Books

Lopate embraced the essay form only after writing novels and short stories. The writer explores diverse, sometimes provocative topics in his personal writing like sexuality and suicide.

John Le Carre's new spy novel is set against the backdrop of the Soviet Union's recent reforms. Book critic John Leonard calls it a "great gray lump" -- The Russia House strains for greatness with big ideas about selfhood, but falls flat with its long sentences and pretensions of literary sophistication.

Sendak illustrated a version of a recently-discovered Grimm story, about a girl named Mili who loses her mother during a war. Sendak, best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, often incorporates difficult subjects like death and divorce into his children's books.

Critic-at-large Laurie Stone review Sarah P. Stuart's debut novel -- a fast-moving coming-of-age story about a sister and her emotionally unstable brothers.

Business writer Rosabeth Moss Kantor says the past decade's trends of rugged individualism in the workplace and excessively long hours are unsustainable. Looking ahead, she believes corporations should be leaner, foster an independent an entrepreneurial spirit in its employees, and allow for a better work-life balance.

Hamill's first book of fiction is called Loving Women, about a man who joins the Navy in the 1950s. Hamill wrote for a number of New York City newspapers, and recently left the New York Post after an editorial dispute.

Johnson was part of the 1950s Beat community and had a relationship with Jack Kerouac. Her experience in the literary counterculture - and the peripheral place of women within it -- has influenced much of her work, including her memoir Minor Characters and her new novel, In the Night Cafe.

Shields went to speech therapy the same time he attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Like the author himself, the protagonist of his new novel, Dead Languages, has a stutter. Shields' writing explores the gap between his mastery of written language and his difficulties speaking.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Tolstaya's new book, On the Golden Porch. The author is descended from Leo and Alexander Tolstoy, and has garnered comparisons to Chekov. But Leonard says Tolstaya most reminds him of John Cheever for the way she captures sadness on the page.

Book critic John Leonard reviews David Grossman's novel See Under: Love, about Holocaust survivors. Leonard says he's still not sure if the fantastic plot and inventive structure work -- or if the ambitious book is indeed a masterpiece.