Man Booker Prize 2014 Longlist Announced
By KATRIN BENNHOLD
Four Americans — Karen Joy Fowler, Joshua Ferris, Siri Hustvedt and Richard Powers — were among the writers who made the 13-strong list.
Books News & Reviews
Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times
In Catherine Lacey’s novel “Nobody Is Ever Missing,” a woman abruptly flees her life in New York and flies to New Zealand, where she has one surreal encounter after another.
Children's Books
Board Books Roundup II — Family and Other Animals
By SARAH HARRISON SMITH
New board books include Karen Blair’s “Baby Animal Farm” and Yusuke Yonezu’s “Rainbow Chameleon.”
Books of The Times
Coveting Vintage Discs in a Digital Universe
By LARRY ROHTER
“Do Not Sell at Any Price,” by Amanda Petrusich, and “Dust & Grooves,” by Eilon Paz, look at people who are obsessive about collecting old records.
Thomas Berger, ‘Little Big Man’ Author, Is Dead at 89
By CHRISTOPHER LEHMANN-HAUPT and WILLIAM McDONALD
Mr. Berger was known as the author of “Little Big Man” and books that explored the American West, but his body of work was broader than that.
ArtsBeat
Giving Another Debut Author the Colbert Bump
By ALEXANDRA ALTER
Stephen Colbert, whose endorsement of the Hachette author Edan Lepucki, helped sales of her book “California,” has now singled out “Sweetness #9,” by Stephan Eirik Clark.
Books of The Times
‘Lucky Us’
By AMY BLOOM
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
In “Lucky Us,” the novelist Amy Bloom describes the improvised passage through the 1940s by two half sisters, their father and loves.
Curt Gentry, 83, Co-Author of ‘Helter Skelter,’ Dies
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
Mr. Gentry’s books ranged from the Manson murders to J. Edgar Hoover to the madams of San Francisco.
Amazon Unveils E-Book Subscription Service, With Some Notable Absences
By ALEXANDRA ALTER
The Internet retailer is entering a competitive field, but is bundling its audiobook library into the service for a decided edge.
ArtsBeat
The Baffler Puts Its Archive Online
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
The acerbic left-wing magazine has made all of its 25 back issues available online for the first time.
Books of The Times
‘The Mockingbird Next Door’
By MARJA MILLS
Reviewed by DWIGHT GARNER
Marja Mills writes about life in Monroeville, Ala., with Harper Lee, the reclusive author of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Staring at the Flame
By JOHN LE CARRÉ
John le Carré recalls Philip Seymour Hoffman’s intensity in performing the role of a self-destructive German intelligence officer in the film adaptation of his novel “A Most Wanted Man.”
Books of The Times
‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’
By MICHAEL KORYTA
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
In “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” a new Michael Koryta thriller with a fiery backdrop, a boy is on the run after witnessing a murder.
Books of The Times
‘White Beech: The Rainforest Years’
By GERMAINE GREER
Reviewed by DWIGHT GARNER
“White Beech: The Rainforest Years” is Germaine Greer’s personal account of restoring a plot of land in Queensland, Australia.
Nadine Gordimer, Novelist Who Took On Apartheid, Is Dead at 90
By HELEN T. VERONGOS
Ms. Gordimer found her themes in the injustices and cruelties of South Africa’s policies of racial division, and she left no quarter of the society unexplored.
Children's Books
Board Book Roundup: Babies’ Delight
By SARAH HARRISON SMITH
New books include “Little Pear Tree” by Rachel Williams.
James MacGregor Burns, Scholar of Presidents and Leadership, Dies at 95
By BRUCE WEBER
Mr. Burns, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and political scientist, wrote voluminously about the nature of leadership in general and the presidency in particular.
Books of The Times
‘More Curious’
By SEAN WILSEY
Reviewed by MICHIKO KAKUTANI
In “More Curious,” his new essay collection, Sean Wilsey ranges far and wide through America.
A Game as Literary Tutorial
By ETHAN GILSDORF
Dungeons & Dragons, the first commercially available role-playing game that is now 40 years old, influenced numerous writers and taught them the art of storytelling.
Books of The Times
‘Price of Fame’
By SYLVIA JUKES MORRIS
Reviewed by JANET MASLIN
“Price of Fame” is the second volume of Sylvia Jukes Morris’s study of Clare Boothe Luce.
The Working Life
Bookstore Owner Takes On a Union, Shocking a Liberal Bastion
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
The owner of Book Culture bookstores, two Morningside Heights fixtures, stunned customers by firing several workers who had voted to unionize.
Amazon, a Friendly Giant as Long as It’s Fed
By DAVID STREITFELD
Is resistance to Amazon futile in the book publishing world? Its battle with Hachette has many on edge.
P. N. Furbank, Biographer of E. M. Forster, Dies at 94
By BRUCE WEBER
Professor Furbank, who wrote widely, produced an account of Forster’s life that is regarded as one of the 20th century’s best biographies.
Sunday Book Review
Maira Kalman
On Poetry
James Franco, Poet
By DAVID ORR
For all his inclination to wander among callings, James Franco’s interest in poetry is genuine.
‘Falling Out of Time’
By DAVID GROSSMAN. Translated by JESSICA COHEN.
Reviewed by EDWARD HIRSCH
David Grossman’s book in verse is an intimate study of grief and mourning.
‘Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals’
By PATRICIA LOCKWOOD
Reviewed by STEPHEN BURT
Patricia Lockwood’s second poetry collection continues her interrogation of gender, nature and sexuality.
Essay
Sing to Me, O Muse (But Keep It Brief)
By DAVID LEHMAN
Thoughts on the state of poetry in the age of Twitter.
Bill Hader: By the Book
The actor and comedian, a star of the forthcoming “The Skeleton Twins,” likes reading Dostoyevsky: “I didn’t really go to college, which is probably why I enjoy reading the classics.”
‘Friendship’
By EMILY GOULD
Reviewed by KATIE ARNOLD-RATLIFF
Young women grapple with jobs, men and each other in the blogger Emily Gould’s first novel.
‘Fear’
By GABRIEL CHEVALLIER. Translated by MALCOLM IMRIE.
Reviewed by THOMAS KENEALLY
Gabriel Chevallier’s autobiographical novel about serving on the front lines of World War I.
‘Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce’
By SYLVIA JUKES MORRIS
Reviewed by MAUREEN DOWD
A second volume of the life of Clare Boothe Luce: playwright, screenwriter, editor, congresswoman, ambassador and presidential adviser.
‘Midnight in Europe’
By ALAN FURST
Reviewed by CHARLES FINCH
The hero of Alan Furst’s new espionage novel risks his life for the loyalists in the Spanish Civil War.
‘The People’s Platform’
By ASTRA TAYLOR
Reviewed by TIM WU
The Internet was hailed as a digital democracy, but has resulted in inequities and concentrations of power.
‘Bicentennial’
By DAN CHIASSON
Reviewed by DAISY FRIED
Dan Chiasson’s new collection evokes the father he never knew.
‘The Great Glass Sea’
By JOSH WEIL
Reviewed by LARA VAPNYAR
The lives of Russian twins diverge in the post-Soviet years in this first novel.
‘This Blue’
By MAUREEN N. MCLANE
Reviewed by JEFF GORDINIER
From urban pigeons to the Adirondacks, Maureen N. McLane celebrates the intricacies of the natural world.
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Bookends
When It Comes to Fiction About National Tragedy, How Soon Is Too Soon?
Daniel Mendelsohn and Anna Holmes discuss whether there is an appropriate amount of time to wait before turning national tragedy or trauma into art.
Room for Debate
Does Poetry Matter?
Sunday's New York Times Book Review featured several new collections of poems. But does poetry matter? Is it relevant?
Open Book
A Century of Verse
By JOHN WILLIAMS
Will the work of today’s bards age as well as the last century’s best?
Sketchbook | Grant Snider
The Writers’ Retreat
A tour of the aspiration tower, the brainstorm rotunda and other hot spots.
The Shortlist
Y. A. Crossover
By AMY ZILLIAX
New books by Marcus Sedgwick, Marie Rutkoski, Anne Blankman, Melvin Burgess and Sally Green.
Inside The New York Times Book Review Podcast
This week, Sylvia Jukes Morris talks about “Price of Fame”; John Williams and Parul Sehgal talk about the week’s literary news; David Lehman discusses the state of poetry in the age of Twitter; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Pamela Paul is the host.
Book Review Features
Inside the List
By GREGORY COWLES
“The Girls of August,” No. 13 on the hardcover fiction list, is the novelist Anne Rivers Siddons’s 13th best seller.
Paper Gallery
Long Days, Extra Innings
By DANA JENNINGS
New art books include textured dreamscapes by Lee Bontecou and full-size reproductions of Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts.”
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