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Featured essay

Does edgy YA fiction go too far?
Essay by Fiction Editor Julie McGuire
Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Witches, warlocks, and vampires. Cults of veiled women, and a society of Odd Fish. Do the edgy offerings for today’s young adults go too far?

Non-fiction

Lessons in Disaster
By Gordon M. Goldstein
Reviewed by Tom Waldman
Gordon Goldstein’s superb book will startle readers by showing that at the highest levels of government nobody was confident that the U.S. could actually win the Vietnam War.

Called Out of Darkness
By Anne Rice
Reviewed by Doris E. Pavlichek
When my husband stated that he wanted to read the then new Anne Rice book, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, I cringed.

Big Boy Rules
By Steve Fainaru
Reviewed by Wisteria Leigh
The cover of Big Boy Rules displays a bald, brawny soldier, biceps bulging, wrapped in a belt of bullets clutching his weapon while standing lookout through the sunroof of an SUV.

Anna Letitia Barbauld
By William McCarthy
Reviewed by Marty Carlock
In Georgian England Anna Letitia Aiken Barbauld was a respected writer—poet, essayist of liberal thought, and commentator on politics, education, and religion.

Uncharitable
By Dan Pallotta
Reviewed by Jack Shakely
I have never met Dan Pallotta. Neither did the 17th century poet William Congreve, of course, but had he done so, he might have tacked an addendum to his observation that Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.

Havana Nocturne by T. J. English and Havana Before Castro by Peter Moruzzi
Reviewed by Clive Foss
In Havana Nocturne, T. J.English gives us the story of the incredible wealth and influence of the American Mob in 1950s Cuba, its central character the colorless but supremely efficient Meyer Lansky, who rose from the slums of the Lower East Side to control the most ambitious operation organized crime has ever undertaken.

British Women Poets and the Writing Community
By Stephen C. Behrendt
Reviewed by Bruce Chabot
In a world of Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth, other poets thrived.

The Hunt for Planet X
By Govert Schilling
Reviewed by Ruth Douillette
Considering that the word planet comes from the Greek word for “wandering star,” none of what we call planets actually fit that term.

Nothing to Fear
By Adam Cohen
Reviewed by Nancy R. Davison
Elected by a broad mandate and opposed by a vociferous but intellectually and politically bankrupt Republican Party, an inexperienced Democratic president faces the challenges of the worst economic conditions of the century. Obama in 2009? No. Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933.

Warlord
By Carlo D’Este
Reviewed by Tony Williams
At first glance, one might be a little skeptical that the life of such a towering figure as Winston Churchill can be reduced to the view seen through one lens: warlord.

Ceremonial Violence
By Jonathan Fast
Reviewed by Roger Poppen
The emergence of school shooting rampages in the latter part of the 20th century is an alarming feature of our society. Jonathan Fast, professor of social work at Yeshiva University, presents an analysis of factors related to these tragedies.

The Tyranny of Dead Ideas
By Matt Miller
Reviewed by Carter Jefferson
This book could change the world, but it probably won’t—even the author concedes that.

Still I Rise
By Roland Laird, Taneshia Nash Laird, Charles Johnson, Elihu “Adofo” Bey
Reviewed by Philip Manna
As an adolescent I loved comic books. My favorites were Marvel super heroes Spiderman and the Silver Surfer. Watching them sling webs or ride invisible cosmic waves to fight injustice fueled my imagination, awakened my interest in science, and even got me to read a bit.

Fiction

Fool
By Christopher Moore
Reviewed by Dawn Kingsbury Wakefield
This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as non-traditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank.

The Disappearance
By Efrem Sigel
Reviewed by Ann Hite
The Disappearance, a new novel by Efrem Sigel, gives voice to every parent’s nightmare: a child goes missing.

The Vagrants
By Yiyun Li
Reviewed by Jane Woodward Elioseff
With A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2006), her award-winning collection of short stories, Yiyun Li jumped from the back of a tiger through a ring of fire.

The History of Now
By Daniel Klein
Reviewed by Denise Yagel
It’s tough being a small town in America. From idealized to vilified, everyone seems to have an opinion about you.

The Kindly Ones
By Jonathan Littell
Reviewed by Rebeca Schiller
Oh my human brothers, let me tell you how it happened.

Here are brief reviews of some current releases that the editors think you’ll find interesting.