterlives” by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Riverhead), in Hardcover, Large Print Trade Paperback, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indiebound
Maggie O’Farrell’s novel “Hamnet,” about the death of William Shakespeare’s only son, was one of the best books of 2020.
Now O’Farrell is back with “The Marriage Portrait” (Knopf), a terrific historical thriller that drops us into the panicked mind of a teenage girl who knows her husband is plotting to kill her.
The girl is Lucrezia de’ Medici, immortalized by Robert Browning’s poem, “My Last Duchess.” History tells us she died in 1561 before she could celebrate her first anniversary, but O’Farrell will have you guessing ’til the very last page.
“The Marriage Portrait” by Maggie O’Farrell (Knopf), in Hardcover, Large Print Trade Paperback, eBook and Audio formats, available September 27 via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indiebound
What if Americans elected a narcissistic psychopath to the White House?
Some people might say we’ve already seen what that would be like. But James Patterson’s breathless new thriller, “Blowback” (Little, Brown), takes that scenario to the brink of World War III.
Written with Brendan DuBois, “Blowback” imagines a president determined to defeat America’s enemies once and for all.
A pair of secret agents are honored to help the president’s plan – until they realize he’s about to destroy the country.
“Blowback” by James Patterson and Brendan DuBois (Little, Brown and Company), in Hardcover, Large Print Trade Paperback, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indiebound
Mary Rodgers, who died in 2014, lived her life in the melodies of American musical theater. She was Richard Rodgers’ daughter, composer Adam Guettel’s mother, and Stephen Sondheim’s friend – and she was an accomplished composer and author herself.
Now, all these wonderful stories take center stage in “Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), written with New York Times theater critic Jesse Green.
Through painful relationships and happy ones, disappointments and successes, Rodgers is never anything but candid, forgiving and witty. So, take a seat and let the curtain rise.
“Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers” by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), in Hardcover, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Indiebound
Follow @JesseKGreen on Twitter
Views: American Heritage Magazine – September 2022
Antietam, America’s Bloodiest Day
In September 1862 the South hoped to end the war by invading Maryland just before the mid-term elections. But its hopes were dashed after the bloodiest day in American history. By Justin Martin
Johnstown: “Run For Your Lives!”
In the hills above Johnstown, the old South Fork dam had failed. Down the Little Conemaugh came the torrent, sweeping away everything in its path. By David McCullough
Remembering David McCullough
He became the dean of American historians after learning his craft working for five years on the staff of American Heritage. By Edwin S. Grosvenor
Carving Up the Americas
By artfully illustrating the boundaries of colonial powers, mapmakers in the 1700s helped define what our New World would become. By Neal Asbury, Jean-Pierre Isbouts
Covers: The New Criterion Magazine – October 2022
The New Criterion
October 2022
Affirmative action & the law a symposium
The American affirmative-action regime by Frank Resartus
An agenda for Congress by Gail Heriot
The Voting Rights Act after six decades by James Piereson
Facially neutral, racially biased by Wen Fa & John Yoo
Democracy & the Supreme Court by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
New poems by William Logan, Jessica Hornik & Peter Vertacnik
Books: Kirkus Reviews – September 15, 2022 Issue
An Athlete and Activist Shares His Story With Kids
Here is the truly amazing thing that few people besides Tommie Smith remember about his gold medal–winning 200-meter run in the 1968 Olympics: He broke the world record in just under 20 seconds on one good leg.
‘The Rushdie Affair,’ Back in the News
As we were editing our Sept. 15 issue in mid-August, news broke that author Salman Rushdie had been attacked at a lecture in western New York state. The story sent shock waves through the literary community—a stark reminder that violence can lurk in the corners of literary debate. Rushdie is the author of many works of fiction and nonfiction and is most celebrated for his 1981 novel, Midnight’s Children, a kaleidoscopic epic of Indian life after independence that won the Booker Prize as well as two subsequent honors, the Booker of Bookers in 1993 and the Best of the Booker in 2008.
Covers: New York Review Of Books – October 6, 2022
The October 6 issue is online now, with Bill McKibben on the climate refugee crisis, Hermione Lee on Joseph Roth’s violently mixed feelings, Linda Greenhouse on Justice Breyer’s most powerful dissent, Jerome Groopman on diabetes, Leslie T. Chang on narrative nonfiction in China, Ange Mlinko on H.D., David S. Reynolds on séances in the Lincoln White House, Verlyn Klinkenborg on the Beach Boys’ moment in the sun, Erin Maglaque on the pope’s astronomer, Mark Danner on the long, slow Trump coup, a poem by Vona Groarke, and much more.
Where Will We Live?
Three books on the movement, of both humans and wildlife, spurred by climate change illustrate the magnitude of the challenge before us.
Nowhere Left to Go: How Climate Change Is Driving Species to the Ends of the Earth – by Benjamin von Brackel, translated from the German by Ayça Türkoğlu
Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World – by Gaia Vince
Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism – by Harsha Walia
Poet of the Dispossessed
Joseph Roth was unwavering in his passion for the vanished Austro-Hungarian Empire, which inspired his greatest novel, his hatred of nationalism, and his prophetic and courageous loathing for the Nazis. About everything else, as a new biography shows, he had violently mixed feelings.
Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth – by Keiron Pim
Preview: Times Literary Supplement – Sept 16, 2022
This week’s @TheTLS , featuring @motionandrew, Claire Lowdon and Jane Ridley on Elizabeth II; @MirandaFrance1 on motherhood; @lindseyhilsum on the US’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan; @15thcgossipgirl on sex in the Middle Ages – and more.
Preview: London Review Of Books – Sept 22, 2022
Books: The New York Times Book Review – Sept 11, 2022
9 Books to Read About Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth, famously reticent during her decades in the public eye, was a source of fascination for many. These books offer a deeper understanding of her life, family and world.
Jennifer Egan and the Goon Squad
Ling Ma’s Surreal Subversions
A Global History of Gender, in All Its Varieties
Kit Heyam’s “Before We Were Trans” spans continents and millenniums to prove that where there is humanity, there is nonconformity.
By MEREDITH TALUSAN
Literary Previews: The Paris Review – Fall 2022
The Paris Review Fall 2022 issue—featuring interviews with Helen Garner and Terrance Hayes, fiction by Sam Pink @sampinkisalive and Nancy Lemann, poetry by Ben Lerner, Stephen Ira @supermattachine, and Diane Seuss @dlseuss art by Louise Lawler, and more.
Boomers Daily 