Book Reviews

In his new book, Stephen Greenblatt argues that the world wouldn't be the same without the story of Adam and Eve — the primal narrative that shapes how we think about almost everything.

In Nicole Krauss' new novel, two characters move to Israel in search of fresh starts. But this strained tale of midlife crisis takes some odd turns and never quite coheres.

Franklin Foer's new book on the collision of technology and democracy is heavily informed by his unhappy 2014 departure from The New Republic, after its takeover by Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes.

Danielle Kurtzleben says Clinton's tale about her losing 2016 campaign reads like the unburdening of a woman relieved to finally, without interruption, tell her side of a story everyone already knows.

Deborah Campbell's A Disappearance in Damascus is both a taut detective story and an intimate account of friendship during war — and that's before our reviewer discovered her own part in the story.

In Gorbachev: His Life and Times, biographer William Taubman makes a convincing case that the former Soviet leader's decency — the word appears throughout the book — is key to understanding him.

The fabulously louche social scene of the mid-century French Riviera — where socialites and stars mixed with the likes of Winston Churchill — comes alive again in Mary S. Lovell's The Riviera Set.

Michael Sims' anthology of Victorian science fiction explores the way Mary Shelley's classic novel Frankenstein fit the nervous energy of the 19th century, and shaped the genre that came after it.

Having watched many colleagues attacked for speaking up, gamer Latoya Peterson offers a deeply personal review "I applaud Quinn for ... accepting that she is messy, imperfect, and, well: Human."