Category: Micro-Reviews

Here’s a rare novel that blends young-adult fiction with gritty urban storytelling and X-rated social realism. The result is one of the best novels of the 1990s, a shocking ride through the horror-filled life of a teenage girl in Harlem. Claireece “Precious” Jones grows up …

One for the writers. Most how-to-write books are recycled compendia of well-worn do’s and don’ts (many are downright suckertraps). This one, first published back in 1994, is one of the briefest and the best. The advice contained herein is clear and useful, and it’s presented …

A political thriller about a ghost writer who’s authoring a book for a former British prime minister. There’s more to the job than the usual political-memoir banalities. Our ex-PM has a hidden past. He might even be a spy for the United States. Our writer …

RIP, Charlie Watts. Despite your fame, we hardly knew you. Keith Richards, meanwhile, is engraved on our collective psyche and will outlive our children. This biography is entertaining and intelligent from start to finish. It’s jammed full of colorful stories and devoid of the self-serving …

With the world’s eyes now on Afghanistan, this novel takes on renewed significance. It’s a dramatic depiction of a country in transition and of women who live and die under Taliban rule. The story is tragic, heartbreaking and as “real” as a novel can be. …

A biography of the Venezuelan terrorist known as “the Jackal”—the world’s most wanted man for two decades. Carlos is raised a communist and becomes a hired gun for just about any group that truly understands the “mendacity” of the West. He becomes a fantastically successful …

Haven’t seen the HBO series, but the novel, by the author of the much-feted LITTLE CHILDREN and the underappreciated THE WISHBONES, is a unique tale of middle-class angst and beauty. Perrotta finds the extraordinary in the ordinary—the small glories in the numb predictability of suburbia. …

Hemingway’s mostly factual ode to his years in Paris after World War I. The events take place a full century ago, and at times the various wisdoms are outdated, but this is still a great read, with the energy of youth even though it was …

The title tells the story. Ageing professor David Kepesh fears his impending decline and death but is also fiercely attracted to a young student one-third his age. Before you think, “Well, here’s another whiny confession by an old, white male lusting after a young thing,” …

Before he gave us movies such as IN BRUGES and THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI,” Martin McDonagh was one of the coolest playwrights on the planet. This play, about an outrageously weird criminal looking for the hand that was cut off his arm and then …