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)
Unafraid of the Dark: A Memoir By Rosemary Bray (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Jonathan Miles
A memoir by a former New York Times Book Review editor about her poor upbringing on Chicago's South Side
(03/05/98)
"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)
"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)
Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia By Peter Mass (Nonfiction)
HarperCollins, reviewed by Albert Mobilio
The gritty life story of the Gambino crime family underboss, whose testimony was largely responsible for bringing down John Gotti.
Uncollecting Cheever: The Family of John Cheever vs. Academy Chicago Publishers By Anita Miller (Nonfiction)
Rowman & Littlefield, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
A partisan blow-by-blow account of a literary feud: When more than 60
unpublished John Cheever stories are discovered, who owns the rights?
(11/25/98)
The Undertaking: Studies From The Dismal Trade By Thomas Lynch (Nonfiction)
Norton, reviewed by David Futrelle
This lucid memoir, written by a Michigan poet who is also an undertaker, also critiques America's attitudes about death.
The Undiscovered Country By Samantha Gillison (Fiction)
Grove Press, Reviewed by Gary Krist
A probing novel about an American couple who, in order to save
their marriage, decide to move to Papua New Guinea
(06/11/98)
The Unfinished Presidency By Douglas Brinkley (Nonfiction)
Viking, Reviewed by Theo Spencer
An account of Jimmy Carter's manic post-presidential activities --
peace-making, election monitoring, etc. -- from a well-known historian
(05/19/98)
The Unknown Shore By Patrick O'Brian (Fiction)
Norton, reviewed by Rich Nichols
The legendary storyteller is at the top of his form in this tale of shipwreck and mutiny.
Unnatural Disasters: Recent Writings from the Golden State Edited by Nicole Panter (Nonfiction)
Incommunicado Press, reviewed by Paul Tullis
A wide-ranging collection of Los Angeles fiction and nonfiction that rises above Angeleno cliches about models and screenwriters.
Unravelling By Elizabeth Graver (Fiction)
Hyperion, reviewed by Sally Eckhoff
In this first novel, an adventurous young 19th century woman flees hearth and family for the lure of the Massachusetts mills.
Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People By John Conroy (Nonfiction)
Knopf, review by Patricia Kean
Why do torturers torture? An author goes in search of answers. (03/15/00)
The Untouchable By John Banville (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Albert Mobilio
The young, upper-class sexual and political British radicals in this intellectual spy novel (based on a true story) enlist as agents for Stalin.
Unvanquished: A U.S.-U.N. Saga By Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Nonfiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Douglas McGray
Time hasn't healed the former secretary-general's wounds or lessened his bitterness.
(07/09/99)
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)
The Vagina Monologues By Eve Ensler; foreword by Gloria Steinem (Nonfiction)
Villard, Reviewed by Sara Kelly
An adaptation of the author's award-winning off-Broadway show, featuring 15 often comic meditations on the female anatomy
(02/04/98)
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)
Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery By Elizabeth
Haiken (Nonfiction)
Johns Hopkins University Press, reviewed by Michelle Goldberg
A meditation on America's changing attitudes toward the body, and on
the medical technology of its radical transformation (11/21/97)
"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)
The Verificationist By Donald Antrim (Fiction)
Knopf, review by Andrew Roe
Another tour de force of
antic surrealism mixed with melancholy, this one viewed from the ceiling of
a pancake house.
(02/02/00)
Virginia Woolf By Hermione Lee (Nonfiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Elizabeth Judd
This absorbing biography tackles Woolf's dramatic life -- feminism, friendships, lovers, recurring bouts of madness -- and work.
Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home By Thomas A. Bass (Nonfiction)
Soho Press, reviewed by Michael E. Ross
A hard-headed and moving examination of what might be the most enduring legacy of the Vietnam War -- the thousands of Amerasian children born of U.S. soldiers and Vietnamese women.
Viper Rum By Mary Karr (Fiction)
New Directions, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
From the author of "The Liar's Club," a book of poetry that's
filled with humor, aggressive vitality and a hovering veil of despair
(08/04/98)
Misha Glenny's "The Balkans" and Michael Ignatieff's "Virtual War" (Nonfiction)
review by Max Garrone
Behind the bombings in Kosovo, two journalists find Western self-interest and self-deception about the physical sacrifice war requires. (05/04/00)
Viridian By Paul Hoover (Fiction)
University of Georgia Press, reviewed by Albert Mobilio
Four new collections by contemporary poets, ranging from pop culture savvy, to tropical lyricism, to mild naturalism, to the lacerating riddles of a mind on fire.
The Vision of Emma Blau By Ursula Hegi (Fiction)
Simon and Schuster, review by Sarah Harrison Smith
In a sweeping and ambitious novel, the author brings home the plight of German-Americans during and after World War II. (03/06/00)
Vodka, Tears, and Lenin's Angel By Jennifer Gould (Nonfiction)
St. Martin's Press, reviewed by Michael Boxall
A dispatch, from a talented young journalist, about greed, insanity -- and freedom -- in the former Soviet Union.
The Voice Imitator By Thomas Bernhard (Fiction)
University of Chicago Press, reviewed by Ben Marcus
One hundred and four very short stories from a talented Austrian writer who studies the uglier, and more bitter, sides of life
(12/10/97)
The Voyage of the Narwhal By Andrea Barrett (Fiction)
Norton, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
From the author of the National Book Award-winning "Ship Fever," an
account of a 19th century Arctic adventure and its aftermath.
(09/08/98)
The Vulnerable Observer:
Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart By Ruth Behar (Nonfiction)
Beacon, reviewed by Sally Eckhoff
A passionate argument for a controversial brand of first-person anthropology that grips the emotions as well as the intellect.
Waiting for Fidel By Christopher Hunt (Nonfiction)
Mariner, Reviewed by Mark Schapiro
An social assessment of contemporary Cuba, from a writer who tried (and failed) to gain access to Fidel Castro
(02/18/98)
Walker Evans By James R. Mellow(Nonfiction)
Basic Books, Reviewed by Andrew Long
A more critical eye could have taken this wonderfully researched life of the photographer to another level.
(08/11/99)
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.
Walkin' the Dog By Walter Mosley (Fiction)
Little, Brown and Company, Reviewed by Jesse Berrett
The stories in this new collection flirt dangerously with agitprop but wind up delivering a cumulative shock.
(10/07/99)
"The Walking Tour"By Kathryn Davis (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, Reviewed by Virginia Heffernan
The pastoral collides with
cyberspace in a pulse-quickening novel that's totally confusing, but worth
the trip.
(12/02/99)
Waltzing the Cat By Pam Houston (Fiction)
Norton, Reviewed by Paige Williams
Linked short stories, from the author of "Cowboys Are My
Weakness," about a restless female photographer and her penchant for selfish, distant men.
(12/18/98)
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)
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.
"Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen"By Larry McMurtry (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster Trade, Reviewed by Jonathan Miles
The novelist's memoir is an elegy to vanishing breeds -- like novelists.
(11/29/99)
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)
Washington Babylon
By Alexander Cockburn and Ken Silverstein (Nonfiction)
Verso, reviewed by Phil Leggiere
Gonzo-style political muckraking, from two seasoned left-wing journalists, modeled after Kenneth Anger's classic book "Hollywood Babylon."
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)
Waterloo Sunset: Stories By Ray Davies (Fiction)
Hyperion, review by Stephanie Zacharek
The legendary leader of the Kinks ventures gamely into fiction. (03/23/00)
Way Out There in the Blue By Frances FitzGerald (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, review by Ian Williams
The definitive account of Star Wars, the military fantasy that's soaked taxpayers for $60 billion -- and counting. (04/28/00)
The Way We Are By Margaret Visser (Nonfiction)
Faber & Faber, reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
Sixty quirky, far-ranging and pedagogic essays on topics such as spitting, wedding cakes and the Easter Bunny, from the acclaimed Toronto
food writer.
We are all Multiculturalists Now By Nathan Glazer (Nonfiction)
Harvard University Press, reviewed by Scott McLemee
This surprising survey of the cultural wars, by a mild conservative, argues that multiculturalism is a necessary evil.
We Must Love one Another or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer Edited by Lawrence D. Mass (Nonfiction)
St. Martin's Press, Reviewed by David Adox
A series of essays -- some fond, some not -- about the legendary and controversial gay activist and playwright Larry Kramer
(03/20/98)
Werewolves in Their Youth By Michael Chabon (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Adam Goodheart
By the author of "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," a surprisingly Gothic new collection that's long on generosity and longer on charm.
(02/22/99)
West Wind By Mary Oliver (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Albert Mobilio
Four new collections by contemporary poets, ranging from pop culture savvy, to tropical lyricism, to mild naturalism, to the lacerating riddles of a mind on fire.
We Were the Mulvaneys By Joyce Carol Oates (Fiction)
Dutton, reviewed by David Futrelle
In upstate New York, a compelling modern tragedy details the disintegration of a family in the wake of a daughter's rape.
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda By Philip Gourevitch (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Reviewed by Scott Sutherland
A superb and haunting book, from a frequent New Yorker contributor, that explodes many of the myths about the genocide in Rwanda.
(09/22/98)
We're Right, They're Wrong By
James Carville (Nonfiction)
Viking, reviewed by Stefanie Syman
A smart, home-spun set of bullet points -- a virtual pep rally -- for Democrats, via the feisty former Clinton campaign manager.
What Do Women Want? By Erica Jong (Nonfiction)
HarperCollins, Reviewed by Cathy Young
A slim collection of essays, from the author of "Fear of Flying," on topics ranging from Viagra and Venice to Hillary Clinton and Anais Nin.
(10/06/98)
What I Really Want to Do is Direct By Billy Frolick (Nonfiction)
Dutton, reviewed by David Futrelle
A brisk and unflinching look at the fate of several recent film school grads in the grotesque, treacherous world of professional filmmaking.
What Women Want By Patricia Ireland (Nonfiction)
Dutton, reviewed by Alex Kuczynski
Part memoir and part political argument, this new book from the president of the National Organization of Women argues that we haven't attained as much gender equality as we might think.
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)
What's Love Got To Do with It? A Critical Look at American Charity By David Wagner (Nonfiction)
New Press, review by Frank Browning
An argument that American charity lines the pockets of the well-heeled while it screws the poor.
(02/04/00)
"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)
When the Kissing Had to Stop By John Leonard (Nonfiction)
The New Press, reviewed by Euny Hong Koral
Literary criticism remains alive and well (the novel is another story) in the work of two masters of the form.
(07/01/99)
Where I Stopped: Remembering Rape at Thirteen
By Martha Ramsey (Nonfiction)
Putnam, reviewed by Megan Harlan
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.
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)
While I Was Gone By Sue Miller (Fiction)
Alfred A. Knopf, Reviewed by Beth Wolfensberger Singer
In Sue Miller's novel, an aging woman's flirtation with her wild past threatens to destroy her marriage.
(02/03/99)
The White Boy Shuffle By Paul Beatty (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Jeanie Pyun
A prominent hip-hop poet delivers a satirical novel about a young man plucked from his comfortable suburban life and forced to survive in inner-city L.A.
White Hunters: The Golden Age of African Safaris By Brian Herne (Nonfiction)
Henry Holt and Company, Reviewed by Scott Sutherland
A history defends the hunters as conservationists and argues that the real villains were poachers.
(06/18/99)
White Rabbit By Kate Phillips
(Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, reviewed by Kate Moses
At age 88, the finicky heroine of this imaginative first novel finds her routine life abruptly turned upside down.
Who Killed Kirov? By Amy Knight (Nonfiction)
Hill and Wang, Reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
Since it isn't hard to guess, this investigation works better as a biography than as a whodunit.
(06/11/99)
The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report By Timothy Ferris (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, reviewed by Milo Miles
It's not easy to make quantum physics accessible to lay readers, but Ferris comes as close as anyone ever will.
Who Owns the West? By William Kittredge (Nonfiction)
Mercury House, reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
From the author of the acclaimed memoir "A Hole in the Sky," a series of meditations on the taming -- and the trashing -- of the American West.
Who's Irish? By Gish Jen (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Jamie James
In her first collection of stories, Chinese-American novelist Gish Jen turns stereotypes on their heads.
(06/04/99)
Why the Tree Loves the Ax By Jim Lewis (Fiction)
Crown, Reviewed by Sally Eckhoff
A disaffected and often violent thriller about a young woman in the South, from the author of the novel "Sister."
(02/19/98)
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)
Why We Buy By Paco Underhill (Nonfiction)
Simon & Schuster, Reviewed by Todd Pruzan
Paco Underhill examines the sociology and psychology of the consumerist impulse -- and comes up with a few surprises.
(05/21/99)
A Widow for One Year By John Irving (Fiction)
Random House, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
A sprawling, entertaining novel, from the author of "The World
According to Garp," about the daughter of a famous children's book writer
(04/28/98)
Wild Decembers By Edna O'Brien (Fiction)
Houghton Mifflin, review by Stephanie Zacharek
The great Irish novelist delivers a resoundingly passionate tale of land feuds and illicit love. (04/18/00)
Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers
By Lois-Ann Yamanaka (Fiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Anne Whitehouse
Set in Hawaii, this bumptious first novel, narrated by the daughter of poor agricultural workers, delves into language and identity.
WILL THIS DO?: An Autobiography By Auberon Waugh (Nonfiction)
Carroll & Graff, Reviewed by William Georgiades
An exceptionally entertaining autobiography by the journalist son of Evelyn Waugh
(07/28/98)
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle By Haruki Murakami (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Laura Miller
A meditation on America's changing attitudes toward the body, and on
the medical technology of its radical transformation (11/24/97)
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
The Witch Of Exemoor By Margaret Drabble (Fiction)
Harcourt Brace, reviewed by Jo-Ann Mort
A rambling, Dickensian book about a clan of siblings who find themselves tossed out of their mother's will.
With Chatwin Portrait of a Writer By
Susannah Clapp (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by Peter Kurth
A memoir of the noted travel writer and author of "In Patagonia," by his friend and former editor.
Woman: An Intimate Geography By Natalie Angier (Nonfiction)
Houghton Mifflin, Reviewed by Maggie Jones
A science writer finally provides the ammunition to turn biology into a feminist weapon.
(04/05/99)
The Woman and the Ape By Peter Hoeg (Fiction)
Farrar Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Rob Spillman
An ambitious novel about a captured ape -- the possible missing link -- and his relationships with a variety of humans.
The Woman Who Walked Into Doors By Roddy Doyle (Nonfiction)
Viking, reviewed by Charles Taylor
The author of last year's "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" delivers a clear-eyed novel told by a battered woman whose family is on the verge of falling apart.
The Woman Who
Walked on Water By Lily Tuck (Fiction)
Riverhead, reviewed by Kate Moses
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.
The Women By Hilton Als (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by Courtney Weaver
A gay man attempts to view the multiple roles society gives black women through the prism of his own experience.
Women in Their Beds: New and Selected Stories By Gina Berriault (Fiction)
Counterpoint, reviewed by Katharine Whittamore
Bright wordplay with an almost Eastern European bite -- think Chekhov or Kundera -- mark these fine stories by the American writer.
Women with Men By Richard Ford (Fiction)
Knopf, reviewed by David Ulin
Three long stories about emotional distress -- in Montana, and in Paris -- from the author of "The Sportswriter."
Wonder Bread and Ecstasy: The Life and Death of Joey Stephano By Charles Isherwood (Nonfiction)
Alyson, reviewed by Daniel Reitz
Three books that delve into the glamour, and the excesses, of the gay pornography industry.
(12/05/97)
The Wonders of the Invisible World By David Gates (Fiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Austin Bunn
These brooding, crushingly accurate stories are as forgiving as they come.
(06/30/99)
Words for the Taking By Neal
Bowers
(Nonfiction)
Norton, reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Relating Bowers' search
for the man who plagiarized his poems, this book is both a detective
story and a rumination on the worth of poetry.
The Word According to Eve: Women and the Bible in Ancient Times and Our Own By Cullen Murphy (Nonfiction)
Houghton Mifflin, Reviewed by Peter Kurth
Is the Bible demeaning to women? In this smart, eye-opening book,
the author sorts through both history and contemporary feminist
scholarship.
(08/18/98)
Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
Edited by James Grauerholz and Ira Silverberg (Fiction)
Grove Press, Reviewed by Mark Luce
Beneath Burroughs' fedora, and beyond the tales of junk and
lechery, lies the work -- and, yes, moral sensibility -- of a real writer
(01/20/99)
Words Fail Me By Patricia T. O'Connor (Nonfiction)
Harcourt Brace & Company, reviewed by Gary Kaufman
Three new guides to grammar and style approach the rules with a liberal informality and a healthy dash of humor.
(09/20/99)
The World at Night By Alan Furst (Fiction)
Random House, reviewed by Andrew Ross
In this spy novel, a complacent, skirt-chasing bourgeoise film director finds love and a conscience in Paris, 1940.
"The World Through a Monocle" By Mary F. Corey (Nonfiction)
Harvard University Press, Reviewed by Craig Seligman
A new study explores race, class and the New Yorker.
(04/15/99)
The Zig Zag Kid: A Novel By David Grossman (Nonfiction)
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reviewed by David L. Ulin
The new novel from the renowned Israeli writer is about a 12-year-old boy who befriends "the greatest thief in the world".
Worst Fears By Fay Weldon (Fiction)
Atlantic Monthly Press, reviewed by Katharine Whittemore
The British author's 21st novel concerns a well-known actress who discovers the far-flung promiscuity of her late husband.
The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium
-- An Englishman's World
By Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger (Nonfiction)
Little, Brown, Reviewed by Theodore Spencer
Two British writers describe the pestilent, impoverished and
disaster-prone conditions of life 1,000 years before Y2K
(02/10/99)
Yes We Have No: Adventures in the Other England By Nik Cohn (Nonfiction)
Knopf, Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek
Novelist and cultural critic Nik Cohn tours ye merry olde land of low-rent gangsters, spiritual wanderers, techno DJ's and football hooligans.
(10/12/99)
!Yo! By Julia Alvarez
(Fiction)
Algonquin Books, reviewed by Sally Eckhoff
The story of a
rambunctious writer, told by her friends, family and a stalker, from the
author of "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents."
You Have the Wrong Man By Maria Flook (Fiction)
Pantheon, reviewed by Laura Miller
Eight short stories, populated by aimless young working-class men and
women in Providence, Rhode Island, tell of jobs, family and our perverse
appetite for unhappiness.
Young Man from the Provinces: A Gay Life Before Stonewall By Alan Helms (Nonfiction)
Faber & Faber, reviewed by Dwight Garner
A frank memoir from the golden boy dubbed by Edmund White "the best piece of ass of my generation."
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)