Book Reviews
Zero K
Don DeLillo's latest future-sprawl, cryonic freezing included, doesn't quite know what it most wants to say.
Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts
Donald Barthelme's controlled zaniness helped paved the way for the likes of George Saunders and China Miéville.
The North Water
Ian McGuire's 1859-set whaling detective story captures the 19th-century spirit of Melville and Poe.
The Story of My Teeth
The brilliant and ambitious Mexican Valeria Luiselli tries far too hard in her debut novel.
Mothering Sunday
Graham Swift's latest novel is a morally generous remembrance of a housemaid-turned-author.
Dirty Snow
Georges Simenon's novel of occupied France revels in the squalor that stands for collaboration.
Forty Rooms
Olga Grushin's semi-autobiographical novel weighs in on missed opportunities.
The Seven Madmen
Roberto Arlt's doomsday vision of Buenos Aires in the late 1920s beat the Beat Generation to the punch.
Shyness and Dignity
Dag Solstad's slender novel is a luminously intelligent look at a man's middle age crisis.
This Census-Taker
China Miéville turns too arcane in his latest foray into the Stonehenge-styled surreal.
The Book Staff
The Book Staff consists of a handful of writers who contribute regularly review and a few who chip in from time to time. Names are withheld because books matter more than the names of their reviewers.