Author: stevenowad

This novel received glowing reviews (including from the more literary outlets) and is lauded by King fans as one of his best—but it’s hard to see the appeal. Jake Epping is a high-school teacher in Maine. He discovers a portal to 1958, and after one …

Part reportage and part meditation, this book gives us a clear-eyed look at life in the trenches. The author shadows a platoon of foot soldiers over 15 months in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan. The resulting nuggets of observer wisdom are razor sharp (“The closer you …

Sticking with our recent focus on somber, war-related writing (thanks for ruining upbeat fiction for me, Putin), we present the 1979 novel about three people in a boarding house in post-war Brooklyn. Two of those people are scarred by the war, and the third is …

Probably the best-known Holocaust memoir, this 1960 account of the author’s time in two concentration camps is raw and terrifying. In 1944, Wiesel and his father are deported from their village in Transylvania to Auschwitz. What follows is the destruction of all human values and …

Thanks to Vladimir Putin, it’s hard to read and enjoy normal novels these days—and hard not to be political. Here’s a book that shows us what happens when totalitarianism takes root in Europe. These little-known stories are based on the Polish author’s experiences in Auschwitz …

The two youngest members of the Glass family are both actors. Franny is having a nervous breakdown and muttering a Catholic prayer like an earnest acolyte. Zooey, her big brother, is there to counsel her, but he isn’t helping. “We’re freaks, the two of us,” …

Inspired by last week’s BANANAFISH, we turn our attention to the Glass family chronicles: in particular, Seymour Glass, the oldest of seven precocious children of showbiz parents. What makes Seymour tick? Why would this brilliant, ridiculously educated polyglot choose to exit the world? He clearly …

These stories by Holden Caulfield’s creator are 1950s New York through and through. Elevated language and smooth storytelling rhythms are layered atop subtext heaving with moneyed angst, the horrors or war, and Hindu mysticism. Even with all this going on, some of these stories are …

Emergency review this week. A troglodytic school board in Tennessee has banned this 1992 graphic novel. That’s a good reason to remind everyone how brilliant and necessary the book is. The stated cause of the ban: profanity and nudity. The real reason: we’ll leave you …

A haunting play about finding justice in a new democracy after decades of dictatorship. Paulina, a former political prisoner and victim of brutal torture, takes her husband’s newest friend hostage. Roberto is a doctor who may or may not have been Paulina’s main tormentor under …