Books

Jazz historian KEVIN WHITEHEAD reviews two new jazz biographies: Speakeasies to Symphonies: The Jazz Genius of James P. Johnson by Scott E. Brown; and Cosmic: Music: The Life, Art and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane by Andy Beta.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Nancy Foley’s debut novel I am Agatha.

Rock critic KEN TUCKER reviews a new biography about Bob Dylan, featuring the most recent 30 years of his career: After the Flood, by Robert Polito.

John Powers reviewed "Stay Alive" by Ian Buruma.

Maureen Corrigan reviewed The Keeper

Before the captivity narrative about a Mexican woman abducted by the Apache in the mid-1800s; before the storyline about Geronimo's surrender; before the torrent of details about the life and peoples on the borderlands between present-day Mexico and the U.S.; there's this first sentence:

In the beginning, things appear. Writing is a defiant gesture we’ve long since gotten used to: where there was nothing, somebody put something, and now everybody sees it. For example, the prairie.

Allegra Goodman's latest novel is called "This Is Not About Us." But our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, says that title is coy. Goodman's readers are bound to see aspects of themselves and their families in these pages. Here's her review.

Rachel Weaver worked for the Forest Service in Alaska, where she scaled towering trees to study birds of prey and dealt with brown bears in the wild. But one morning in 2006, Weaver woke up and felt like she was being spun in a hurricane. She'd encountered a medical situation she would battle for years. Weaver's memoir is called "Dizzy," and our book critic Maureen Corrigan has this review.

Writer George Saunders is a Buddhist whose practice informs his work, most notably his 2017 novel, "Lincoln In The Bardo," which won the Booker Prize. Saunders' new novel, "Vigil," also explores the Buddhist concept of the Bardo. Our book critic Maureen Corrigan has a review.

n 2020, celebrated Irish writer John Banville metaphorically killed off Benjamin Black, the pen name under which he had been writing crime novels. Banville said he no longer felt he needed the pseudonym. So over the last few years, his crime series starring the Dublin coroner simply known as Quirke has been reprinted with Banville's name on the cover instead of Black's. The final novel in that series has just been reissued. Book critic Maureen Corrigan has a review and an appreciation.