What we're reading, what we're liking
Evidence: The Case Against Milosevic by Gary Knight and Anthony Loyd
Gary Knight and Anthony Loyd's new book, "Evidence," is about 15 inches long and five inches wide, covered in black cloth and held together by two large screws. It's hard to figure out what it is ... an art book, maybe? So it's grimly surprising after a while to realize that "Evidence" is a harrowing collection of photographs, usually one per white page, of the crimes committed by Slobodan Milosevic. "Evidence" is effective in its simplicity. No words interrupt the succession of images -- pictures of brutally mutilated bodies, of blood sprayed on walls, of surreal scenes such as one in which a white horse stands inside a house of rubble. While it's not something you'd casually leave lying around on your living room coffee table, it seems that the authors want you to, as if to say that the daily horrors of Yugoslavia shouldn't be sequestered away in a criminal court, but instead exhibited for all of humanity, in unflinching detail.
-- Suzy Hansen
Recent books praised by Salon's critics
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All Is Vanity by Christina Schwarz
A scheming would-be novelist urges her best friend toward financial and marital disaster in her quest for juicy material.
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A Whistling Woman by A.S. Byatt
From the author of "Possession," a novel of intellectual life in the 1960s and the dangerous allure of utopian and revolutionary dreams.
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The Seven Sisters by Margaret Drabble
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[11/19/02]
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[11/14/02]
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[11/13/02]
Out of the Flames by Lawrence and Nancy Goldstone
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[11/07/02]
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[10/29/02]
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[10/15/02]
Hey Waitress! by Alison Owings
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[10/14/02]
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[10/10/02]
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[10/10/02]
Nowhere Man by Aleksandar Hemon
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[10/10/02]
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Apt. 3W by Gabriel Brownstein
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[10/10/02]
Desolation by Yasmina Reza
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[10/09/02]
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[09/25/02]
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[09/17/02]
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[09/11/02]
Tourmaline by Joanna Scott
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[09/05/02]
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
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[09/05/02]
One Man's Bible by Gao Xingjian
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The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
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[09/05/02]
Things You Should Know by A.M. Homes
Urgent, hungry stories about the nightmare of suburban marriage (and one hilarious visit to a lonely Nancy Reagan), courtesy of a master of the form.
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[09/05/02]
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
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[09/05/02]
Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner
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[09/03/02]
Cicero by Anthony Everitt
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[08/27/02]
Gettysburg by Noah Andre Trudeau
A new book proves that you can tell the story of this legendary battle in a new way -- from the point of view of the men who fought it.
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[08/21/02]
Heat Wave by Eric Klinenberg
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[08/20/02]
After Shakespeare by John Gross, ed.
Victor Hugo raised him in a siance, Voltaire ripped him off and Byron called him a vulgar dog. The world's great writers just can't leave Shakespeare alone.
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[08/07/02]
Barbed Wire: A Political History by Olivier Razac
Here's how a simple twist of spiked metal ravaged the American West, crucified a generation of young men and terrorized millions of Europeans.
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[08/06/02]
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
From heaven, a raped and murdered 14-year-old girl watches her loved ones -- and her killer -- go on with their lives.
Reviewed by Laura Miller
[2002-08-01]
The Girl From the Coast by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
A poor fisherman's daughter is plucked from her village to be the practice wife of a local aristocrat.
Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
[2002-08-01]
The Whore's Child by Richard Russo
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls presents stories of brutal compassion about ordinary people confronting their pasts.
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[2002-08-01]
The Weather in Berlin by Ward Just
A washed-up American filmmaker returns to Berlin, where he made his one masterpiece and a mystery from his past awaits.
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[2002-08-01]
You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett
Nine surprising stories by a new master about people who must choose between subduing the demons of depression or facing them head on.
Reviewed by Laura Miller
[2002-08-01]
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
A preposterous but utterly enchanting story about a young Indian boy adrift in a lifeboat with his good friend, a Bengal tiger, and some other zoo animals.
Reviewed by Suzy Hansen
[2002-08-01]
The case for Raymond Chandler
The creator of Philip Marlowe has been called an imitator and a hack, but eight recently rereleased novels reveal that he deserves his lonely, disillusioned corner in the American literary canon.
Reviewed by Allen Barra
[07/31/02]
Gods of War, Gods of Peace by Russell Bourne
For a handful of decades -- and a brief period of hope -- settler and Native American religions met, mingled and shaped colonial America.
Reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
[07/25/02]
Sexual Selection: What We Can and Can't Learn About Sex From Animals" by Marlene Zuk
A new book examines what we can and can't learn about sex and ourselves from watching bonobos, birds and earwigs.
Reviewed by Susan McCarthy
[07/22/02]
My Jihad by Aukai Collins
The author, an American mujahedin, was a passionate convert to Islam. But his new memoir makes it clear that nothing got him more excited than the sound of a rocket-propelled grenade and the look in an enemy's eyes as he slit his throat.
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[07/17/02]
Koba the Dread by Martin Amis
Amis calls out Christopher Hitchens and other friends on the left for not giving full weight to the 20 million victims of Stalin's terror.
Reviewed by Charles Taylor
[07/16/02]
Zig Zag Zen by Allan Hunt Badiner, ed.
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[07/11/02]
"Backpack" by Emily Barr and "Losing Gemma" by Katy Gardner
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Reviewed by Michelle Goldberg
[07/08/02]
The Pirate Hunter by Richard Zacks
A thrilling and tragic new book about Captain Kidd reveals that the infamous buccaneer was actually a man of honor wrongly accused.
Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
[07/02/02]
Lost by Ian Phillips.
A collection of lost-pet posters offers a sad, evocative and sometimes very strange glimpse of the bond between humans and animals.
Reviewed by Ken Foster
[06/26/02]
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