John Powers

Indian director Satyajit Ray first came to prominence in the '50s with the three films known as The Apu Trilogy. John Powers says that even half a century later, the films "still expand our horizons."

Soho Press recently reissued the late British crime writer's final novel. Critic John Powers says Lewis' GBH is a pulp-fiction triumph worthy of Jim Thompson or James Ellroy.

My Struggle is about Karl Ove Knausgaard's wrangle with his father, with death, with his muse and so on. The 46-year-old Norwegian's pointedly unliterary book has become a literary sensation.