Mysteries and thrillers aren’t just a form of escapism. Crime fiction can also offer valuable insights into the state of the world, mirroring the societal anxieties and power dynamics at work today.
Every highbrow hack, as Evelyn Waugh described Cyril Connolly, is apt to experience an embarrassment of riches when it comes to recommending books for the beach and other seasonal retreats from workaday life. Surveying the bookcase and its shelf of recent titles, this year is very much of a kind
The National Book Award winner smuggles profound reflections on pain and loss into novels of deceptive lightness. A report by Wyatt Mason for The New York Times. We began outside on Adirondack chairs still heavy with dew, the 72-year-old American novelist Sigrid Nunez preferring the shade. It was a cloudless morning in mid-August in Middlebury, Vt.,…
Confession: I'd never read Willa Cather before reviewing this book. Always meant to, just never got around to it. My knowledge was mostly limited to: She wrote about the Midwest a long time ago and became well-known later in life.
Fortunately, Cather expertise isn't a prerequisite for reading "Ch