Book Reviews

I suspect that Charles Dickens was in a pretty foul mood when he wrote "Hard Times" in 1854. He draws stark differences between the "good" people and the "bad" people [...]

The subtitle of Robert K. Massie's "Catherine the Great" is "Portrait of a Woman." But that's too limiting. This 574-page biography is the portrait of a person --- one who [...]

As spy novels go, "The Berlin Ending" by E. Howard Hunt, published 38 years ago, is okay. For readers looking for an addictive page-turner, it will probably be on the [...]

"Stories We Keep" is a small book, only 64 pages. And it's even shorter if you're a reader like me who isn't very hip to yoga or interested in recipes [...]

Well, Thomas Mallon's "Watergate" is certainly a readable novel. It's an amazement, really, that he's been able to take the tottering heap of jagged historical events, involving scores of politicians [...]

Historical fiction is dangerous territory for a writer. It's all too easy to make actual people, say, Abraham Lincoln or John Wilkes Booth, into stick figures, and actual events, say, [...]

Linda Sunshine plays shortstop for the Chicago Eagles, the first woman to become a major leaguer. Her manager, the star pitcher and some of her other teammates don't like the [...]

A little before midnight on the last night of his life Timothy Marr, a linen draper of Radcliffe Highway, set about tidying up the shop, helped by the shop-boy James [...]

Every once in a while, when I'm in the basement and can see the foundations of our two-flat, or rummage in a closet and notice a crack in the plaster [...]

Chad Harbach's intention in "The Art of Fielding" seems to be to subvert the traditional sports story — boy of great talent hones his craft, reaches heights, stumbles but learns [...]