What We're Reading: March 3-8

What Tash Aw did so well in his first novel, he manages to replicate easily in Map of the Invisible World. Though fans of Harmony Silk Factory might find the characters in this book slightly disappointing and far less complex, Aw's clear, crisp writing more than makes up for it. He has been compared to Graham Greene and even Joseph Conrad for obvious reasons: Aw writes about the post-colonial world. But like those writers, he uses words sparingly. Descriptions are straightforward. The prose is so unfussy that he must have fussed and fussed to get it that way. 'Night falls quickly in these islands,' reads his description of a remote village. 'And once it arrives you can see nothing. If you light a lamp it will illuminate a small space around you quite perfectly, but beyond this pool of watery brilliance there is nothing. The hills, the scrubby forests, rocky shoreline, the beaches of black sand — they become indistinguishable.' This is signature Tash Aw. He manages to capture a time, a place and a feeling without beating us over the head. — Guy Raz, weekend host of All Things Considered

I read the Austen classics as a teenager (I found Emma racy), and revisited them in graduate school and later in my novel group. Jane's Fame was a delicious surprise, adding immensely to my understanding of the Austen legend. Harman shows why Jane Austen has enchanted readers for two centuries — why her fame has grown exponentially from her anonymous first publication in 1810 (Sense and Sensibility, by 'A Lady') to last year's quirky mash-up, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Harman crisply analyzes Austen's long-lasting appeal to readers — her clarity of language, her realistic descriptions, her skill at dissecting the social web and revealing the heartbreakers and dissemblers. She devotes most of Jane's Fame to putting together the pieces of the Austen puzzle, showing how Austen repeatedly hit the breaking wave of literary fashion. And she is particularly eloquent at describing the missing pieces in the Austen legend. Austen wrote for 20 years before publishing her first book and went to her grave as an anonymous author. Most of her letters and manuscripts disappeared in the years after her death, and her work would have gone out of print if her nephew hadn't written his intimate memoir. Jane's Fame is a cautionary tale: Without the intervention of biographers and critics, Jane Austen's work might have disappeared, virtually unread. Imagine that! — Jane Ciabattari, NPR book reviewer

Home Land was one of those books that made you want to accost passersby and read entire paragraphs to them. Sure, Lipsyte was on to something when he constructed that novel as an extended, soaringly funny, bitterly honest rant to an alumni newsletter ('Let me stand on the rooftop of my reckoning and shout naught but the indisputable: I did not pan out'), but what you really fell for was his sure, muscular prose, so packed with energy — and good, solid jokes. The Ask adopts a more conventional narrative structure than Home Land, and the book's plot frankly takes its own sweet time to kick in. But while you're waiting you're treated to language like this: 'I stared at my own hands, soft, expressive things, gifted, even, like specially bred, lovingly shaved gerbils.' I love how Lipsyte blithely frontloads that sentence with all those momentum-killing adjectives and adverbs, because he knows his kicker — the terminal noun gerbils — is so strong. Comedy is a function of rhythm, of cadence, and just as I did with Home Land, I find myself admiring how effortlessly Lipsyte not only brings the funny, but factory-installs it into every sentence. — Glen Weldon, NPR book reviewer

The fact that the media can be sexist and unrealistic is hardly news. Yet Douglas offers a cultural critique that is fresh, scathing, insightful — and often very funny. This is a woman who's probably seen every episode of Gossip Girl; she finds our escapist culture delicious even as she sounds the alarm. Enlightened Sexism is a brilliant jeremiad against the myths about equality, ambition and femininity that are currently being served up as 'reality' in America. Douglas drives a Buffy-style stake through the heart of a multitude of culprits — from TV shows and tabloids to toy companies — challenging their insistence that feminism is outmoded. Best yet, Enlightened Sexism proposes creative solutions. It's a call to action as well as a blueprint. A must read. — Susan Jane Gilman, reviewer for All Things Considered