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Sunday Reviews

Written on: September 26th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts

This regular feature has been in hibernation for a few weeks while the statewide catalog comes together. This week, we’re back to featuring some selected reviews from this week’s New York Times Sunday book review section. These critically-acclaimed and newly released titles are available from your Delaware public library- wherever you are in the state. Click on the titles to check availability or to place a hold.

• To the End of the Land, by David Grossman is the featured review in this week’s New York Times book review section- “one of the few novels that feel as though they have made a difference to the world.” A recent feature in the New Yorker explored the tragic context of Grossman’s novel, which was completed after the death of the author’s son Uri in the Second Lebanon War.
• James Ellroy’s The Hilliker Curse continues the author’s investigation of the unsolved murder of this mother, as a sort-of sequel to My Dark Places. Where that work concentrated on the procedural and investigative aspects of the crime, this latest work is more of an “emotional autopsy” which charts the effects of the crime on the author’s relationships and romantic life.
• Some Sing, Some Cry by Ntozake Shange is a “story of lifesaving music and heartbroken maternity.. engaging from start to finish” which tells the story of the against-the-odds survival of black women in America.
• According to the author, Carl Rakoff’s new book of essays, Half Empty contains “no inspirational life lessons”- the reviewer begs to differ.
• Dreaming in Chinese by Deborah Fallows is a “chatty and colloquial” guide to contemporary Chinese culture, drawn from the author’s three years living in China and immersing herself in learning the language.
• Robert Sheffield’s Talking to Girls About Duran Duran is the coming-of-age biography of an ’80s music geek growing up in New Englan.