Search results for

If the Dead Rise Not, the latest book in Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther detective series, shifts the saga from prewar Nazi Germany to 1954 Havana. Critic John Powers says the Chandleresque novel kept him glued to his deck chair for days.

Sometimes, a dog or a cat just won't do. In Forbidden Creatures, writer Peter Laufer enters the world of animal smuggling and exotic pets. He explains who's breeding pets for home consumers — and how raising certain species can go horribly wrong.

In his latest book, British journalist William Dalrymple profiles nine Indian religious devotees — from a Jain nun, to an idol carver, to a Buddhist monk. Nine Lives surveys the subcontinent's rich religious topography by focusing on individual journeys of personal faith.

In James' Portrait of a Lady, Isabel Archer is wise enough to understand that if you're not happy without a man, you certainly won't be happy with one. Writer Rhoda Janzen loves the book because it shows what a woman does once she acknowledges her own complicity in the life she has chosen.

Author Helen Simonson risks her literary pretensions to admit a lifelong secret attraction to the Regency romance novels of Georgette Heyer. The dampened muslin dresses, the highly polished boots — for her, nothing beats these tales of heroines who require a man with a firm hand on the bridle.

That diploma you worked so hard for can come with a lot of pressure. No worries, class of 2010. Lizzie Skurnick recommends three books about what happens when a diploma is followed by disaster.

It's no mystery that the Swedes know how to write really good ones. But among the authors with the gift to spin out superior thrillers is a trio of American women and, oddly, the guy who gave us Mr. Magoo. Now, the suspense is over: Mystery fiction aficionado Maureen Corrigan relishes the best of the whodunits.

When Laura Lorson needs a break from the daily grind, she curls up with books that transport her to simpler times. She recommends three titles that take her back to her days of childhood summer reading — absorbing words off sun-dappled pages under the shade of a tree.

Stories about sober, upstanding Dutch trading clerks on assignment in Tokugawa-era Japan aren't exactly trendy in the publishing industry ... but that didn't stop David Mitchell. Critic Michael Schaub finds Mitchell's latest novel so inventive and complex that he expects it to easily qualify as one of the best books of 2010.

Think of Mount Everest, and now think of it in reverse. That, in a nutshell, is a "supercave." In his new book, Blind Descent, author James Tabor pays tribute to the intrepid explorers who venture deep, deep underground.