A thriller with heart: Hannah Tinti’s “The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley”
A few months ago, I found myself in the bar of a fancy Washington restaurant arguing with one of Ireland's greatest novelists about the importance of plot.
All Stories
Many questions, far fewer answers in “The Schooldays of Jesus”
"The Schooldays of Jesus," Coetzee's new novel, is a sequel to his equally enigmatic book "The Childhood of Jesus" (2013). You can be forgiven for assuming that these novels follow...
Margaret Drabble finds wit and humor where you’d least expect it
Margaret Drabble has written a novel about aging and death, which for American readers should make it as popular as a colostomy bag.
“Lincoln in the Bardo”: Lincoln visits a cemetery in search of better angels
By Ron Charles, The Washington Post In 2014, George Saunders won $67,000 for the first Folio Prize. The long wait for a novel from short-story genius George Saunders is finally...
Review: The abortion debate, through a tragic lens, in Joyce Carol Oates’s “A Book of American Martyrs”
"A Book of American Martyrs" is the most relevant book of Oates's half-century-long career.
Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are back — and all growed up
What are we going to do 鈥檅out Huck Finn? More than 130 years after the publication of Mark Twain鈥檚 masterpiece 鈥� a novel that Hemingway called the beginning of 鈥渁ll...
“Selection Day”: Two brothers and an obsessed dad seek a ticket out of poverty
Although 鈥淪election Day鈥� explores a different species of ambition, Adiga鈥檚 wit and raw sympathy will carry uninitiated readers beyond their ignorance of cricket.
An engineer and a young widow meet cute in 19th century Paris. Will love follow?
In an age when overexposure threatens to sap the magnitude of everything鈥檚 physical presence, the Eiffel Tower is one of those rare treasures that never loses its power to awe.
In “Judas,” Amos Oz wrestles with Jewish attitudes toward Jesus
鈥淛udas,鈥� a new novel by Amos Oz, is a paradox of stillness and provocation. The Israeli author, a long-rumored contender for the Nobel Prize, has reduced the physical action of...
Zadie Smith鈥檚 sweeping novel about friendship, race and class
Madonna? Beyonce? Angelina Jolie? Which pop star inspired Zadie Smith to create the celebrity who bends the universe to her will in 鈥淪wing Time鈥�? But that抖阴ap hardly the most interesting...