‘American Fire’: When lovers went on an arson spree in rural Virginia
Tonya Bundick and Charlie Smith weren't exactly Bonnie and Clyde. They lacked the glamor, the panache and, in the end, the loyalty. But they may have been the closest to...
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‘Blitzed’ and ‘The Book Thieves’ offer fascinating new perspectives on Holocaust
More than 70 years after the Holocaust, we are still trying, with variable success, to explain it. The continued salience and sensitivity of the topic were highlighted earlier this month...
‘Post Grad’ explores life after college for 5 Princeton grads
In "Post Grad," five Princeton students, including author Caroline Kitchener, all decline to heed the notorious advice of "Princeton Mom" Susan Patton, who suggested that they devote their undergraduate years...
Daniel J. Sharfstein offers luminescent account of Nez Perce tragedy in ‘Thunder in the Mountains’
Native American tribes often aided white explorers and settlers on the way west. But gratitude and co-existence eventually gave way to the hunger for gold and land, leading to broken...
‘For us, this means hope’: Exploring the promise of genomic medicine
Joselin Linder and members of the DeMoe family of North Dakota both lost genetic lotteries: They carry harmful inherited mutations that will impair, and likely curtail, their lives. But the...
Eleanor Roosevelt biography focuses on her activities during World War II
Beloved and reviled, a spokeswoman for progressive causes who fashioned an independent life within a complicated marriage, Eleanor Roosevelt cuts a surprisingly contemporary figure. For several decades, Blanche Wiesen Cook,...
Ha Jin’s ‘The Boat Rocker’ is redeemed by the author’s own genuine anger
The convulsions of modern China, the impact of political tyranny and the divided loyalties of the immigrant are among Ha Jin's great themes in an impressive body of award-winning fiction...
‘Forty Autumns’: A powerful family history covering both sides of the Berlin Wall
American-born Nina Willner was 5 years old when she learned that her maternal grandmother, Oma, lived "behind a curtain," in East Germany. The so-called Iron Curtain was an ideologically charged...
Teddy Wayne’s ‘Loner’ presents dark, dangerous narrator
Teddy Wayne could just as easily have titled his deft, involving novel — about a Harvard admissions mistake and his obsession with a lovely, preppie dorm-mate — "Stalker" or "Sociopath."...
‘The Latter Days’ by Judith Freeman is a memoir of Mormon life
Judith Freeman was raised amid what she now regards as fictions: her Mormon faith, the myth of a happy childhood, the necessity of early marriage and motherhood. As suggested by...