Second Violin

“Smart and gracefully written . . . It has been Lawton’s achievement to capture, in first-rate popular fiction, the courage and drama—and the widespread tomorrow-we-may-die exuberance—of that terrible and thrilling…

The Middleman and Other Stories

“Bharati Mukherjee, in this astonishing second book of short stories, zeroes in on uneasy terrain that no one has looked at with quite so clear an eye since approximately World…

T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E.

“Shakur produces a visceral and strikingly real portrayal of gang life in Los Angeles, replete with sudden and inexplicable violence, revenge, betrayal, ostentatious living, racism, the strong arm of law…

Cockpit

“A dazzling succession of . . . erotic episodes . . . Cockpit defines itself (as Kosinski does his hero) by the suicidal chances it takes . . . brilliantly…

Levi’s Children

The Beholder’s Eye

“Aims to dispel the old journalistic clich”: that a journalist writing about him/herself is always ‘self-indulgent and, quite likely, narcissistic.” He couldn’t have put together a better lineup of writers…

Composing a Life

“A masterwork of rare breadth and particularity, encompassing all the rhythms of five lives and friendships, and interweaving their stories in ways that reveal grand social truths and peculiar personal…

The Anniversary

Longlisted for the Stella Prize For fans of Lisa Halliday and Susan Choi, The Anniversary is a simmering page-turner about an ascendant writer, the unresolved death of her husband, and…

The Stendhal Syndrome

“In the opener, a trio of tourists . . . contemplate Michelangelo’s David in hilarious Restoration comedy-like asides as they are overcome by the statue’s, uh, size and power. ….

A Drink with Shane MacGowan

“Entertaining and shocking at the same time. . . . Informative and fun. . . . This book is really good because, in a sense, it is one long fascinating…