“Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys” by Will Self
British author’s foray into the dating world of status-conscious New Yorkers.
“Lip Service” by M.J. Rose
Erotic fiction about an Upper East Side writer who explores her passionate side when an assignment exposes her to the world of phone sex.
“Ocean Sea” by Alessandro Baricco
Tragic, whimsy story of a disparate group of eccentrics — a beautiful young noblewoman, a priest, an adulteress, a painter and a professor — together at a mysterious seaside inn that seems to be staffed solely by five enchanted children.
Reviewed by Craig Seligman (02/17/99)
“The World and Other Places” by Jeanette Winterson
Seventeen satirical short stories set real-life experiences in a fantastical universe.
“The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity” by Daniel Mendelsohn
A young man finds that the path to seduction winds through some unexpected territory.
Reviewed by Frank Browning (06/03/99)
“Hannibal” by Thomas Harris
The third part of the horror trilogy that rematches FBI heroine Clarice Starling against Hannibal Lecter.
Reviewed by David Bowman (06/11/99)
“Who’s Irish?” by Gish Jen
First collection of first-person tales that expose the foibles and catalog the complaints of Chinese immigrants.
Reviewed by Jamie James (06/04/99)
“Uncovering Clinton: A Reporters Story” by Michael Isikoff
Newsweek reporters inside account of his controversial investigation into the Lewinsky scandal.
“Juneteenth” by Ralph Ellison
Long-awaited follow-up to “Invisible Man” follows the relationship of a white politician and a black preacher.
Reviewed by Colson Whitehead (06/08/99)
“Annals of the Former World” by John McPhee
Pulitzer Prize-winning cross-section of North America following the author as he travels back and forth with a team of geologists.
“The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private” by Susan Bordo
A feminist, semiotic analysis of the male image in movies and ad culture.
“A Short History of Rudeness: Manners, Morals, and Misbehavior in Modern America” by Mark Caldwell
The demise of manners and triumph of rudeness in America.
Reviewed by Greg Villepique (08/06/99)
“The Woman Who Cut off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club and other stories” by Julia Slavin
The ordinary meets the unimaginable in these twelve funny and inventive stories.
“Argument Without End” by Robert S. McNamara
The secretary of defense during the Vietnam War follows up his memoir “In Retrospect” with a compilation of writings and transcripts demonstrating the United States’ “failure of empathy toward the Vietnamese.”
“The Lazarus Rumba” by Ernesto Rumba
Novel centered on three generations of women in the wake of Cuba’s revolutionary upheaval.
“East of the Mountains” by David Guterson
The author of “Snow Falling on Cedars” confronts suicide.
Reviewed by Janice Harayda (04/08/99)
“The Miracle of Castel di Sangro” by Joe McGinniss
The investigative journalist’s chronicle of an Italian soccer team’s unlikely winning season.
“Layover” by Lisa Zeidner
A woman on the verge of a breakdown finds herself sneaking into hotel rooms.
Reviewed by Maria Russo (06/09/99)
“Syrup” by Maxx Barry
A comic novel that follows a young Los Angeles guy’s quest for overnight success with a formula for a hot new soda.
“Show Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race and Redemption” by Lisa Belkin
This account of the forced integration of Yonkers, N.Y., in the late 1980s and early ’90s is the kind of nonfiction book that writers attempting bold social novels (paging Tom Wolfe) might take as a challenge. A 1999 Salon Book Award Winner.
“White Widow” by Jim Lehrer
PBS anchor’s novel of a cross-country bus driver’s tumultuous affair with a complete stranger.
“A Border Passage” by Leila Ahmed
Memoir of an upper-class Arab woman’s journey from Nasser’s Egypt to the U.S.
“Run Catch Kiss” by Amy Sohn
The former New York Press sex columnist’s roman a clef is a Bridget Jones clone (but some say that, surprisingly, Sohn can really write).
Reviewed by Lori Leibovich (07/22/99)
“The Metaphysical Touch” by Sylvia Brownrigg
An ambitious first novel brings two wounded intellectuals together in cyberspace.
Reviewed by Andrew O’Hehir (06/28/99)
“The Kid” by Dan Savage
“Italian Fever” by Valerie Martin
In the land of Bernini and amore, an unassuming New Yorker discovers herself.
Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek (08/02/99)
“Vira (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)” By Stacy Schiff
Mrs. Nabokov could have been anything she wanted to be. All she wanted to be was Mrs. Nabokov.
Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams (04/20/99)
“An Equal Music” by Vikram Seth
A chameleonic author turns his thoughts to love.
Reviewed by Akash Kapur (05/13/99)
“Heavy Water and Other Stories” by Martin Amis
The British writer’s collection of savagely satirical short stories never delves too deep — and perhaps that’s best.
Reviewed by Laura Miller (02/11/99)
“Timbuktu” by Paul Auster
“Paris Trance” by Geoff Dyer
Working without plot, a novelist creates a prose photograph of a time and a place.
Reviewed by Greg Bottoms (07/12/99)
“White Oleander” by Janet Fitch
A first novelist sends her young heroine through the horror show of the Los Angeles foster-care system.
Reviewed by Trish Deitch Rohrer (05/11/99)
