--Laura Miller

The Wings of the Dove: Henry James in the 1990s by Robin Wood (Indiana University Press)

The British Film Institute's series of slim "Modern Classics" monographs finds one of its best entries in Robin Wood's appreciation of Iain Softley's delicately sumptuous adaptation of the late Henry James novel. Despite occasional lapses into unconvincing ideology, Wood remains one of film criticism's best close readers, his keen analysis always grounded in emotion.

This eloquent explication is a superb essay on the question of faithfulness vs. freedom in novel-to-film adaptations.

--Charles Taylor

On the Rez by Ian Frazier (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
A book about American Indians, specifically the Oglala Sioux on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota. It's stuffed with fascinating material -- about Indian-run casinos, about a heroic Oglala basketball legend named SuAnne Big Crow and especially about the writer's bumpy friendship with a mercurial Oglala named Le War Lance. The writing is predictably wonderful, though it may strike anyone bewitched by the daredevil virtuosity of Frazier's earlier work as surprisingly straightforward, even subdued.

--Craig Seligman

Recent books praised by Salon's critics

Experience: A Memoir by Martin Amis
The renowned novelist opens up on the subject of his famously vile father, Sir Kingsley, and the $30,000 fortune he spent repairing his own famously vile teeth.
Reviewed by Andy Roe [05/26/00]

Of Two Minds: The Growing Disorder in American Psychiatry by T.M. Luhrmann
A subtle study of the conflict between talk-oriented and drug-oriented psychotherapy -- and a frightening demonstration of how medical budget cutters are betraying the mentally ill and putting the rest of us at risk.
Reviewed by Laura Miller [05/25/00]

Plowing the Dark by Richard Powers
A riveting novel conjures up the bygone days of virtual reality and the promise of the unreal world that might have been.
Reviewed by Pam Rosenthal [05/24/00]

Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss
A daring first novel probes the psychological -- and sexual -- lives of the celebrated Siamese twins.
Reviewed by Jonathan Miles [05/22/00]

"American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century" by Christine Stansell
Tuning in, turning on and dropping out-- in the 1890s.
Reviewed by Virginia Heffernan [05/19/00]

"Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America" by Robert I. Friedman
A superb introduction to the new face of organized crime is rife with tales of amputation, castration and blood-sprayed trophy blonds.
Reviewed by Mark Schone [05/18/00]

"Stern Men" by Elizabeth Gilbert
In a terrific first novel, a restless 18-year-old feminist idles away a summer on an island of irascible Maine lobstermen.
Reviewed by Jonathan Miles [05/16/00]

"The Fundamentals of Play"by Caitlin Macy
The rich have rules but they won't explain them, according to a smart novel about life after the Ivy League.
Reviewed by Dan Cryer [05/12/00]

"American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley -- His Battle for Chicago and the Nation" by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor
A big biography tells the full story of the legendary politician, with a sharp focus on his battle to keep the Windy City segregated.
Reviewed by Andrew O'Hehir [05/11/00]

Actress Frances McDormand reads Sylvia Plath's "The Bell Jar"