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Smartest girl

Diane Vadino’s secret nerd heart
Many people will pre-judge Betsy Nilssen — the heroine of Diane Vadino’s debut, Smart Girls Like Me — as another Bridget Jones or Andy Sachs, and that’s a shame.

By: SHARON STEEL | November 13, 2007

Denis Johnson’s war

Vietnam in Tree of Smoke
Denis Johnson has given us so many maimed and suffering souls in the past 25 years, he could fill a trauma ward.

By: JOHN FREEMAN | November 06, 2007

Speaking freely

Sister Spit in Jamaica Plain
If the claustrophobic space and rigorous tour schedule was getting to anyone, you wouldn’t know it from their humor and high energy.

By: MEGAN BELL | November 06, 2007

Travel New England!

...with a gas can and Brock Clarke’s wily novel
Clarke’s satire leaves enough room for at least one resounding lesson: a good story shouldn’t always make you do bad things.

By: CHRISTOPHER GRAY | October 31, 2007

The dirtiest cop

How Times Square corrupted the 20th century
This is what history writing should be.

By: CLIF GARBODEN | October 30, 2007

The dazzling art of Boston’s Sister Corita
The question that arises when you consider the dazzling screenprints of the late Boston artist Sister Corita Kent is: how could an artist so good be so ignored?

By: GREG COOK | October 23, 2007

No Reservations

Author John Burnham Schwartz on adapting his novel, Reservation Road
Rage itself becomes a monster.

By: JENNY HALPER | October 18, 2007

King to C5

Kasparov comes to Harvard
Greengard, no less eager to make a good local impression, had called Kasparov “the Bill Belichick of chess.”

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | October 17, 2007

American dreamer

Ha Jin retraces his journey
It’s difficult to think of an American writer with a story more inspiring than Ha Jin’s.

By: JOHN FREEMAN | October 15, 2007

Brit wits

As Nick Hornby and Irvine Welsh face 50, two of Brit Lit’s standard-bearers stare down middle age in very different ways
Nick Hornby’s new novel is about a boy. Not About a Boy . Irvine Welsh’s new short story collection is filthy. Not Filth .

By: MIKE MILIARD | October 11, 2007

Thirsty nights

Rebecca Barry’s bar stories
A man walks into a bar.

By: CLEA SIMON | October 09, 2007

Difficult people

Tom Perrotta keeps his characters company through the bumps and bumbles of American life
As a reader of fiction, at this point in life I’m sort of in my late Imperial phase — a sensationalist, easily distracted, with a vulgar appetite for brilliance.

By: JAMES PARKER | October 03, 2007

Blessed be He

One Jew’s struggle with God
Shalom Auslander’s memoir, Foreskin’s Lament , begins with a hoot of a first chapter, one that’s sure to be quoted on nationwide Jewish e-mail chains.

By: IAN SANDS | October 01, 2007

Class acts

Richard Russo’s family tidings
The cast of Bridge of Sighs — Russo’s first novel since his 2001 Pulitzer winner, Empire Falls — may have benefitted from a refresher course with Emerson.

By: JOHN FREEMAN | September 26, 2007

''Great Journeys''

From Marco Polo to Twain and Shackleton, with a bit of Pico Iyer
Now that the jungle is withdrawing, and the wilderness is tenanted, the brief of the travel writer has altered somewhat.

By: JAMES PARKER | September 24, 2007

Environmentally yours

Two new takes on global warming
Environmental interest groups, Shellenberger and Nordhaus claimed, simply don’t dream big enough to address the multifaceted monster that is global warming.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | September 24, 2007

''Things'' we love

Writers extol sacred objects of everyday use — and uselessness
Until I was 14, I spent nearly every Saturday evening wading through a wealth of antique objects in my grandmother’s small apartment in the Baltimore suburbs.

By: CAITLIN E. CURRAN | September 24, 2007

Touched by grace

Andre Dubus’s unending gifts
This, around November, when New England’s bones start to show — and I realized my heart was beating faster. The story had quickened my pulse.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | October 01, 2007

Fallout joys

When the Nirvana explosion rocked Boston
In his newly published The Sound of Our Town: A History of Boston Rock & Roll , Phoenix contributor Brett Milano explores the evolution of the local music scene.

By: BRETT MILANO | September 18, 2007

Common ground

Ann Patchett’s Boston allegory
Like the American naturalists of the last century, Ann Patchett examines race and class in her new novel, Run .

By: DANA KLETTER | September 18, 2007

Everybody say, ‘Arragh’

Two excellent books about pirates
Each of these books bears a tongue-in-cheekily arcane subtitle.

By: CLIF GARBODEN | September 12, 2007

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