By
New York Times:
- Sunday Book Review cover: Edmund White onEverything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower: "Every one of the stories in 'Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned' is
polished and distinctive. Though he's intrigued by the painful
experiences of men much older than he is, Tower can write with equal
power about young women and boys; about hell-Âraising, skull-bashing
ancient Vikings and an observant housebound old man of the 21st
century, even about a cheerful, insouciant pedophile. His range is wide
and his language impeccable, never strained or fussy. His grasp of
human psychology is fresh and un-Freudianizing.... I once wondered why Surrealism never really caught on as a literary
strategy in America. Wells Tower makes me think that nothing bizarre
someone might dream up could ever be as strange as American life as we
live it. The 'beyond' that the Surrealists talked about so much, the au-delà , is America itself." - Rich Cohen on Good Book by David Plotz: "This is me as Seinfeld doing the Bible,
and I can go on like this forever, but won't "” partly because there
might actually be a Yahweh and this is exactly the kind of stuff he'll
punish first, and partly because it's been done better and more
thoroughly than can ever be done by me in 'Good Book,' in which David
Plotz, the editor of Slate, reads the Hebrew Bible book by book,
chapter by chapter, riffing as he goes. It's CliffsNotes for Scripture
"” screenplay by Plotz, story by God "” which is by turns entertaining,
serious, shallow, profound, literal-minded, cute, ingratiating,
hilarious." - Bill Scheft onMy Booky Wook by Russell Brand: "This chronicle of all his notorious, though mostly unseen, moments
onstage and on British TV seems at times more like a closing argument
at a competency hearing than a memoir. Brand withholds nothing. He
drinks. He smokes. He scores. He dope-fiends. And he regrets nothing
except those incidents of depravity he may have forgotten. The only
thing editÂed out is remorse. If 'rollicking' means 'wildly uneven,'
then his story is indeed rollicking. And that's the most infuriating
thing of all. The bloke can write.... Sadly, when he's got time and space to kill, he'd rather be naughty." - Garner onLand of the Lost Souls by Cadillac Man: "Cadillac Man's story, and maybe all homeless stories, are
surprisingly similar to war memoirs or novels written from the
perspective of the grunt. The trials are similar: the exposure to the
elements, the lack of sleep, the stockpiling of weapons, the constant
threat of physical harm, the lack of status, the strangers with whom
you must quickly learn to bond and the presence of death and illness as
everyday sights.The difference? The homeless usually aren't sure, exactly, who or what the enemy is. They fear that it is themselves." - Alison Bechdel onA Pocket History of Sex in the Twentieth Century: A Memoir by Jane Vandenburgh [Anyone who has read Bechdel's brilliantly bookish memoir,Fun Home, will know what an ideal candidate she is to do what is likely the Times's first graphic book review]:
Washington Post:
- Charles onApologize, Apologize! by Elizabeth Kelly: "To catch the spirit of Elizabeth Kelly's first novel, you've got to
scream the title in hysterical fury: 'Apologize, Apologize!' The
subject of all that chiding is long-suffering Collie Flanagan, the only
sane member of a wealthy family of alcoholics, Marxists, playboys,
media barons and pigeon racers. As described in Kelly's deliciously
witty prose, these are people you can't imagine living with, but can't
resist reading about.... If her novel as a whole is somewhat lumpy and poorly paced, its parts are splendid."
Los Angeles Times:
- Richard Rayner on long-overdue reprints of Patrick White'sVoss ("
White writes beautifully, precisely, and 'Voss' is a heroic, brilliant novel.") andThe Vivisector ("The impressionistic, painterly quality of White's prose is to the fore
in 'The Vivisector,' a rambling narrative with eye-peeling power, and
perhaps the most convincing of all fictional attempts to capture the
magic-lantern sensibility of a great visual artist."). - Jon Wiener onUnderground by Mark Rudd: "Mark Rudd is the guy from the Weather Underground who is not Bill
Ayers. Both were leaders of the group that worked for the violent
overthrow of the United States government in the 1970s, but while Ayers
remains unapologetic, Rudd is full of regrets."
Wall Street Journal:
- Stefan Kanfer, however, is not swayed by Rudd's Underground: "A series of rationales for the autobiographer's toxic behavior as a young man, followed by one of the most unconvincing mea culpas since Bernie Madoff turned himself in.... The real value of 'Underground' is not its feeble repentance or its
sham modesty. ('My part in the destruction of the Weather Underground
was actually very small.') Mr. Rudd's essential contribution is his
self-portrait as a youth who persuaded others to wreck rather than
create -- and his snapshots of like-minded contemporaries."
Globe and Mail:
- Cynthia McDonald onThe Act of Love by Howard Jacobson: "The best thing about this novel "” and there are so many good things "”
is that it doesn't discount the wan little definition of love offered
up at so many Christian weddings via Paul's letter to the Corinthians.
To Jacobson, love is still patient, still kind, still bears all things.
It's just so much else besides: complicated, funny, cruel, sick and
always worth one's while. Much like this wickedly terrific book." - Rex Murphy on Shakedown by Ezra Levant: "Now, some people do not like Levant's style. They say he is too
aggressive, too noisy and assertive, that he courts controversy and
publicity. They should read Shakedown, and they will quickly
realize that anyone less 'aggressive' or 'noisy' would have long ago
been suffocated by the remorseless, inequitable, taxpayer-funded,
bureaucratic grinding of Canada's human rights tribunals and
commissions.... [W]e should be grateful for his effort. Support him, too. Buy the book." - Annabel Lyon on Don't Cry by Mary Gaitskill: "Short story fans like things short, so here's the skinny: Buy this book."
The Guardian:
- Simon Callow onChaplin: The Tramp's Odyssey by Simon Louvish: "Simon Louvish has managed the impossible, at this late stage in the
game: he has found an approach so illuminating that he reaches the
heart of his subject more penetratingly than anything on Chaplin I have
read, with the single exception of Parker Tyler's Chaplin: Last of the
Clowns.... But Louvish has the edge
on him, not only with his enviably nimble and lucid writing, but by
rooting his study in the great comedian's professional procedure."
The New Yorker:
- Anthony Gottlieb on The House of Wittgenstein by Alexander Waugh: "The publishers of 'The House of Wittgenstein' compare the 'novelistic
richness' of its style to Thomas Mann's first novel, 'Buddenbrooks: The
Decline of a Family,' which was published in 1901. In fact, there are
more than stylistic similarities between the Wittgensteins of Vienna
and Mann's invented north-German merchant dynasty. In Mann's novel, the
vitality and the solid businesslike virtues of the Buddenbrook family
are sapped by introspection, homosexuality, loss of interest in
commerce, overindulgence in art, and illness. If Karl Wittgenstein ever
read it, he must have nodded in recognition."
--Tom
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