Salon.com > Salon's critics http://www.salon.com Sun, 19 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 What to read http://www.salon.com/2005/10/01/wtr_12/ http://www.salon.com/2005/10/01/wtr_12/#comments Sat, 01 Oct 2005 21:14:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/10/01/wtr Finally, autumn is here! Out with the heat and the muggy afternoons, in with the crisp. The leaves haven't quite started to turn, but the air has cooled -- and nights are downright chilly. Soon, we'll be pulling blankets out of closets and comforters up to our chins; pouring hot tea instead of iced. And what better to pair with a steaming mug than a great new novel.

The first crop of fall fiction offers a stunning variety of choices. Whether you're in the mood for an academic comedy hinged on two rival art scholars (Zadie Smith's "On Beauty"), a slightly fantastic, genre-bending collection of short stories (Tim Powers' "Strange Itineraries"), a hypnotic Civil War narrative (E.L. Doctorow's "The March"), or the spare, sad tale of a man's recovery after a dramatic accident (J.M Coetzee's "Slow Man"), there's something for you in this mix. Not to mention pigs (Kelly Fitzgerald's wild and charming "Pigtopia"), the flu (Myla Goldberg's accomplished and daring "Wickett's Remedy"), and trickster gods (Neil Gaiman's wonderful "Anansi Boys").

So, don't despair that summer has come to an end. In fact, look forward to the coming cold, and the excuse to stay inside. We promise, too, that there will be even more inspiring fiction to come in this season -- so get reading! With any of these picks, you're assured a delicious indoor afternoon.

Our first pick: From the author of "White Teeth," an academic comedy, a riff on E.M. Forster and a catalog of human folly

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/10/01/wtr_12/feed/ 0 What to read http://www.salon.com/2005/06/24/wtr_10/ http://www.salon.com/2005/06/24/wtr_10/#comments Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:24:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/06/24/wtr Earlier in the summer we recommended some of the smartest, most entertaining summer reading for this season. Then, we decided to highlight some of the great classics out there, still waiting to be tackled. Well, there's even more! This month delivered such a trove of great novels that we couldn't pass up the opportunity to let you in on some of our favorites -- including an ambitious adventure in genre cross-pollination, two novels set during WWII, and a savvy movie business almost-tell-all.

So, peruse, savor, print out the list below -- we can promise you'll find plenty to tote along to the beach, or savor on a (hopefully) rare rainy summer afternoon.

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"Specimen Days" by Michael Cunningham
Walt Whitman haunts this triptych novel from the author of "The Hours," which raises historical fiction, the detective story and science fiction to the status of literature.
Reviewed by Laura Miller

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/06/24/wtr_10/feed/ 0 What to Read http://www.salon.com/2005/05/06/wtr_9/ http://www.salon.com/2005/05/06/wtr_9/#comments Fri, 06 May 2005 14:47:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/05/06/wtr Spring has definitely arrived, and summer's on the way. It might be a little early to start packing your beach bag, but it's the perfect time to grab a book and spend one of May's sunnier afternoons in the park or on your patio, soaking up a great story along with the rays. Or, if you're stuck with a weekend filled with spring rain, what could be better than staying in bed with a good book?

We recommended a handful of novels for your early spring reading, and here are a few more to carry you into the warmer months. Laura Miller suggests a novel that visits our favorite sleuth on Baker Street; Andrew O'Hehir raves about a strange tale of a secretive boarding school in the English countryside; Hillary Frey speaks up for a tangled New York story involving a confused fashion model and a middle-aged doctor; and Rebecca Traister puts in a vote for an ambitious first novel about a big, crazy Midwestern family.

It's a mix, but we like it that way. There's something for everyone in this spring bouquet.

Our first pick: A lovely work of literary fiction offers a look at a beloved detective in his later years, as he struggles to hold on to his very identity

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/05/06/wtr_9/feed/ 0 What to Read http://www.salon.com/2005/03/30/wtr_8/ http://www.salon.com/2005/03/30/wtr_8/#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/03/30/wtr Spring is here! Sure, for many of us it's still too cold to go out without a coat, but at least the crocuses are poking their heads out and the daffodils are crowding out the evergreens at our local greenmarket. Soon it will be time to shed the scarves, dust off the hiking boots, unpack the picnic basket. Change is a-coming, and it's in the air. It's all we can do to wait out the rest of winter.

Thankfully, besides the rain and occasional dust of snow, March has also brought with it a handful of absorbing novels. We've already written about the three accomplished, much-discussed 9/11-themed novels that came out this month; here are four more we liked, all offering truly eccentric narratives and new perspectives. From an off-kilter Icelandic saga to an alcoholic's ode to the drink, to a hilarious English comedy of social climbing gone awry, and an unlikely neo-Nazi romance, these four books are sure to keep you absorbed. And if the weather clears up this weekend, they'll also travel well with a picnic.

Our first pick: In a throwback to the 19th century social novel, the drama centers on an improbable romance between a skinhead and a soccer mom who works for a Holocaust survivor

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/03/30/wtr_8/feed/ 0 What to Read: The 9/11 novels http://www.salon.com/2005/03/20/911_novels/ http://www.salon.com/2005/03/20/911_novels/#comments Sun, 20 Mar 2005 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/03/20/911_novels By fluke or design, novels that address the attacks of Sept. 11 are suddenly popping up on bookshelves, three years after the fact. Naturally, this sudden deluge has given rise to all sorts of worried and contradictory questions: What took so long? Has it really been long enough? Can fiction redress the wounds of that day? Are we ready to even try? Is it even possible to write a novel about 9/11 that is actually good?

The answer, at least to the last question, is yes. The three heavyweight titles in the arena this season -- Ian McEwan's "Saturday," Jonathan Safran Foer's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," and Frederic Beigbeder's "Windows on the World" -- entertained us, made us cry, and brought us a little closer to an emotional reckoning with the day the twin towers fell.

Our first pick: The story of a middle-aged man seeking his moral compass in the post-9/11 world

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/03/20/911_novels/feed/ 0 What to Read http://www.salon.com/2005/02/23/wtr_7/ http://www.salon.com/2005/02/23/wtr_7/#comments Wed, 23 Feb 2005 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/02/23/wtr We're not sure who designated February as the month of surprises, but every new release we've picked up recently has been filled with them. Not that we're complaining. What could be better for the last month of winter than to be an armchair discoverer, charting new and exciting territory in the dreariest looking places?

Each of the five recommend books herein has given us something unexpected; whether it be an alternate reality that seems more true than real life, or the discovery that there are still exciting stories to be told about suburbia. Even the overextended category of World War II novels gets a fresh and exciting entry with a tale of Italian resistance to Nazism. And in a debut novel that we almost missed because it was so small, we found some impressively strong storytelling.

So pull up a comfy chair, put up your feet, and take out your compass. We promise you won't regret it.

Our first pick: Reality TV takes an insane and resolutely un-p.c. turn, with hilarious results

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/02/23/wtr_7/feed/ 0 What to Read http://www.salon.com/2005/01/24/wtr_6/ http://www.salon.com/2005/01/24/wtr_6/#comments Mon, 24 Jan 2005 08:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/01/24/wtr As frost clings stubbornly to our windows and we continue to shake off the residual lethargy from the holidays, there seems no better plan than to curl up with some good fiction. But January is also a month of impatience -- we have new year's resolutions to put into effect, after all -- and very little of this month's offerings held our attention for long. Nonetheless, four books kept us stuck in their pages, leaving the bills unpaid and the gym clothes unused.

At first glance, these pickings look a little similar -- all are by men, three of them British, and their protagonists are outsiders in one respect or another. But on closer inspection, they offer a broad range of reading experiences, and take us all over the world in the process. We start with a hitchhiker in Eastern Europe and move along to coming-of-age youth in Thailand, take a tour of married life in suburban England with a dead man and then bounce willy-nilly around the world with the selfish and unfaithful. After all, we thought, if we're going to be stuck inside for the winter, we might as well give our fictional legs some good exercise.

Our first pick: A cynical, sullen young man hitches a ride with a book smuggler and finds himself in an Eastern European dystopia

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2005/01/24/wtr_6/feed/ 0 What to Read http://www.salon.com/2004/09/02/wtr_5/ http://www.salon.com/2004/09/02/wtr_5/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2004 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/09/02/wtr Summer isn't over for another three weeks, right? We all know that's not really true, except to the calendar. After this weekend, work and life, even in the book biz, assume a newly frenzied urgency. So we thought we'd grab a moment, before you head to the beach or the lake for Labor Day, and call your attention to some of the summer's best fiction, both books the other critics have missed and some they haven't.

David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" might be the summer's big book, as our Laura Miller reports. An uncategorizable blend of dystopian sci-fi, Herman Melville and James Joyce, it's also -- like all the books we review this month -- an endlessly intriguing literary puzzle. Michelle de Kretser's "The Hamilton Case" spins a tale of a Ceylonese Sherlock Holmes and the devolution of his violent, schizophrenic nation, while Arthur Phillips' "The Egyptologist" manages to combine a detective story with the glamorous field of ancient Egyptian archaeology.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2004/09/02/wtr_5/feed/ 0 What to Read http://www.salon.com/2004/07/07/wtr_4/ http://www.salon.com/2004/07/07/wtr_4/#comments Wed, 07 Jul 2004 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/07/07/wtr Summer isn't just a-comin' in -- it's here. Whether you're in the swampy East or the sizzling West -- and even if you're fortunate enough to be someplace cooler, like with your tootsies right in the ocean -- we hope that means lazy days and lots of time to read new fiction.

We didn't exactly look for beach reading for this special summer edition of What to Read, but we did want vacation-friendly books that would nonetheless remind you that you had a brain, and can sometimes use it. We wound up with a mix of the high-impact titles of the season, like Irish novelist Colm Tóibín's "The Master" and bestselling wunderkind Alex Garland's "The Coma," and some gems other reviewers mostly seemed to miss, including paperback first novels from Stephen Policoff and Andrea Seigel that you won't want to miss.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2004/07/07/wtr_4/feed/ 0 Page turners with a brain http://www.salon.com/2004/05/29/summer_8/ http://www.salon.com/2004/05/29/summer_8/#comments Sat, 29 May 2004 20:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/05/29/summer Readers of America, you have a choice. Although you wouldn't know it to look at many of the titles jostling for slots on the bestseller lists, there's no law dictating that if you want a book with an irresistible, crackerjack plot you also have to put up with crappy writing and tissue-paper-thin characters. Sure, millions of people proved themselves willing to choke down Dan Brown's clunky prose in order to crack "The Da Vinci Code" (proof positive that everyone loves a good conspiracy theory), but why suffer if you don't have to?

Page turners can be smart, as in really smart, and not just the pseudo-intelligence of the reviewers' current darling, "The Rule of Four," by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. With that novel, we were promised Donna Tartt meets Umberto Eco, and instead we got way too much turgid maundering on undergraduate life at Princeton and way too little of the fascinating real-life Renaissance book supposedly at the story's center. Nowhere is it written that smart books must also be overwritten and difficult to follow, either. The hardest thing, after all, is to make it go down easy.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2004/05/29/summer_8/feed/ 0 What to read http://www.salon.com/2004/04/15/wtr_3/ http://www.salon.com/2004/04/15/wtr_3/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2004 08:48:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2004/04/15/wtr Spring fever doesn't usually propel people into bookstores, but this season is one time to make an exception. Whether you prefer to read about people near (say, your suburban neighborhood or the next one over, as depicted by Tom Perrotta) or far (on another continent in another time, courtesy of Zakes Mda), we've found fiction to scratch your readerly itch. The end of winter also makes an excellent time to sink into a good, if not exactly old-fashioned, tale of redemption despite impossible odds, and two small presses have allowed Stephen Elliott to provide just that. So before you head out to shop for new lawn chairs or sandals, put one or two of these new titles on your list, too.

Our first pick: A young man miraculously survives the loss of his parents, a brutal group home and an abusive girlfriend with his soul intact

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2004/04/15/wtr_3/feed/ 0 What to Read http://www.salon.com/2004/03/08/wtr_2/ http://www.salon.com/2004/03/08/wtr_2/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2004 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/03/08/wtr Has spring sprung where you live? Between the spitting sleet, the tantalizing patches of sunshine and the slowly lengthening evenings, it's starting to tempt us outside. But after night falls we're staying in, warmed by a plethora of literary delights somewhere between the weighty tomes of winter and the page-turners of beach season, not so far off now.

This month's winds have blown us an exceptionally good, and exceptionally diverse, selection. Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, one of those quiet but consistent literary writers whose reputation ought to be bigger than it is, weighs in with a juicy saga of beauty and cruelty in samurai-era Japan, maybe her finest book yet. Britain's Hanif Kureishi, whose era-defining 1991 "The Buddha of Suburbia" remains one of our favorites, is back with a creepy little fable of genetic engineering and what havoc it might wreak.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2004/03/08/wtr_2/feed/ 0 What to Read http://www.salon.com/2004/02/05/what_to_read/ http://www.salon.com/2004/02/05/what_to_read/#comments Thu, 05 Feb 2004 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/review/2004/02/05/what_to_read With most of the country locked in a midwinter freeze for weeks now, and spring seeming like nothing more than a distant figment of a groundhog's dream, what could keep you warmer than a shot of testosterone? No, seriously, it's pure accident that our roundup of the season's best fiction is so heavily weighted toward the whiskey, cigars and gunpowder demographic that, well, there aren't any women on the list at all.

We promise to remedy this deficiency in future installments (as many, many people are reminding the New York Times editors right now, the majority of fiction buyers and many of the country's finest writers are female), but we decided simply to roll with it this time around. This is a season for robust narrative, by gum, not for namby-pamby political correctness.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2004/02/05/what_to_read/feed/ 0 What to read http://www.salon.com/2003/06/12/june/ http://www.salon.com/2003/06/12/june/#comments Thu, 12 Jun 2003 19:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2003/06/12/june Rest assured, we understand the problem: long sultry days on the beach or the porch and seemingly longer stints in coffin-size airplane seats make crackerjack storytelling a necessity in summer books. We, too, look askance at book review editors who swear they read the same things during the summer as they do all year 'round, and wonder what "Gulag" is doing on the New York Times Book Review's list of recommended summer reading. But the quest for page-turning momentum shouldn't force readers to put up with crummy writing and cardboard characters, the kind of books that, like a jumbo bag of potato chips, feel good going down but leave you feeling gross afterward. Why should we have to resort to Michael Crichton or Danielle Steel in search of the common reader's perennial request, a good story?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2003/06/12/june/feed/ 0 What to read in May http://www.salon.com/2003/05/27/fiction_reviews/ http://www.salon.com/2003/05/27/fiction_reviews/#comments Tue, 27 May 2003 19:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2003/05/27/fiction_reviews It's been 18 years since "The Handmaid's Tale," and while Margaret Atwood fans have had their hands full with her historical dramas and devastating, dead-on portraits of female cruelty, chances are they'll be eager for the novelist's return to futuristic fiction. "Oryx and Crake" isn't one of Atwood's best, but it's one of May's most promising acts. (And hopefully, the novel will help while away these lingering, oddly cold spring days until summer finally comes.)

Atwood's ominous tale of genetic engineering is as dark as May gets. We also recommend Thomas Berger's 22nd book, "Best Friends," a social comedy about a friendship gone sour and the inevitable outstanding debts two pals have to pay. A collection of delicate stories set in Venice, Italy, from newcomer Jane Turner Rylands, turns out to be surprisingly satisfying. And perhaps one of the month's biggest hits, "Getting Mother's Body" -- yes, as in corpse, only this one supposedly has jewels buried with it -- comes from "Topdog/ Underdog" playwright Suzan-Lori Parks.

Our first pick: In Margaret Atwood's latest, her hero is the last man on earth

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2003/05/27/fiction_reviews/feed/ 0 What to read in January http://www.salon.com/2003/01/17/fiction_intro_11/ http://www.salon.com/2003/01/17/fiction_intro_11/#comments Fri, 17 Jan 2003 23:34:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2003/01/17/fiction_intro January is a dreary month, full of dutiful resolutions and post-holiday ennui, but if one of your vows is to read more, here's a batch of books that will make fulfilling it a pleasure. After a year-end crop of lightweight gift titles, the January releases tend to be meaty, the sort of books that make you think about who you are, where you're going and what life is all about, anyway.

If you want adventure when you settle into your reading chair, dive into a new novel about the Lewis and Clark expedition. If you prefer a heady mixture of sex, art and high drama, there's a fictionalized version of the life of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Richard Price goes back to the mean streets of Dempsy, N.J., to spin a gripping tale and to ask what it means to live a virtuous life. And if you've envisioned your New Year's reading as more of a small-screen affair, then Nicholson Baker's latest exploration of the big thoughts that spring from small things may be just the ticket.

Our first pick: In this novel about the Lewis and Clark expedition, Lewis is a haunted man half in love with his partner

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2003/01/17/fiction_intro_11/feed/ 0 What to read in December http://www.salon.com/2002/12/05/fiction_intro_10/ http://www.salon.com/2002/12/05/fiction_intro_10/#comments Thu, 05 Dec 2002 23:11:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2002/12/05/fiction_intro You might think the deep midwinter is prime reading season, when most people would love nothing more than to dive under a warm blanket with a good book. But publishers figure we're too busy with holiday activities, and so the December pickings are usually very sparse indeed. Nevertheless, we've managed to ferret out a handful of gems chosen from both the November and the December offerings, novels to make the long nights seem short, or at least to make you glad they're long! (And for the really long ones, we also recommend Donna Tartt's "The Little Friend.")

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2002/12/05/fiction_intro_10/feed/ 0 What to read in October http://www.salon.com/2002/10/10/fiction_intro_9/ http://www.salon.com/2002/10/10/fiction_intro_9/#comments Thu, 10 Oct 2002 22:56:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2002/10/10/fiction_intro It's not every month that an abundance of really terrific fiction falls into your lap like ripe fruit. This October, for instance -- the peak of the harvest season, strangely enough -- definitely wasn't one of those months. We opened several volumes with keen anticipation only to find our enthusiasm flagging less than halfway through. We took a pass on new books by Umberto Eco (enjoyable enough but too slow off the dime) and Tim O'Brien (fine, if you're real sentimental about the '60s generation), as well as quite a few novels by authors with less distinguished résumés. We won't include any book in our monthly "What to read" selection unless we can recommend it heartily, and some months we've really got to hunt for them.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2002/10/10/fiction_intro_9/feed/ 0 What to read in September http://www.salon.com/2002/09/05/fiction_intro_8/ http://www.salon.com/2002/09/05/fiction_intro_8/#comments Thu, 05 Sep 2002 21:04:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2002/09/05/fiction_intro September is to book reviewers what Christmas is to little kids, and even though the economy is idling, publishers have stuffed our stockings with more delights than we can handle. This month, we were showered with new books by some of our favorite authors, including Zadie Smith, Paul Auster and Haruki Murakami. There's Jeffrey Eugenides' long-awaited follow-up to "The Virgin Suicides" and a new short story collection that shows A.M. Homes at her merciless best. Then there's the little matter of a new book from Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian. These are novels of fame, sex and death, stories of disaster and mystery, that will take you from angst-ridden suburbia to cosmopolitan Tokyo, from the American Southwest to China during the Cultural Revolution. There are enough sensational books here to keep you occupied for the rest of the year, but we suggest that you stick to a strict schedule -- October's looking pretty great, too.

Our first pick: A wondrous epic from the author of "The Virgin Suicides" tells the story of an all-American hermaphrodite

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2002/09/05/fiction_intro_8/feed/ 0 What to read in August http://www.salon.com/2002/08/01/august_3/ http://www.salon.com/2002/08/01/august_3/#comments Thu, 01 Aug 2002 21:24:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2002/08/01/august Though the weather is stultifying and the holiday flights are long, you don't have to succumb to the doldrums of late summer "beach reads," those supposedly entertaining thrillers with their gimcrack plots and balsa-wood characters. What good is a page turner if you're wincing on every page?

Instead we offer you a selection of more satisfying summer reading (and do check out our recommendations from previous months, below, if you don't see something that tweaks your fancy here). There are bestsellers worth reading, as Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" demonstrates (and yes, it is approved for those of you with a low syrup threshold), and there are exotic literary masters to be discovered, if you care to take up an offer of intrigue and old-fashioned storytelling from Indonesia's Pramoedya Ananta Toer. This is a summer of short stories as well, small gems that you can finish before nodding off in the porch swing or between naps on the sand. Last but not least, for the adventure reader, we've got the story of a boy, a boat and a Bengal tiger. Read on.

Our first pick: From heaven, a raped and murdered 14-year-old girl watches her loved ones -- and her killer -- go on with their lives

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