Did you miss the weekend's book reviews? Check out some of the highlights here:
"Burning Bright," Ron Rash
The New York Times
[T]he skill with which his tales are constructed is more apparent in "Burning Bright," a new book of stories [than in his best-known novel "Serena"]. The short-story format lacks the novel's complexity but has similar impact. And these pared-down tales make it much easier to see how expertly Mr. Rash fine-tunes his work.
"Angelology," Danielle Trussoni
The New York Times
Her rousing story turns on bad and fallen angels, particularly the offspring of matings between humans and heavenly beings. The hybrids known as Nephilim first appear in Genesis 6: "The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose," and when "they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." This might not sound so bad, but in Trussoni's handling, the Nephilim are "beautiful, iridescent monsters" who belong in cages.
"Making Toast: A Family Story," Roger Rosenblatt
The Los Angeles Times
In his new memoir, "Making Toast," Rosenblatt assembles a collage of images, scenes, dialogue and moments of reflection to portray [his daughter] Amy's world: her parents, brothers, husband Harris, friends, colleagues and, most especially, her children: Jessie, Sam and James, all under age 7 at the time of her death from an asymptomatic heart condition.
"Lonelyhearts: The Screwball World of Nathanael West and Eileen McKenney," Marion Meade
The Los Angeles Times
[T]his is a shrewd portrait of two people who in their different ways were noteworthy participants in American culture during one of its liveliest periods. Meade's account of the West-McKenney marriage is necessarily brief, and scattered references to his friends' and wife's alarm at his terrible driving point inexorably toward its grim denouement in the fatal crash on Dec. 22, 1940, just four days before the theatrical version of "My Sister Eileen" opened on Broadway.
"Pulitzer: A Life In Politics, Print, and Power," James McGrath Morris
The San Francisco Chronicle
The Morris prose style is, in a word, wordy. Must we know the details of every German-language newspaper in St. Louis? We do, because to Morris every side trip is less a tangent than a slalom. A thrilling toboggan-ride tour of history, "Pulitzer" is also a major biographical success. Morris entices the reader to see his world the way Pulitzer saw his World.
"The Surrendered," Chang-rae Lee
The San Francisco Chronicle
This is not a happy book, but it is a rewarding one. "The Surrendered" grabs your attention - sometimes terrifying you in the process - and doesn't let go until its final moment. For a book permeated by death, its pages are breathtakingly alive.
"The Oxford Companion to the Book," Edited by Michael F. Suarez and H.R. Woudhuysen
The Wall Street Journal
"The Oxford Companion to the Book" is a monument to mankind's most effective means of communication, one that is infinitely portable, transmissible and treasurable, intimate and tactile in ways that none of its rivals can attain. Book is, was, always will be best.
"The Killer Trail," Bertrand Taithe
The New Republic
One of the weaknesses of Taithe's book is the speed and enthusiasm with which the historian moves past his subject--the Voulet-Chanoine mission--to a broader consideration of contemporary French culture. But Taithe's description of the fragility of French domestic politics at the turn of the century is vivid and revealing: Socialist and anarchist organizing seemed to portend a revolution, and the right had propped up aging generals, and used them as the agents of failed coups.
"The Man from Beijing," Henning Mankell
The Washington Times
Simple it's not. But Mr. Mankell never is. This is one of his most complicated and skilled mysteries, in which dark threads are woven into an unlikely conclusion. His writing is reflected in the first sentences of this latest book, which read, "Frozen snow, severe frost. Midwinter ... a lone wolf crosses the unmarked border and enters Sweden from Norway. ... It is beginning to feel the pain of hunger and is desperately searching for food."