Scar Vegas and Other Stories By Tom Paine (Fiction)
Harcourt, review by Maria Russo
In an amazing debut, a fired-up writer takes aim at dumb American swaggerers and corporate greed.
(02/23/00)

Just As I Thought By Grace Paley (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Reviewed by Scott McLemee
Collected nonfiction, much of it political, from the well-known author of "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute".
(04/22/98)

"The Unburied"By Charles Palliser (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus And Giroux , Reviewed by Adam Kirsch
Half Victorian mystery, half contemporary psychological thriller, this is a tale of murders in several centuries.
(11/30/99)

Rock & Roll: An Unruly History By Robert Palmer (Nonfiction)
An assured and intelligent history of rock, by a former New York Times critic.

Gorilla Suit: My Adventures in Bodybuilding By Bob Paris (Nonfiction)
St. Martin's Press, reviewed by Mark Athitakis
A winner of the Mr. America and Mr. Universe contests in the 1980s, writes about the sport and his coming out as a gay athlete.

Europa By Tim Parks (Fiction)
Arcade, Reviewed by Jo-Ann Mort
In this novel of ideas about the forthcoming European Union, a British professor makes a mess of his personal life.
(12/11/98)

Petrolio By Pier Paolo Pasolini (Fiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Scott McLemee
Offensive to church and state alike, the murdered author's epic, unfinished novel concerns a gender-bending oil company engineer.

Once Upon a Number: The Hidden Mathematical Logic of Stories By John Allen Paulos (Nonfiction)
Basic Books, Reviewed by Heather Chaplin
The author of "Innumeracy," charmingly attempts to bridge the gulf that separates literary and mathematical culture.
(11/11/98)

No Safe Place By Richard North Patterson (Fiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Daniel H. Pink
Frank Capra meets Albert Camus in this smart, timely political thriller about a well-meaning politician with a "bimbo eruption" on his hands.
(09/18/98)

The Final Judgment By Richard North Patterson (Fiction)
A somber, ingenious mystery by a writer unsurpassed in evoking courtroom drama.

In light of India By Octavio Paz, translated by Eliot Weinberger (Nonfiction)
Harcourt Brace, reviewed by Edward Neuert
Learned, lucid essays, by the Nobel Prize winner, asking, "How does a Mexican writer, at the end of the 20th century, view the immense reality of India?"

An Instance of the Fingerpost By Iain Pears (Fiction)
Riverhead, Reviewed by Daniel Reitz
Set in 17th century England, this sprawling and "Rashomon"-like first novel deconstructs a murder among academics in Oxford.
(05/13/98)

Now It's Time to Say Goodbye By Dale Peck (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Reviewed by Rob Walker
A sensational, even preposterous novel about two urban gay men who move to a racially divided, violence-haunted Kansas town
(05/29/98)

The Law of Enclosures By Dale Peck (Fiction)
Domestic entanglements and tragedies, from the author of last year's critically acclaimed "Martin and John."

HOPE IN A JAR: The Making of America's Beauty Culture By Kathy Peiss (Fiction)
Metropolitan Books, Reviewed by Michelle Goldberg
Has America's beauty culture created new anxieties for women, the author asks, or has it prompted new freedoms?
(07/17/98)

Buddha's Little Finger By Victor Pelevin (Fiction)
Viking, review by Craig Offman
In a novel by turns shabby, sexy and visionary, the Russian virtuoso captures post-perestroika Moscow in all its weirdness. (05/05/00)

"The Devil's Cup" by Stewart Lee Allen and "Uncommon Grounds" by Mark Pendergrast (Nonfiction)
Reviewed by Richard Reynolds
Two books about the history of coffee, already a subversive beverage in the 16th century.
(11/23/99)

Francis Bacon: Anatomy of an Enigma By Michael Peppiatt (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, reviewed by Charles Taylor
A sensitive, probing biography of the British painter, by a journalist who had befriended him.

Go Cat Go! The Life and Times of Carl Perkins, The King of Rockabilly By Carl Perkins and David McGee (Nonfiction)
An autobiography of the singer/songwriter -- best known for "Blue Suede Shoes" -- from his dirt-poor Memphis beginnings through his struggles with alcoholism and cancer

Mr. Mike By Dennis Perrin (Nonfiction)
Avon, Reviewed by Charles Taylor
A comprehensive if overly-respectful biography of Michael O'Donoghue, the dark genius behind early "Saturday Night Live."
(07/13/98)

The Wishbones By Tom Perrotta (Fiction)
Putnam, reviewed by Ray Sawhill
A scuffed-up romantic comedy about a wannabe rock star whose band plays suburban weddings, this novel reads like an early Jonathan Demme movie

Meaty, Beaty, Big And Bouncy: The Who By John Perry (Nonfiction)
Schirmer, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
A lovely piece of rock analysis, from a writer (and guitarist) who can't help blending the Who's story with his own.
(12/15/98)

Monogamy By Adam Phillips (Nonfiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by David Futrelle
A quirky collection of 121 miniature essays about relationships and their discontents, from the British writer and psychoanalyst.

THE BEAST IN THE NURSERY: On Curiosity and Other Appetites By Adam Phillips (Nonfiction)
Pantheon books,, Reviewed by David Futrelle
From the quirky and lucid British psychoanalyst, a look at the origins of -- and the problems inherent in -- curiosity
(02/11/98)

Terrors and Experts By Adam Phillips (Nonfiction)
The things we fear, this psychotherapist and charming essayist argues, are often the very things that define us as human beings.

Blues Up and Down By Tom Piazza (Nonfiction)
St. Martin's, reviewed by Ray Sawhill
Piazza's collection of vibrant essays.

Passionate Minds By Claudia Roth Pierpont (Nonfiction)
Knopf, review by Polly Morrice
A writer to reckon with takes on a dozen women who were writers to reckon with. (03/28/00)=

Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes By John Pierson (Nonfiction)
The exhilarating and crushing reminiscences of independent cinema's most successsful "bag man."

White Rabbit By Kate Phillips (Fiction)
At age 88, the finicky heroine of this imaginative first novel finds her routine life abruptly turned upside down.

Snakebite Sonnet By Max Phillips (Fiction)
In this lighter-than-air love story, the antic hero pursues his lifelong crush on an enigmatic older woman across three decades.

"The Custom of the Sea" by Neil Hanson and "In the Heart of the Sea" by Nathaniel Philbrick (Nonfiction)
review by By Mark Schone
Two new books serve up hair-raising histories of maritime cannibalism with all the gory details. (04/13/00)

TRUMAN CAPOTE: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career By George Plimpton (Nonfiction)
Doubleday, Reviewed by William Georgiades
An oral memoir of the flamboyant writer, whose social life often seemed more compelling than his literary output.
(12/22/97)

The Creation of Dr. B: A Biography of Bruno Bettelheim By Richard Pollak (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, reviewed by Russ Baker
An exposé of the eminent psychologist and author of "The Uses of Enchantment," whose life and career appear to have been a fraud.

"When Bad Things Happen to Other People" By John Portmann (Nonfiction)
Routledge, review by Mary Elizabeth Williams
A new look at Schadenfreude forgives us that nasty vice, but doesn't let us have much fun with it.
(12/22/99)

Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in Captivity, 1945-46 Edited by Omar Pound and Robert Spoo (Nonfiction)
Oxford University Press, Reviewed by Brian Blanchfield
The letters of the poet and his long-suffering wife illuminate his imprisonment for treason, their complicated marriage and his growing madness.
(02/26/99)

Edisto Revisted By Padgett Powell (Fiction)
The sequel to Powell's acclaimed "Edisto," this quixotic novel about one man's search for identity (and a steady job) serves up a delicious oxymoron: the Modern Southerner.

"Roger Fishbite" By Emily Prager (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Elizabeth Judd
Emily Prager's brilliant parody of "Lolita" rockets the famous '50s nymphet into the '90s.
(04/14/99)

A First Rate Tragedy: Robert Falcon Scott and the Race to the South Pole By Diana Preston (Nonfiction)
Houghton Mifflin, Reviewed by Scott Sutherland
A book about the legendary explorer Robert Falcon Scott, that takes us back to the golden (if often brutal) era of Arctic exploration.
(12/03/98)

The Cobra Event By Richard Preston (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by Katherine Whittemore
Short stories, from the writer-director of "My Beautiful Laundrette," about misfits in London (11/20/97)

"Flight Maps"By Jennifer Price (Nonfiction)
Basic Books, Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
Feathered hats, plastic flamingos: Five essays examine Americans' uneasy relation to nature.
(06/01/99)

Deep Play: A Climber's Odyssey from Llanberis to the Big Walls By Paul Pritchard (Nonfiction)
The Mountaineers Press, Reviewed by Scott Sutherland
A book about mountain climbing that attempts, with only middling success, to pick up where Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" left off.
(08/26/98)

Blue Angel By Francine Prose (Fiction)
Harper Collins, review by Pam Rosenthal
The young and heartless seduce the old and foolish, in a satire of p.c. Puritanism on campus. (04/07/00)

Guided Tours of Hell By Francine Prose (Fiction)
Metropolitan/Holt, reviewed by Megan Harlan
Trips to a Nazi concentration camp and Paris's Revolutionary Prison, that strip bare the inner lives of Prose's bewildered characters.

Accordion CrimesBy E. Annie Proulx (Fiction)
To follow-up her acclaimed "The Shipping News," Proulx has written a series of stories about hard-luck immigrants and their deep love of accordion music

The Subtle Knife By Philip Pullman (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Rachel Pastan
A novel for young adults, by a talented fantasy writer, about an unhappy boy who finds a window from Oxford into another world.

For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today By Jedediah Purdy (Nonfiction)
Alfred A. Knopf, reviewed by Caleb Crain
A fresh-faced 24-year-old with a prescription for a better America is way, way out of his depth.
(09/07/99)

The Song of the DodoBy David Quammen (Nonfiction)
Where species came from -- and some frightening speculation about they are headed -- from the acclaimed Outside magazine columnist.

RED LOBSTER, WHITE TRASH AND THE BLUE LAGOON: Joe Queenan's America By Joe Queenan (Nonfiction)
Hyperion, Reviewed by Dwight Garner
A guided tour through mass American culture (Sizzler steakhouses, Kenny G. albums) from the dyspeptic magazine writer.
(07/15/98)

Black and Blue By Anna Quindlen (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Laura Green
A gripping domestic novel about a woman in flight from her past, and from her abusive husband
(02/10/98)

Bodega Dreams By Ernesto Quiñonez (Fiction)
Vintage Contmporaries, reviewed by Anderson Tepper
A streetwise, darkly lyrical first novel celebrates Spanish Harlem.
(03/16/2000)

"Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings" by Jonathan Raban (Nonfiction)
Pantheon Books, Reviewed by Scott Sutherland
A stunning account of a sea voyage, and a rare book set in the outdoors that isn't about a disaster.
(10/26/99)

Bad Land: An American Romance By Jonathan Raban (Nonfiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Dwight Garner
A hard-scrabble journey through rural life in the American West, from a Brit "trying to find my own place in the landscape and history."

Sexplorations: Journeys to the Erogenous Frontier By Anka Radakovich (Nonfiction)
Crown, reviewed by Megan Harlan
A selection of the author's columns from Details magazine, on topics ranging from dominatrix schools to couples-only sex clubs.

A FEELING FOR BOOKS: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire By Janice A. Radway (Nonfiction)
University of North Carolina Press, reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
An exhaustive study of the Book-of-the-Month Club, by an academic who cheerfully admits her middlebrow reading tastes

Read My Lips: A Cultural History of Lipstick By Meg Cohen Ragas and Karen Kozlowski (Nonfiction)
Chronicle Books, Reviewed by Etelka Lehoczky
Indulgent, sensuous and ultimately insubstantial, this beautifully designed book celebrates lipstick's mystical power.
(10/28/98)

After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back By Nancy Venable Raine (Nonfiction)
Crown, Reviewed by Laura Miller
A powerful, reflective and scrupulously honest account of rape, and one writer's attempt to come to terms with it.
(08/21/98)

Jackie Robinson: A biography By Arnold Rampersad (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Charles Taylor
A serious, competent -- but ultimately numbing -- biography of the man who broke baseball's color line.

Where I Stopped: Remembering Rape at Thirteen
By Martha Ramsey
(Nonfiction)
Two decades after the author was raped by a stranger on a country road in New Jersey, she returned to uncover some stark emotional truths about her ordeal.

Taliban By Ahmed Rashid< (Nonfiction)
Yale University Press, review by Jonathan Groner
A veteran journalist relates the full horror -- brutality, oppression of women and genocide -- of the new Afghanistan. (04/06/00)

Colony Girl By Thomas Rayfiel (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Sarah Vowell
A rebellious young Eve stands at the center of a novel about a Midwestern religious cult.
(09/16/99)

The Coming of the Night By John Rechy (Fiction)
Grove Press, reviewed by Frank Browning
The gay novelist veers toward camp and very nearly touches greatness.
(09/08/99)

Tender at the Bone By Ruth Reichl (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Dwight Garner
A memoir, from the New York Times restaurant critic, about how food can be a way to make sense of the world
(02/23/98)

King of the World: Muhammad Ali and The Rise of an American Hero By David Remnick (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Hal Hinson
The new editor of The New Yorker presents a lucid account of how "a gangly kid from Louisville" became "a molder of his age."
(11/12/98)

"Go West Young F*cked-Up Chick" By Rachel Resnick (Fiction)
St. Martin's Press, Reviewed by Andrew Roe
A first novelist sends her heroine down the rabbit hole of L.A., city of cow-killing Satanists and suicidal socialites.
(04/23/99)

Why They Kill: The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist By Richard Rhodes (Nonfiction)
Alfred A. Knopf, Reviewed by JoAnn Gutin
An expert offers a sweeping (and unconvincing) theory of violence.
(09/28/99)

The Vampire Armand By Anne Rice (Fiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
Armand, the nubile Venetian -- he's the living, breathing remnant of the high Renaissance -- returns in Rice's latest gothic vampire saga.
(10/22/98)

Pandora: New tales of the vampires By Anne Rice (Fiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
In the author's latest dark tale, a Roman noblewoman (and vampire) wanders the earth in search of blood and the meaning of life
(03/23/98)

Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know By Roy Gutman and David Rieff (Nonfiction)
W.W. Norton & Company , Reviewed by Akash Kapur
A mixture of reportage and legal discussion adds up to an encylopedia of evil.
(08/16/99)

Have Gun Will Travel By Ronin Ro (Nonfiction)
Doubleday, Reviewed by Andrew Leonard
A well-reported peek into the violent world of Suge Knight, CEO of Death Row Records, and the underbelly of rap music.
(04/24/98)

Coal to Cream By Eugene Robinson (Nonfiction)
The Free Press, reviewed by Casey Greenfield
An African-American writer discovers a raceless society in Brazil -- or so it seems at first.
(08/27/99)

"Past Forgetting: My Memory Lost and Found" by Jill Robinson (Nonfiction)
Cliff Street Books, Reviewed by Jonathan Lethem A Hollywood novelist comes down with a rare -- and genuine -- case of amnesia.
(10/22/99)

Brown Dog of the Yaak By Rick Bass (Nonfiction)
The Dream of the Marsh Wren By Pattiann Rogers (Nonfiction)
Milkweed Editions, reviewed by Sally Eckhoff
Two authors confront the dramas of the natural world and the writing life.
(07/23/99)

Kill Kill Faster Faster By Joel Rose (Fiction)
Crown, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
A terse, tough-guy novel about a convicted killer who writes a hit Broadway play and becomes a literary celebrity.

Little Miss Strange By Joanna Rose (Fiction)
Algonquin, reviewed by Rob Spillman
This novel about the metaphorical orphans of Kerouac and Kesey follows the adolescence of a daughter of hippies in 1970s Denver.

Some of Me By Isabella Rossellini (Nonfiction)
Random House, reviewed by Charles Taylor
A quirky celebrity bio, in which the author (correctly) warns: "Don't expect confessions, revelations, not even the truth." Sigh.

I Married a Communist By Philip Roth (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, Reviewed by Scott McLemee
During the McCarthy era, a left-leaning radio actor is blacklisted, and betrayed by his actress wife.
(09/29/98)

American Pastoral By Philip Roth (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Albert Mobilio
A departure for Roth, this novel concerns Seymour Levov, a blond, supremely confidant athlete, adored by the Jews of Newark.

The Power to Destroy: How the IRS Became America's Most Powerful Agency; How Congress Is Taking Control; and What You Can Do to Protect Yourself Under the New Law By Sen. William V. Roth Jr., and William H. Nixon (Nonfiction)
Atlantic Monthly Press, Reviewed by Dante Ramos
Grappling with America's tortuous tax policies.
(03/18/99)

The God of Small Things By Arundhati Roy (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by Jennifer Howard
A rich, humid fairy tale of a novel, set in India, about forbidden, cross-caste love and a community's fierce protection of it's old ways.

Clement Greenberg: A Life By Florence Rubenfeld (Nonfiction)
Scribner, Reviewed by Deborah Wilk
A biography (and a critical reexamination) of the powerful, larger-than-life art critic who championed abstract expressionism
(03/26/98)

Sewer, Gas & Electric By Matt Ruff (Fiction)
Atlantic Monthly Press, reviewed by Etelka Lehoczky
"Sewer, Gas & Electric": Cyberpunks vs. corporate conspiracy.

The Abyssinian By Jean-Christophe Rufin (Fiction)
W.W. Norton & Company, reviewed by Brigitte Frase
A prize-winning French novel turns out to be a mound of merde.
(09/22/99)

MagnificentÊCorpses By Anneli Rufus (Nonfiction)
Marlowe & Company, reviewed by Frank Browning
A guide to saints' relics in Europe should satisfy the most grisly-minded readers.
(08/05/99)

The Moor's Last Sigh By Salman Rushdie
(Fiction)
Hyperbole, didactic asides, verbal puns, lewd jokes: What can it be but a high-flying new novel from the author of "The Satanic Verses"?

The Straight Man By Richard Russo
Random House, reviewed by Joan Smith
(Fiction)
A comic saga about a brilliant but hapless English professor at a mediocre Pennsylvania college.

Island of the Colorblind By Oliver Sacks (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Charles Taylor
From the author of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," an investigation of a Pacific island populated by colorblind inhabitants.

Scandalmonger By William Safire (Fiction)
Simon & Schuster, review by Katharine Whittemore
The pundit and language columnist crafts a potboiler of sleaze and slander in the republic's infancy. (03/01/00)

Ithaka: A Daughter's Memoir of Being Found By Sarah Saffian (Nonfiction)
Basic, Reviewed by Maud Casey
A memoir, from a young New York journalist, about being "found" by the parents who gave her up for adoption 23 years earlier.
(12/16/98)

Peace and Its Discontents By Edward Said (Nonfiction)
Essays on the Middle East peace process, from the noted Palestinian literary critic and scholar.

Disco Bloodbath By James St. James (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
Violent death doesn't get more FABULOUS than the murder of drug dealer Angel Melendez by party promoter Michael Alig.
(08/18/99)

The Net of Dreams By Julie Salamon (Nonfiction)
From the author of "The Devil's Candy," an idiosyncratic comparison of the making of Stephen Spielberg's "Schindler's List" and the reminiscences of the author's mother, who survived Auschwitz.

Burning The Days: Recollection By James Salter (Nonfiction)
Random House, reviewed by Dwight Garner
A savvy, bittersweet memoir about the author's experiences in the military, literary and film worlds.

Walker Percy: A Life By Patrick Samway (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, reviewed by Paige Williams
A well-researched and often compelling biography of the author of "The Moviegoer" and "The Last Gentleman.

Day of the Bees By Thomas Sanchez (Fiction)
Knopf, review by Rachel King
A Picasso-like painter and his muse and model play out a tale of love and lust in occupied France. (05/08/00)

Whatever It Takes: Women on Women's Sport Edited by Joli Sandoz and Joby Winans (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Reviewed by Kate Sekules
Some things do change: In a new anthology, women jocks take up the pen.
(08/12/99)

The Factory of Facts By Luc Sante (Nonfiction)
Pantheon, Reviewed by Charles Taylor
From the well-known British novelist, a change-up: a slim detective novel set in the United States
(01/27/97)

The Trouble With Testosterone By Robert Sapolsky (Nonfiction)
Scribner, reviewed by Lise Funderburg
Gentle, provocative essays from a behavioral biologist who smuggles hard science into commentaries on life, death, faith, individuality and love.

Blindness By José Saramago (Fiction)
Harcourt Brace, Reviewed by Jesse Berrett
From the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for literature, a gripping allegorical novel about an epidemic of "white blindness".
(10/16/98)

The History of The Siege of Lisbon By Jose Saramago,translated by Giovanni Pontiero (Fiction)
Harcourt Brace, reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
A fantastical, deeply engrossing novel about a proofreader who attempts to rewrite history, from the great Portuguese novelist.

At Eighty-Two: A Journal By May Sarton (Nonfiction)
Small pleasures and ironic regrets from one of America's most beloved diarist's final years.

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella By George Saunders (Fiction)
Pitch-black satire, from an exciting new writer, about America's tendency to turn everything -- the Civil War, a day at the beach, our farms -- into a theme park.

Going Down: Lip Service From Great Writers Edited by Jay Schaefer (Nonfiction)
Chronicle Books, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Timely meditations on the joys of pearl diving and cone honing; contributors include Oscar Wilde, Erica Jong and John Updike.
(10/08/98)

Rembrandt's Eyes By Simon Schama (Nonfiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Matthew DeBord
A new biography charts the troubled painter's rivalry with the worldly, successful Peter Paul Rubens.
(11/18/99)

Use Me By Elissa Schappell (Fiction)
Harper Collins, review by Stephanie Zacharek
A disarming debut collection tracks a woman's life from teenage passion to grown-up grief. (03/14/00)

Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story By Tony Scherman (Nonfiction)
Smithsonian Institution Press, Reviewed by Greg Villepique
An account of one of rock 'n' roll's legendary drummers doesn't go deep enough.
(08/31/99)

"Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)" By Stacy Schiff (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
Mrs. Nabokov could have been anything she wanted to be. All she wanted to be was Mrs. Nabokov.
(04/20/99)

Blue Bossa By Bart Schneider (Fiction)
Viking, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
A memoir by a former New York Times Book Review editor about her poor upbringing on Chicago's South Side
(03/06/98)

In the Language of Love: A Novel in 100 Chapters By Diane Schoemperlen (Fiction)
A quirky and moving assessment of the memories, hopes and misapprehensions of a young woman, revealed in her responses to 100 innocuous words.

The last time I wore a dress By Daphne Scholinski with Jane Meredith Adams (Nonfiction)
Riverhead Books, reviewed by Laura Green
The memoir of a tomboyish young woman who spent three years in psychiatric hospitals being treated for "Gender Identity Disorder."

The Overspent American By Juliet B. Schor (Nonfiction)
Basic Books, Reviewed by Dante Ramos
A Harvard economist blames technology and advertising for a "new consumerism" that's plunging many Americans into debt
(05/27/98)

In the Family Way: An Urban Comedy
By Lynne Sharon Schwartz (Fiction)
William Morrow and Company, reviewed by Polly Morrice
A master chronicler of family life considers love and sex at the end of the '90s.
(09/30/99)

"The Cockroach Papers" By Richard Schweid (Nonfiction)
Four Walls Eight Windows, review by Pete Wells
They're revolting, they're fascinating, they're brilliantly engineered and every one of those vile little bugs is different.
(01/03/00)

Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS and the Marketing of Gay America By Sarah Schulman (Nonfiction)
Duke University Press, Reviewed by Ted Gideonse This nervy book is partly an attack on the stage musical "Rent" and partly an analysis of how gay culture is homogenized for straight audiences.
(12/22/98)

The Manikin By Joanna Scott (Nonfiction)
A cerebral and fanciful meditation on love, death and taxidermy, from a writer who received a MacArthur "genius" grant at age 31.

"Nobrow" by John Seabrook and "No Logo" by Naomi Klein (Nonfiction)
Context, review by Austin Bunn
A self-revealing reflection on the sick fixations of the media elite stalls out. Is a guerrilla war enough to wake them up?
(02/15/00)

"Swaggart" By Ann Rowe Seaman (Nonfiction)
Continuum, Reviewed by Virginia Vitzthum
A thorough biography of the disgraced televangelist drops a bombshell about his Louisiana childhood.
(12/10/99)

A Fez of the Heart: Travels Around Turkey in Search of a Hat By Jeremy Seal (Nonfiction)
Tracing the origins of a hat inextricably linked to Turkey (but banned there in 1925), the young author delivers a vivid peek inside a complex culture.

The Rings of Saturn By W.G. Sebald (Fiction)
New Directions, Reviewed by Joyce Hackett From the author of the critically acclaimed "The Emigrants," a novel that blends reportage, memoir, art criticism and images into a cohesive meditation on European history.
(12/23/98)

The Emigrants By W.G. Sebald(Fiction)
New Directions, reviewed by Kurt Jensen
Jewish exiles in Austria, England and America, experience the strange, melancholy beauty of having had to give everything away.

Lucky By Alice Sebold(Nonfiction)
Scribner's, reviewed by Sally Eckhoff
By Sally Eckhoff
A memoir of rape that's just about everything you'd expect it not to be
(09/27/99)

Naked By David Sedaris (Nonfiction)
Little, Brown, reviewed by Dwight Garner
Dark and often prickly comic essays, most of them based on his suburban childhood, from the National Public Radio commentator.

The Handyman By Carolyn See (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Ruth Henrich
In this L.A. novel, an unassuming handyman muddles his way to artistic genius while repairing the lives of lonely wives and other lost souls.
(03/12/99)

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea By Charles Seife (Nonfiction)
Viking, review by Gavin McNett
It's weird, it's counterintuitive and the Greeks hated it. (03/03/00)

Great Apes By Will Self (Fiction)
Grove Press, reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir
A dark satire about a London painter who finds that he -- and everyone else in the world -- has become a chimpanzee.

Grey Area By Will Self (Fiction)
The jury is still out on British writer Will Self -- is he a genius or merely a willfully perverse showman? If the nine stories here are any indication, he remains a little of both.

Cinnamon Gardens By Shyam Selvadurai (Fiction)
Hyperion, Reviewed by Akash Kapur An epic novel captures Sri Lankan high society at the turn of the century, starched but beginning to wrinkle.
(07/16/99)

Funny Boy By Shyam Selvadurai (Fiction)
A promising first novel, from a young Sri Lankan writer, about love, race and politics, set amidst the 1983 Sinhalese-Tamil riots.

The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americans Crazy and What to Do About It By Amity Shlaes (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Dante Ramos
Grappling with America's tortuous tax policies.
(03/18/99)

Go and Tell the Pharaoh By Al Sharpton and Anthony Walton
(Nonfiction)
The autobiography of the flamboyant and controversial black leader, from his Brooklyn childhood through a recent assassination attempt.

SLOW MOTION: A True Story By Dani Shapiro (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Lily Burana
A spare and elegant memoir, from the author of 'Picturing the Wreck,' about her life after her parents were nearly killed in a devastating car accident.
(07/27/98)

Picturing the Wreck By Dani Shapiro
(Fiction)
An embittered 64-year-old psychoanalyst tracks down the long-lost son he briefly glimpses in a TV broadcast.

The Designated Mourner By Wallace Shawn (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, reviewed by Rob Spillman
A futuristic new play, about a society that purges its intellectuals, from the well-known actor and playwright.

Piano Pieces By Russell Sherman (Nonfiction)
The author, a renowned classical pianist, delivers a series of sprightly, erudite essays about music, musicians and the most remarkable of instruments.

Larry's Party By Carol Shields (Fiction)
Viking, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
A novel about a small-town florist turned maze-designer from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "The Stone Diaries."

The Fig Eater By Jody Shields< (Fiction)
Little, Brown, & Co., review by Maria Russo
A first-time novelist, recasting a Freudian case history as a psychosexual detective story, wonders what would have happened if "Dora" had been murdered. (03/29/00)

"Mao: A Life" by Philip Short and "Mao Zedong" by Jonathan Spence (Nonfiction)
Review by Gavin McNett
Two new biographies of "the cuddly dictator" are nearly definitive -- but one is 600 pages longer.
(01/26/00)

LEGENDS OF THE AMERICAN DESERT: Sojourns in the Greater Southwest By Alex Shoumatoff (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by David Bowman
A tough-minded first novel, narrated by a misfit high school girl who finds solace in surfing the Southern California coast.
(12/09/97)

Fortune's Rocks"By Anita Shreve (Fiction)
Little, Brown, and Company, Reviewed by Sarah Harrison Smith
It takes place in the late 19th century, but the sexy feminism in this novel is very late 20th century.
(12/08/99)

8 Ball Chicks: A Year in the Violent World of Girl Gangsters By Gini Sikes (Nonfiction)
Anchor, reviewed by Nell Bernstein
A journalist's report on the lives of female gangsters in three American inner cities.

Houdini!!! The Career of Ehrich Weiss
By Kenneth Silverman (Nonfiction)
HarperCollins, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
An chronicle of Houdini's life, his famous stunts and his career as a writer, raconteur and exposer of shyster psychics.

Hair: Public, Political, Extremely Personal By Diane Simon (Fiction)
St. Martin's Press, review by Maggie Jones
Part how-to manual, part cultural history -- what hair means and what the hell to do about yours. (05/10/00)

American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party
By Frederick J. Simonelli (Nonfiction)
University of Illinois Press, reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
A new biography explores the life and legacy of America's premier fascist.
(07/19/99)

Net Chick: A Smart-Girl Guide to the Wired World
By Carla Sinclair (Nonfiction)
Loosen your bra straps:A female Net veteran has penned the ultimate grrrl's tour of the online scene.

Ain't Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice
By April Sinclair
(Fiction)
This sequel to "Coffee Will Make You Black" chronicles the absurdities of 1970s radical chic, as glimpsed through the eyes of a young African-American woman.

Citizen K By Mark Singer (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Charles Taylor
A New Yorker staff reporter describes being taken in by Brett Kimberlin, a prisoner who claimed to have sold pot to Dan Quayle.

The Code Book By Simon Singh (Nonfiction)
Doubleday, Reviewed by By Joshua Kosman
A fascinating and remarkably accessible history of cryptography that ends with a $15,000 contest.
(10/06/99)

Prozac Diary By Lauren Slater (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
Nothing at all like Elizabeth Wurtzel's earlier "Prozac Nation," this sturdy memoir traces the author's life from her disturbed adolescence to her success as a psychologist and writer.
(08/27/98)

Jerzy Kosinski: A Biography By James Park Sloan (Nonfiction)
Did the Polish writer Jerzy Kosinksi fabricate his own life history, in the same way he allegedly lied about the authorship of his books?

STEAL THIS DREAM: Abbie Hoffman and the Countercultural Revolution Against America By Larry Sloman (Nonfiction)
Doubleday, Reviewed by David Futrelle
This oral biography of Abbie Hoffman is both fascinating and hideously depressing.
(08/03/98)

Walt Whitman: A Gay Life By Gary Schmidgall (Nonfiction)
Dutton, reviewed by Peter Kurth
A remarkable and often moving biography that examines Whitman through the prism of his joyful sexuality.

A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue By Wendy Shalit (Fiction)
The Free Press, Reviewed by Norah Vincent
A thoughtful and original meditation on gender issues, from a young writer who seeks to find common ground between feminists and conservatives.
(01/07/99)

Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host: The Autobiography of Larry Sanders As told to Garry Shandling, with David Rensin (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Joyce Millman
This pseudomemoir, like the long-running HBO show it derives from, delivers a fun house-mirror reflection of the late-night talk show wars.
(12/02/98)

Abe: A Novel of the Young Lincoln By Richard Slotkin (Fiction)
Henry Holt and Company, review by Laura Miller
A splendid piece of mythmaking views the young hero's coming of age through the lens of Huckleberry Finn.
(02/11/00)

Horse Heaven By Jane Smiley (Fiction)
Knopf, review by Emily Gordon
A great big novel, jampacked with characters, that brings poetry to the dust and the lust of the racetrack. (04/17/00)

Where the Roots Reach for Water
By Jeffery Smith (Nonfiction)
North Point Press, reviewed by Greg Bottoms
A brilliant account of depression suggests that at century's end memoir may be our most dynamic form.
(09/09/99)

News of the Spirit By Lee Smith (Fiction)
Putnam, reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
Six longish short stories from the Virginia-born writer. At her best, she sounds like Scout grown up, at her worst a saccharine Fanny Flagg.

Havana Bay By Martin Cruz Smith (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by Craig Offman
After seven years, the novelist brings Arkady Renko back for a trip to Cuba.
(06/02/99)

Red Smith on Baseball By Red Smith< (Nonfiction)
Ivan R. Dee, review by Gary Kaufman
Nobody captured the game at midcentury like the man whose pen was as mighty as Joltin' Joe's bat. (04/03/00)

Reflected Glory By Sally Bedell Smith (Nonfiction)
Simon and Schuster, reviewed by Kurt Jensen
An unauthorized and dishy biography of Pamela Churchill Harriman, the Washington socialite and current U.S. Ambassador to France.

Deliberate Intent By Rod Smolla (Nonfiction)
Crown, Reviewed by Jonathan Groner
Does the First Amendment protect a how-to manual for hit men?
(07/13/99)

Galileo's Daughter By Dava Sobel (Nonfiction)
Walker and Co., Reviewed by Casey Greenfield
The life of the heretical Italian scientist, gleaned from the loving, protective letters of his illegitimate daughter.
(11/11/99)

Run Catch Kiss By Amy Sohn (Fiction)
Simon and Schuster, reviewed by Lori Leibovich
Another view of Sohn's roman á clef finds it an emotionally deficient Bridget Jones clone.
(07/22/99)

Wanderlust: A History of Walking By Rebecca Solnit (Nonfiction)
Viking, review by Andrew O'Hehir
A delightful and mind-expanding look at one of the activities that makes us human. (04/27/00)

Nureyev: His Life By Diane Solway (Nonfiction)
Morrow, Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Williams
A meticulous biography of the sexually ambiguous dance icon who gave ballet a rock 'n' roll mystique.
(10/09/98)

A Plague of Frogs: The Horrifying True Story By William Souder (Nonfiction)
Hyperion, Reviewed by Edward Neuert
Does a sudden upsurge of five-legged croakers spell the end of the world?
(03/17/00)

After the Fall By Suzanne Somers (Nonfiction)
Crown, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
A deeply narcissistic memoir, from the former "Three's Company" star and ThighMaster queen, about her struggle with low self-esteem
(06/17/98)

"The Coldest Winter Ever" By Sister Souljah (Fiction)
Pocket Books, Reviewed by Sean Elder
Sister Souljah gives herself a starring role in her first novel.
(04/12/99)

Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life By Howard Sounes (Nonfiction)
Grove Press, Reviewed Jonathan Miles
A biography of the lowlife nihilist forgoes the fig leaves.
(05/27/99)

The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness By Wole Soyinka (Nonfiction)
Oxford University Press, Reviewed by Anderson Tepper
The Nobel Laureate reflects on the potential for healing the wounds of Africa.
(01/26/99)

The Invention of the Restaurant By Rebecca L. Spang (Nonfiction)
Harvard University Press, review by Pete Wells
You didn't know that it was invented, did you? A scholar unearths the unlikely origins. (03/24/00)

Reality & Dreams By Muriel Spark (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Dwight Garner
In the author's 20th novel, a cranky, sixtysomething film director is hospitalized after taking a nasty spill while executing a crane shot.

The Rich Man's Table By Scott Spencer (Fiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Sara Nelson
From the author of "Endless Love," a novel about a Bob Dylan-like folk singer and his illegitimate (and unacknowledged) son.
(04/09/98)

Notorious: A Life of Ingrid Bergman By Donald Spoto (Nonfiction)
Harper Collins, reviewed by Peter Kurth
A comprehensive, if sentimental, biography of the legendary, luminous actress and star of "Casablanca."

I MAY BE SOME TIME: Ice and the English Imagination By Francis Spufford (Fiction)
St. Martin's Press, reviewed by Jonathon Keats
An exploration of the British obsession with polar expeditions, as viewed through "Jane Eyre," Coleridge, Edmund Burke and others.
(12/12/97)

Perv -- A Love Story By Jerry Stahl (Fiction)
Morrow and Co., Reviewed by Rob Spillman
A novel by the author of "Permanent Midnight" explores the Manson-family side of the Summer of Love.
(10/19/99)

Reporting Live By Lesley Stahl (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Caroline Knapp
A straightforward, fact-laden account of Washington's shifting journalistic and political cultures, from the "60 Minutes" reporter.
(01/06/99)

Lorca: A Dream of Life By Leslie Stainton (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Reviewed by Jaime Manrique
A fat, new book on the martyred writer can't decide whether it's a serious study or a celebrity bio.
(06/23/99)

China Chic By Valerie Steele and John S. Major (Nonfiction)
Yale University Press, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Foot binding was barbarous, but that doesn't mean the shoes weren't fabulous.
(04/30/99)

Errata: An Examined Life By George Steiner (Nonfiction)
Yale University Press, Reviewed by Scott McLemee
A collection of essays and bitter intellectual memoirs by thebrilliant New Yorker critic who barely escaped the Holocaust
(03/18/98)

Jesus Saves By Darcey Steinke (Fiction)
Atlantic Monthly Press, reviewed by Sarah Vowell
An investigation into sadism and suburban dread, this novel is about a young girl who is abducted from her summer camp.

Eat Your Way Across The U.S.A. By Jane and Michael Stern (Nonfiction)
Broadway Books, reviewed by Sam Sifton
A guidebook to authentic American eats, from the authors of Gourmet magazine's "Two for the Road" column.

The Ultimate Terrorists By Jessica Stern (Nonfiction)
Harvard University Press, Reviewed by Tim Cavanaugh
Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of fringe groups? Don't panic, a new study advises.
(03/23/99)

Feeding Frenzy By Stuart Stevens (Nonfiction)
Atlantic Monthly Press, reviewed by Andrew Essex
An account of a feverish European road trip, in which the author attempts to eat at every three-star Michelin restaurant.

Blind Eye: How the Medical Establishment Let a Doctor Get Away With Murder. By James Stewart (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Bill Vourvoulias
A throrough investigation tells a hair-raising story but doesn't go far enough in its indictment of the medical profession.
(09/02/99)

CLOSE TO THE BONE: Memoirs of Hurt, Rage and Desire Edited by Laurie Stone (Nonfiction)
Grove Press, reviewed by Laura Green
A collection of autobiographical essays, bound together by the chasm between our desire for unconditional love and the unlikelihood of finding it.

Laughing In The Dark By Laurie Stone (Nonfiction)
Ecco Press, reviewed by Sarah Vowell
A chronicle of the years when comics like Sandra Bernhard, Lypsinka and John Leguizamo meshed art and laughs in downtown New York.

Bear and His Daughter By Robert Stone (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Jennifer Howard
Booze hounds, dope heads, trippers and pill poppers populate these seven stories about getting over (or giving into) substance abuse.

A Child's Night Dream By Oliver Stone (Fiction)
St. Martin's Press, reviewed by Gary Krist
This ultra-tortured coming of age novel, written by the gonzo film director, may one day be hailed as a camp classic.

Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light By Tyler Stovall (Nonfiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by David Futrelle
This elegant history relates how black American artists — including Richard Wright and James Baldwin — fled to mid 20th century Paris.

Double Billing: A Young Lawyer's Tale of Greed, Sex, Lies, and the Pursuit of a Swivel Chair By Cameron Stracher (Nonfiction)
William Morrow, Reviewed by Yunah Kim
Underwhelming yarns of plantation life among the hypocrites and social misfits of a big-name Manhattan law firm.
(01/15/99)

Waste and Want; A Social History of Trash By Susan Strasser (Nonfiction)
Metropolitan Books, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
A close look at garbage comes up with gold.
(09/01/99)

For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health
By Jacob Sullum (Nonfiction)
Free Press, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
A searching and well-reasoned polemic from a senior editor at Reason magazine about the sins of America's anti-smoking movement.
(04/16/98)

The Queen of Whale Cay By Kate Summerscale (Nonfiction)
Viking, Reviewed by Charles Taylor
A slim biography of a true eccentric -- a crossdressing lesbian who was a WWI ambulance driver and the world's fastest speedboat racer
(06/09/98)

Anita and Me By Meera Syal (Fiction)
The New Press, reviewed by Christine Muhlke
An actress and screenwriter ("Bhaji on the Beach"), delivers this winsome novel about an Indian girl and her rambunctious friend.

Space Is The Place: The Lives and Times of Sun RaBy John F. Szwed (Nonfiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
A very readable biography of the legendary, visionary, whacked-out big-band leader who claimed he was born on Saturn.

Self-Portrait with Woman By Andrzej Szczypiorski
(Fiction)
Memory as history and love as oppression are the twin themes of this complex novel about a "doomed romantic" in Warsaw.

"The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro" By Antonio Tabucchi (Fiction)
New Directions, review by Marion Lignana Rosenberg
A mystery of corruption, drug trafficking and decapitation by the Italian novelist.
(01/05/00)

Pereira Declares By Antonio Tabucchi (Fiction)
In 1930s Lisbon, a melancholy widower who edits the cultural page of a third-rate newspaper undergoes a surprising political transformation.

Face-Time By Erik Tarloff (Fiction)
Crown, Reviewed by Scott Sutherland A political roman à clef, written by a former Clinton speech writer, about a White House staffer whose girlfriend is having an affair with the president.
(01/04/99)

Shroud of the Gnome By James Tate (Fiction)
Ecco Press, Reviewed by Albert Mobilio
Reviews of four recent -- and notable -- collections of poetry, from masters such as James Tate and Margaret Atwood as well as newcomers such as Joshua Clover
(03/04/98)

Halfway Heaven: Diary of A Harvard Murder By Melanie Thernstrom (Nonfiction)
Doubleday, reviewed by Laura Miller
A true story, adapted from the author's New Yorker article, about a Harvard student who murdered her roommate.

Kowloong Tong, The Collected Stories By Paul Theroux (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin and Viking, reviewed by Dwight Garner
An abrupt and often nasty novel about Hong Kong and a devastatingly fine collection of stories, both by the well-known author and travel writer.

Skull Wars By David Hurst Thomas (Nonfiction)
Basic Books
Native American activists battle scientists for bones that may prove they had white ancestors.
(03/16/00)

"In Nevada" by David Thomson, "24/7" by Andrés Martinez and "Double Down" by Frederick and Steven Barthelme (Nonfiction)
Reviewed by Jeff Stark
The harsh beauty of Nevada, the glitzy pleasures of Vegas and the thrill ride of gambling.
(12/01/99)

The Book of Revelation By Rupert Thomson (Fiction)
Alfred A. Knopf , Reviewed by Jonathan Miles
From the English novelist, a tale of brief sexual slavery and the years of dissipation that follow.
(03/20/00)

The Rum Diary By Hunter S. Thompson (Fiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Mark Athitakis
Thompson's ungonzo first novel, left unpublished until now, is a languid tale about a young American journalist in the tropics.
(10/15/98)

The Proud Highway: The Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (The Fear and Loathing Letters, Volume 1) By Hunter S. Thompson, edited by Douglas Brinkley (Nonfiction)
Villard, reviewed by Charles Taylor
A collection of early letters from the gonzo journalist and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" author, covering the years from 1955 to 1967.

Soft! By Rupert Thomson (Fiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by David Bowman
A comic novel about a British advertising executive who promotes his new product -- a soft-drink called "Soft!" -- through subliminal brainwashing.
(11/20/98)

First, Body By Melanie Rae Thon (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin Co., reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
A collection of tough, angular short stories from an author who made Granta's list of the best young American writers.

Home Body By John Thorne (Nonfiction)
Ecco Press, reviewed by Scott Mclemee
Twenty short meditations on the spaces within and among which we dwell -- stairwells, attics, bathtubs, mirrors, etc.

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette By Judith Thurman (Nonfiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Pam Rosenthal
A superb literary biographer offers a satisfying life of the great French sensualist.
(10/20/99)

Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness By Robert Thurman (Nonfiction)
Riverhead, Reviewed by Stephen Prothero
An exploration of Buddhism in America, from an academic noted for playing James Carville to the Dalai Lama's President Clinton
(03/30/98)

The Way People Run By Christopher Tilghman (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Gary Crist
Earnest and unhurried, Christopher Tilghman's short stories are wonderfully out of step with the times.
(05/20/99)

No Lease on Life By Lynn Tillman (Fiction)
Harcourt Brace, Reviewed by Sarah Vowell
One woman's chronicle of a day in the life of New York's East Village, where druggies and creeps (and good humor) abound
(01/22/97)

The Story of the Night By Colm Toibin (Fiction)
Holt, reviewed by Michael Boxall
About a gay man's observations of Argentina's deep political problems, this novel is full of images that explode like land mines.

Slow Fuse By Masako Togawa (Fiction)
A Japanese psychiatrist descends into a seamy tangle of sex, blackmail and murder in the trendy precincts of modern Tokyo.

Penguin Soup for the Soul By Tom Tomorrow (Fiction)
St. Martin's Press
Tom Tomorrow's new book of cartoons.
(09/25/98)

The Art of the Comeback By Donald Trump with Kate Bohner (Non Fiction)
Times Books, reviewed by James Poniewozik
It came from the '80s! Donald Trump's latest book tells how he overcame an early-'90s financial slump to return to his former gold-plated glory.

A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul Written and Selected from the World's Sacred Texts By Leo Tolstoy (Nonfiction)
Scribner, reviewed by Edward Neuert
A book of daily affirmations, from the great writer, featuring snippets from Shakespeare, Lao Tsu, Ruskin, the Talmud, the Dhammapada, Socrates, Jefferson and others.

Hungry By Joanna Torrey (Fiction)
Crown, Reviewed by Michelle Goldberg
Short stories about young women and their appetites -- for sex, for food, for attention, for love.
(03/19/98)

Death in Summer By William Trevor (Fiction)
Viking, Reviewed by Dan Cryer
In this stark and often violent rendering of Britain's class divisions, a young shoplifting runaway becomes a nanny at a stately country home.
(09/25/98)

The Woman Who Walked on Water By Lily Tuck (Fiction)
When a smart, affluent woman abandons her life to follow an Indian guru, her family and friends wonder what her former life failed to offer her.

Personal Injuries By Scott Turow (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Reviewed by Jonathan Groner
Writing at the top of his game in a thriller about the corruption of the courts, the author delves deeper into character than he ever has before.
(10/05/99)

Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture By James Twitchell (nonfiction)
A witty and unsettling guide to our advertising-drenched culture.

For Shame: The Loss of Common Decency in American Culture By James B. Twitchell (Nonfiction)
St. Martin's Press, Reviewed by David Futrelle
An inquiry into "the loss of common decency in American culture," from an author known for his critique of advertising
(12/24/97)