Chopin's Move Dalkey Archive ($12.95) Piano New Press ($21.95) Jean Echenoz by Andrew Palmer French writer Jean Echenoz is the author of ten acclaimed novels, seven of which have been translated into English. He was already a popular novelist in his homeland before I'm Gone came out in 1999, but when that novel won the Prix Goncourt—roughly […]
Jennifer Traig Little, Brown & Co. ($22.95) by Anitra Budd Americans have many national pastimes, and high among them is hypochondria. You can call it narcissism at its creepiest, or blame it on our unparalleled access to information. Whatever the illness's source, you'll find its manifestations in every urgent care clinic in the country, where […]
Edited by Emily Bernard HarperCollins ($23.95) by Shannon Gibney In a world where the dominant narrative on interracial friendships looks like something out of Ally McBeal (high-powered, beautiful white girl, hangs with high-powered, beautiful, and sassy black girl and thus obtains extra "cool" points), the prospect of an entire book on the topic is a […]
David Rumsey and Edith M. Punt Esri Press ($79.95) by John Toren David Rumsey—not the sort to balk at career change—earned two degrees in Art History from Yale, fell into a small fortune buying and selling real estate in the San Francisco area, and went on to develop one of the most extensive collections of […]
Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer Vox Pop ($14) by Bradley E. Ayers American Assassination challenges the reader to render careful, critical judgment about the causation of Paul Wellstone's death, when his chartered plane went down in a remote area of northeastern Minnesota in October 2002. Was the crash an accident, a bizarre twist of fate on […]
Michael Dregni Oxford University Press ($35) by Rick Canning The great jazz critic Whitney Balliett once pointed out that virtuosity has always been a problem for jazz. That sounds wrong at first, especially to people who don't listen to much jazz, because every famous jazz musician, it seems, is a virtuoso. But Balliett's point is […]
Ayako Ishigaki The Feminist Press ($16.95) by Sun Yung Shin In the rediscovered memoir Restless Wave, Ayako Ishigaki, writing as Haru Matsui, patiently narrates a mesmerizing bildungsroman, a quest to live a life of conscience where idealism and meaningful action unite. Ishigaki (the author)/Matsui (the narrator) comes of age at a time of great change for […]
by Richard Deming Dennis Barone is the author of numerous books of prose and poetry. His collection of prose pieces, Echoes (Potes & Poets, 1997) received the America Award for most outstanding work of fiction by a living American author. Some of his other works include The Returns (Sun & Moon, 1996), Forms/Froms (Poets & Poets, 1988), and the newly released […]