Colum McCann Wins National Book Award
By MOTOKO RICH
Colum McCann won for his novel “Let the Great World Spin,” while T.J. Stiles won in the nonfiction category.
Peter Rigaud
Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer uses his literary gifts to give the reader some very visceral, very gruesome descriptions of factory farming and the slaughterhouse.
ArtsBeat Blog
Voters Choose Flannery O’Connor in National Book Award Poll
By DAVE ITZKOFF
In an online poll, Flannery O’Connor’s “Complete Stories” was voted the best work to have won the National Book Award for fiction in the contest’s 60-year history.
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Library Leader in Era of Change to Step Down
By PATRICIA COHEN
Paul LeClerc announced that he would step down as president of the New York Public Library in 2011.
Books of The Times
'The Imperial Cruise'
By JAMES BRADLEY
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
This incendiary new book angrily and persuasively connects Theodore Roosevelt’s noxious racial views to his foreign policy miscalculations in Asia.
Newly Released Books
By AMY VIRSHUP
Fiction by Penelope Lively, Ha Jin, Lauren Grodstein, Charles Cumming, Paul Auster and Jim Kokoris.
ArtsBeat Blog
F.B.I. Kept File on Studs Terkel
By DAVE ITZKOFF
While Studs Terkel was following around musicians, baseball players and other hardworking Americans in the course of his journalistic duties, it turns out that Mr. Terkel was being followed himself.
ArtsBeat Blog
Book Award Conflict of Interest Charge
By MOTOKO RICH
A blogger and former book review editor has questioned whether one of the judges on the panel that will select the award for Young People’s Literature has a conflict of interest.
Books of The Times
'The Gift of Thanks'
By MARGARET VISSER
Reviewed by DWIGHT GARNER
A scholarly, many-angled examination of what gratitude is and how it functions in our lives.
Cellphone Apps Challenge the Rise of E-Readers
By MOTOKO RICH and BRAD STONE
Some readers prefer the convenience of small-screen smartphones to e-readers.
The Pour
An Invitation to Read, Sniff and Taste
By ERIC ASIMOV
Six new books about wine can help the reader to better understand what’s in the glass.
Books of The Times
'Evening’s Empire'
By ZACHARY LAZAR
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
Though Ed Lazar’s younger son, Zachary, did not know his father well, he has written a pungent-sounding but maddeningly vague book about Ed’s murder.
In Fleury’s Memoir, Rangers Years Are a ‘Nightmare’
By JEFF Z. KLEIN
With its revelations of sexual abuse and details of substance abuse, Theo Fleury’s memoir has rocked the hockey world as surely as Andre Agassi’s recent memoir rocked tennis.
Sunday Book Review
'What the Dog Saw'
By MALCOLM GLADWELL
Reviewed by STEVEN PINKER
The themes of this collection are a good way to characterize the author himself: a minor genius who unwittingly demonstrates the hazards of statistical reasoning.
'The Original of Laura'
By VLADIMIR NABOKOV
Reviewed by DAVID GATES
The unfinished “Original of Laura” comes ready for devotees to read and remix.
'The Humbling'
By PHILIP ROTH
Reviewed by KATHRYN HARRISON
Philip Roth’s novel stars an aging actor who can no longer act.
'Lit: A Memoir'
By MARY KARR
Reviewed by SUSAN CHEEVER
Mary Karr’s third memoir layers the pangs of recovery with those of motherhood, divorce and making art.
'The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling'
By PETER ACKROYD
Reviewed by HAROLD BLOOM
Chaucer’s lusty pilgrims return in a Modern English incarnation.
'My Paper Chase'
By HAROLD EVANS
Reviewed by DAVID CARR
In his new memoir, Harold Evans recalls an exuberant run in 20th-century journalism.
'Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker'
By JAMES MCMANUS
Reviewed by ROBERT PINSKY
James McManus explores the characteristically American history of poker.
'The Ground Truth'
By JOHN FARMER
Reviewed by JACOB HEILBRUNN
Reconstructing officials’ false and ineffectual responses to 9/11.
Books About the Credit Crisis
Reviewed by PAUL M. BARRETT
The story of 2008’s crash, and an effort to size up the problem.
'Nothing Was the Same: A Memoir'
By KAY REDFIELD JAMISON
Reviewed by MICHAEL GREENBERG
The professor of psychiatry who discussed her own manic depression in “An Unquiet Mind” revisits her husband’s death from cancer.
'Invisible'
By PAUL AUSTER
Reviewed by CLANCY MARTIN
In Paul Auster’s latest novel, the protagonist indulges passions new and forbidden.
'Cockroach'
By RAWI HAGE
Reviewed by MARY GAITSKILL
A fictional metamorphosis conveys what it means to be alien.
'The Rags of Time'
By MAUREEN HOWARD
Reviewed by JESS ROW
In the autumnal novel of Maureen Howard’s cycle of seasons, an 80-something narrator shares her inner Manhattan.
A Conversation With Andre Agassi
The tennis great talks candidly about his life on and off the court with Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of the Book Review.
Best Sellers
Books of The Times
'Going Rogue: An American Life'
By SARAH PALIN
Reviewed by MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Sarah Palin’s new book is part cagey spin job and part earnest autobiography. Its most compelling sections deal not with politics, but with her life in Alaska.
Milestones: Sarah PalinEssay
Mau-Mauing the Flesh Eaters
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
Jonathan Safran Foer is just the latest in a long line of distinguished literary vegetarians.
Crime
Death’s Hit Man
By MARILYN STASIO
Mystery novels by Stuart Neville, Derek Nikitas and Susan Kandel; and collections of crime fiction set in Boston and Pheonix.
Book Review Podcast
Featuring the tennis great Andre Agassi on his memoir, “Open,” and Stephen King on a new biography of the short story writer Raymond Carver.
Book Review Podcast: Andre Agassi and Stephen King
November 20, 2009,
Stray Questions for: Jennifer Gilmore
November 20, 2009,
Malcolm Gladwell Responds to Steven Pinker
November 19, 2009
TBR
Inside the List
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
It’s not even Thanksgiving, and some Christmas-related books are already creeping up the list and Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel, “The Lacuna,” enters the hardcover fiction list at No. 5.
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