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Book World: Robert and Dayna Baer's 'true-life spy story,' 'The Company We Keep'
In "The Company We Keep," Robert and Dayna Baer reveal how they romanced each other while spying for the CIA.
Book review: 'The Trinity Six' by Charles Cumming
In "The Trinity Six," Charles Cumming takes a brilliant fictional look at the greatest spy scandal of the 20th century.
The actor Alan Arkin tells how to live "An Improvised Life" in his memoir of that name.
In his memoir, "An Improvised Life," Alan Arkin explains his techniques for acting and training other actors.
Jill Bialosky's "History of a Suicide"
In "History of a Suicide," Jill Bialosky probes the suicide of her half-sister and searches for catharsis, even absolution.
Maya Jasanoff's "Liberty's Exiles," on British Loyalists after the revolution
In "Liberty's Exiles," Maya Jasonoff tells the tale of the British Loyalists who opposed the American revolution.
Dani Rodrik's "The Globalization Paradox"
In "The Globalization Paradox," Dani Rodrik examines what economists overlook.
Thomas E. Kennedy's "Falling Sideways"
The second novel in Thomas E. Kennedy's Copenhagen Quartet is a satire of men and women at work.
Michael Connelly, author of "The Lincoln Lawyer"
lincoln lawyer; the lincoln lawyer; lincoln lawyer michael connelly; michael connelly lincoln laywer; matthew mcconaughey; mcconaughey lawyer; marisa tomei; william h. macy; ryan phillippe; lakes...
'Three Stages of Amazement': Life's lessons skillfilly shared
It's been 17 years since Carol Edgarian's best-selling, critically acclaimed first novel, "Rise the Euphrates," announced the arrival of a gifted and ambitious young writer. Yet that long pause f...
'Rawhide Down,' a gripping account of the day Reagan was shot
By Del Quentin Wilber
Book World: Lionel Shriver reviews Yan Lianke's 'Dream of Ding Village'
Yan Lianke's 2006 novel "Dream of Ding Village" - about a Chinese AIDS village and banned by the Communist Party - is now available in an English translation.
Mat Johnson's 'Pym' re-imagines Poe's social satire
Hats off, please, to Mat Johnson, author of this wonderful, black-humored novel - part social satire, part meditation on race in America, part metafiction and, just as important, a rollicking fan...
Book review: Sarah Pekkanen's 'Skipping a Beat'
The heroine of Sarah Pekkanen's second novel, "Skipping a Beat," is a 30-something party planner who lives in a multimillion-dollar mansion in Northern Virginia. When we first meet Julia Dunhill,...
Book review: 'The Tiger's Wife' by Tea Obreht
Tea Obreht's swirling first novel, "The Tiger's Wife," draws us beneath the clotted tragedies in the Balkans to deliver the kind of truth that histories can't touch. Born in Belgrade in 1985 - no...
Five finalists for National Book Critics Circle award in poetry
The finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, which will be given Thursday night, have little in common, except that each employs a distinct tool or perspective that pushes ...
Book World: Keith Donohue reviews Kevin Brockmeier's novel 'The Illumination'
In a certain kind of story, life is altered by one degree: A man awakens one morning to find he has become an insect; everyone in a city suffers a plague of blindness; the perfect knight turns ou...
Patrick Anderson reviews Keith Thomson's 'Twice a Spy'
As I read "Twice a Spy," Keith Thomson's stab at a humorous spy novel, I kept thinking of the old actor's last words: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."
Amid revolution, Arab cartoonists are drawing attention
It was August of 2006 when Dalia Ziada, a young Egyptian writer, discovered her favorite comic-book action hero. He trumpeted justice. He preached of nonviolent pressure. And he had dreams of a p...
Wash Post Books
7 MONDAY | Noon. Regina A. Root, an associate professor of Hispanic studies at the College of William and Mary, discusses and signs her new book, "Couture and Consensus: Fashion and Politics in P...
The American Scholar's Wendy Smith reviews 'Ghost Light' by Joseph O'Connor
Molly Allgood, the heroine of Joseph O'Connor's moving new novel, was the lover of playwright John Synge; they were engaged to be married when he died from Hodgkin's disease at age 37. Under the ...
Joshua Foer's 'Moonwalking With Einstein,' on the nature of memory
Book review by It's hard to imagine a world in which all you can do with a thought is recall it: a world in which written words do not exist and the only way to hoard knowledge is to remember. Th...
Book reviews: Ben Katchor's 'The Cardboard Valise' and Joyce Farmer's 'Special Exits: A Gr aphic Memoir'
At a dingy shop in downtown Fluxion City, you can buy, for only $29.95, the suitcase of a desperate man. It's no Samsonite: 56 inches but made of cardboard, staples and glue, guaranteed for a mer...
3 books on New York City neighborhoods
"I Love New York" is not only a popular ad campaign to promote tourism in the Empire State. It also sums up the affection felt by millions who call the Big Apple home. Three new titles explore th...
Bing West's "The Wrong War," on Afghanistan strategy
THE WRONG WAR Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan By Bing West Random House. 307 pp. $28 In a new book about the war in Afghanistan, distinguished military affairs writer Bing West arg...
Deb Olin Unferth's 'Revolution'
REVOLUTION The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War By Deb Olin Unferth Henry Holt. 208 pp. $24 Deb Olin Unferth met George at an anti-CIA protest. She quickly fell in love. When George, ...
Dominic Sandbrook's "Mad as Hell," on rise of populist right
MAD AS HELL The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right By Dominic Sandbrook Knopf. 506 pp. $35 Dominic Sandbrook is a young British historian whose first book, the well-received "...
"Townie," a memoir by Andre Dubus III
Townie A Memoir By Andre Dubus III Norton. 387 pp. $25.95 If you've ever been harassed or hurt by a bully, if you've ever dreamed of revenge, if you've ever crossed the line from dreaming to hitt...
"An Extravagant Hunger," about M.F.K. Fisher
AN EXTRAVAGANT HUNGER The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher By Anne Zimmerman Counterpoint. 261 pp. $26 M.F.K. Fisher's life was tumultuous. She never stayed in one place very long, had no shorta...
Gordon Brown's "Beyond the Crash"
BEYOND THE CRASH Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization By Gordon Brown Free Press. 314 pp. $26 For a brief, shining moment, the world stood together, and Gordon Brown was its voice. On an ...
Jim Steinmeyer's "The Last Greatest Magician in the World"
THE LAST GREATEST MAGICIAN IN THE WOR LD Howard Thurston versus Houdini & the Battles of the American Wizards By Jim Steinmeyer Tarcher/Penguin. 377 pp. $26.95 Roll over, Houdini, and tell Orson ...
Stephanie Staal's 'Reading Women': Looking to feminist texts to find herself
Search Washington,DC area books events,reviews and bookstores from the Washington Post. Features DC,Virginia and Maryland entertainment listings for bookstores andand and books events. and books events.
Book review: 'Blood, Bones & Butter' delectable when chef Hamilton's in charge
Chef Gabrielle Hamilton's lyrical memoir, "Blood, Bones & Butter," lives up to the hype.
Book World: 'Mr. Chartwell' reviewed by Ron Charles
Surprisingly uplifting novel by Rebecca Hunt about Winston Churchill and the depression he suffered from most of his life, which he referred to as "the black dog."
"Underground," a picture book by Shane W. Evans
Shane W. Evans's picture book "Underground" evokes the Underground Railroad for very young readers.
"Wheels of Change," a kids' history of women and bicycles
Sue Macy's children's book "Wheels of Change" explores the vast ways that bicycles affected women's lives in the 19th century.
"Strings Attached," a young adult mystery from Judy Blundell
National Book Award winner Judy Blundell returns with an intense young adult mystery.
Book review: 'Playing Catch-Up' by A.B. Guthrie Jr.
In the 1940s and '50s, Montana writer A.B. Guthrie Jr. (1901-1991), was more than just a regional figure. His 1947 novel, "The Big Sky," earned him popular and critical acclaim; his next, "The Wa...
Anna Mundow reviews 'Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer,' by Wesley Stace
Wesley Stace's new novel, "Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer," is at first glance a straightforward period thriller. On a summer night in 1923, three people are found dead in a London fla...
Deborah Lutz's "Pleasure Bound," on Victorian sex rebels
In "Pleasure Bound," Deborah Lutz takes readers on a tour of the eroticism of Victorian England.
Philip K. Dick, the sci-fi writer who fires Hollywood's imagination in film after film
Philip K. Dick isn't really Hollywood's favorite dead author. It only seems that way.
Judi Dench's wry, shy take on a glorious stage career
AND FURTHERMORE By Judi Dench as told to John Miller St. Martin's. 268 pp. $26.99 Suddenly, every time I point my TV remote, out jumps Dame Judi Dench. She twinkles as elderly ingenue Jean Hardca...
Wash Post Books
28 MONDAY | 7 P.M. Palestinian physician Izzeldin Abeulaish reads from and discusses his new memoir, "I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity," at the Six...
Allison Pearson's 'I Think I Love You': A celebrity crush turns star-crossed
It is 1974, and 13-year-old Petra Williams of South Wales is worshipfully in love with far-off pop idol David Cassidy. Along with her kindest friend, Sharon, beneath posters of their androgynous ...
A review of 'Crazy U,' by Andrew Ferguson, about his family's college admissions experience
In "Crazy U," Andrew Ferguson tries to reconcile the conflicting advice he and his son get on navigating the college admissions process.
"The Natural Navigator" by Tristan Gooley
THE NATURAL NAVIGATOR A Watchful Explorer's Guide to a Nearly Forgotten Skill
Douglas Waller's "Wild Bill Donovan," on the OSS spymaster
WILD BILL DONOVAN The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage By Douglas Waller Free Press 466 pp. $30 On the eve of the Normandy invasion in 1944, Gen. George C. Marshall, th...
Nicholas Delbanco's "Lastingness: the Art of Old Age"
LASTINGNESS The Art of Old Age By Nicholas Delbanco Grand Central 261 pp. $24.99 Nicholas Delbanco's new book examines creative achievement in old age, though the author acknowledges that our cul...
"Inherently Unequal" -- the sad history of the Supreme Court and civil rights
INHERENTLY UNEQUAL The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865-1903 By Lawrence Goldstone Walker. 242 pp. $26 "Constitutional law," Lawrence Goldstone says toward the end of "Inherent...
Biography of Bogart examines his ongoing cultural impact
TOUGH WITHOUT A GUN The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart By Stefan Kanfer Knopf. 288 pp. $26.95 In 1997, the American Film Institute named Humphrey Bogart the "Greatest Male St...
Susan Conley's 'Good Fortune': Riveting memoir about being American in China
Beware of people who say they "love to travel," especially when they invite you on some glamorous excursion. My first husband, when we studied for a year in France, couldn't pronounce pamplemouss...
'Gryphon: New and Selected Stories,' by Charles Baxter: Short but potent
Charles Baxter's short stories easily satisfy the genre's one nonnegotiable requirement: The central characters, through an encounter or an epiphany, must undergo some kind of transformation. Wha...
Book review: 'The Death Instinct' by Jed Rubenfeld
On Sept. 16, 1920, a bomb hidden inside a horse-drawn carriage exploded in the heart of Manhattan's financial district, killing dozens of people. That long-forgotten bombing was the deadliest ter...
T. Coraghessan Boyle's 'When the Killing's Done,' an environmental novel
In his superbly marketed blockbuster "Freedom," Jonathan Franzen lectured at us for a long time about the dire plight of the environment. Readers who had been busy in another room during the past...
New in paperback: 'A Mountain of Crumbs' and more
Elena Gorokhova had many compelling reasons for fleeing the Soviet Union in 1980, but the one that finally pushed her over the edge was rather mundane: "It has to do with my mother," she explains...
Book review: Carsten Jensen's 'We, the Drowned'
WE, THE DROWNED By Carsten Jensen Translated from the Danish by Charlotte Barslund with Emma Ryder Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 678 pp. $28 When was the last time you relished sitting down with a 6...
'Tiger Mother' author faces a tough crowd at Politics and Prose
The monstrous, horrible Tiger Mother has reportedly entered the building, and the audience is getting restless.
'The Collaborator': Taking on a modern-day Italian crime family
Immacolata Borelli, the quasi-heroine of Gerald Seymour's powerful new novel, is 25, tough, gorgeous and exceedingly spoiled. She's spoiled because she's the beloved daughter of the leaders of on...
'The History of History': An imaginative look at Berlin
Berlin, the least storied of the great European capitals, not much more than an oversize village as late as the 18th century, is today one of the most vibrant cities on the continent, though it h...
Wash Post Books
21 MONDAY | 7 P.M. Ariel Sabar, author of "My Father's Paradise" (a National Book Critics Circle Award winner), discusses and signs his new book, "Heart of the City: Nine Stories of Love and Sere...
Two books on blacks and the White House
The interaction of African Americans with American presidents and the first family is explored in two books, "The Black History of the White House" by Clarence Lusane and "Family of Freedom" by K...
Scott Brown's memoir, 'Against All Odds,' reveals troubled childhood for senator
"Against All Odds," the new memoir from Scott Brown, the Massachusetts senator who took Ted Kennedy's seat, reveals a troubled childhood filled with abuse.
Kenneth Slawenski's biography of J.D. Salinger
J. D. SALINGER A Life By Kenneth Slawenski Random House. 450 pp. $27 Kenneth Slawenski broadens our understanding of the personal and literary life of a remarkable American writer in his biograph...
Yardley reviews Jonathan Gill's "Harlem"
HARLEM The Four Hundred Year History from Dutch Village to Capital of Black America By Jonathan Gill Grove. 520 pp. $29.95 In September 1609 the English explorer Henry Hudson, en route - or so he...
Mary Cappello's "Swallow"
SWALLOW Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration, and the Curious Doctor Who Extracted Them By Mary Cappello New Press. 292 pp. $27.95 A 7-year-old girl has been unable to drink liquids for a...
Peter Bergen's "The Longest War"
THE LONGEST WAR The Enduring Conflict Between America and al-Qaeda By Peter L. Bergen Free Press 473 pp. $28 Is al-Qaeda still a threat to America? In his important history of the war on terroris...
Book review: 'George Gershwin,' a new biography by Larry Starr
GEORGE GERSHWIN By Larry Starr Yale Univ. 194 pp. $45 It is a truth universally acknowledged that George Gershwin (1898-1937) wrote some irresistible melodies. After that, the debate begins. Was ...
3 books about iconic artists
Brimming with both vagueness and import, the label "iconic" has been slapped on everything from fashion to corporate logos, public buildings to television characters. When applied to art, which a...
The Peace Corps at 50
WHEN THE WORLD CALLS The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years By Stanley Meisler Beacon. 272 pp. $26.95 In 2008 Christiane Amanpour illustrated America's declining role in th...
'The Word Exchange' book review: Old English poetry isn't lost in translation
J.R.R. Tolkien once described "Beowulf" - and by extension much of Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, poetry - as "a drink dark and bitter: a solemn funeral-ale with the taste of death." He further emp...
Books: Eleanor Brown's 'The Weird Sisters,' reviewed by Ron Charles
This smart, hopeful novel by Washington-born author Eleanor Brown will be the winter's tale for any book lover who likes her entertainment laced with a touch of Shakespeare. A family drama, grace...
5 books about words
Want to create an impromptu singalong? Just stand in a room of Gen X adults and let loose with "Conjunction Junction." I had a mom I'd never spoken with belting out, "What's your function? Hookin...
"A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear,"
The first time I went to Afghanistan, a woman I met told me about her grandfather, who had been dragged from her side and arrested in Kabul during the time of communist rule. He reappeared two ye...
Book review: 'While Mortals Sleep' by Kurt Vonnegut
The late Kurt Vonnegut was one of the great humanist voices of the 20th century. A former prisoner of war and a witness to the firebombing of Dresden in 1945, he was also a profoundly pessimistic...
Performing opera version of 'Reading Lolita in Tehran'
Like books on tape? What about books in song? Azar Nafisi's bestselling memoir " Reading Lolita in Tehran " has been made into an opera by University of Maryland doctoral student and composer Eli...
Book review: Hackneyed rules of suspense disappear in Hayder's 'Gone'
The cover of Mo Hayder's latest novel, "Gone," shows the back of a little girl on a tricycle, pedaling off into the void. Not promising. Putting together the other available clues (the none-too-s...
Andrew Taylor's 'Anatomy of Ghosts': Strange sightings in 18th-century England
Andrew Taylor's brooding thriller opens with two tantalizing vignettes. First, a distraught, unnamed woman flees through the dark streets of Cambridge, England, fumbling for the key to a garden r...
Conservatives queue up for peek at 'Atlas Shrugged' at CPAC
Here at the Marriott Wardman Park, site of CPAC, the largest annual gathering of conservatives in the nation, there are many intriguing sessions. Should you pop in on "Engaging America Through Co...
Wash Post Books
14 MONDAY | 12:30 P.M. Jane Hampton Cook , a former webmaster at the White House and a co-author of "Battlefields & Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage From the War in Iraq & Afghanistan," re...
Book World: Michael Oher's 'I Beat the Odds' is story of redemption
I BEAT THE ODDS From Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond By Michael Oher with Don Yaeger Gotham. 250 pp. $26 By the time Michael Oher got around to telling it, The Michael Oher Story was al...
"The Sublime Engine," about the human heart
THE SUBLIME ENGINE A Biography of the Human Heart By Stephen Amidon and Thomas Amidon Rodale. 242 pp. $24.99 More than any other body part, the human heart has both baffled and awed generations o...
Joyce Carol Oates's "A Widow's Story"
A WIDOW'S STORY A Memoir By Joyce Carol Oates Ecco. 415 pp. $27.99 Is it perverse to suggest that Joyce Carol Oates's memoir of widowhood is as enthralling as it is painful? Oates has always focu...
Two books on the Arctic
THE MAGNETIC NORTH Notes from the Arctic Circle By Sara Wheeler Farrar Straus Giroux. 315 pp. $26 THE GREAT WHITE BEAR A Natural and Unnatural History of the Polar Bear By Kieran Mulvaney Houghto...
Arnold Weinstein's "Morning, Noon, and Night," on literature's lifelong effects
MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT Finding the Meaning of Life's Stages Through Books By Arnold Weinstein Random House. 442 pp. $27 If there is a riddle attached to the riddle of the Sphinx, it is why no o...
"Spousonomics," by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson, applies economics to marriage.
SPOUSONOMICS Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes By Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson Random House. 332 pp. $26 Comparing marriage to a business doesn't sound very romantic...
"The Hemlock Cup," a history of Socrates
THE HEMLOCK CUP Socrates, Athens, and the Search for the Good Life By Bettany Hughes Knopf. 484 pp. $35 When Bettany Hughes published her study of Helen of Troy in 2005, skeptics had good cause f...
"The Letters of Bruce Chatwin"
UNDER THE SUN The Letters of Bruce Chatwin Selected and edited by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare Viking. 554 pp. $35 With the publication in 1977 of his first book, "In Patagonia," th...
'Moneymakers' review: Truly fun tales of 19th-century counterfeiters
Books, as we know, make perfect presents, but sometimes our friends and family aren't as perfect as the books are. Relatives tend to be unnervingly idiosyncratic, and they often like our carefull...
Book World: A chess master who defeated himself
Geniuses are thick on the ground - just ask the MacArthur Foundation , which chooses a couple of dozen new ones each year. Any field, after all, has its divas, maestros, "chers maitres" and award...
Redwall author Brian Jacques dead at 71
Sometimes the news makes us sad. That's certainly the case today because a great children's author, Brian Jacques, died last week. He was 71.
Review of Benjamin Hale's 'Evolution of Bruno Littlemore': Aping human love
These are hairy times for fans of simian fiction. The autobiography of Tarzan's sidekick , " Me Cheeta ," was mildly amusing, but Sara Gruen's silly " Ape House " left me dragging my knuckles on ...
Five books for Valentine's Day
It's almost upon us: the most romantic day of the year - or the biggest con job since P.T. Barnum, depending on your view of Feb. 14. (Still, some of us will accept any excuse to eat chocolate.) ...
Anna Mundow reviews 'The Winter Ghosts' by 'Labyrinth' author Kate Mosse
In her 2005 blockbuster, "Labyrinth," Kate Mosse plunged her protagonist into a cave in the French Pyrenees that turned out to be a portal to the medieval past. The plot abounded in skeletons and...
Donald Rumsfeld quiz: Do you know 'Known and Unknown'?
Search Washington,DC area books events,reviews and bookstores from the Washington Post. Features DC,Virginia and Maryland entertainment listings for bookstores andand and books events. and books events.
Dan Fesperman reviews 'Donald,' by Eric Martin and Stephen Elliott
It is tempting at first to dismiss "Donald" as a mere literary guerrilla action, a publication-day ambush by two clever writers whose narrative voice, to their credit, may sound more authenticall...
Gwen Ifill reviews Donald Rumsfeld's memoir, "Known and Unknown"
By definition, memoirists get to tell their stories the way they remember them. The retellings can be gentle or scorching, illuminating or concealing.
Author Allison Pearson sings the song of the modern mom
Allison Pearson, author of the blockbuster "I Don't Know How She Does It," has a new work, "I Think I Love You," in which she explores the early crushes that shape what woman become.
Book World: Patrick Anderson reviews 'The Devotion of Suspect X'
Early crime fiction often invited the reader to match wits with the writer. Edgar Allan Poe invented the detective genre with his 1841 story " The Murders in the Rue Morgue ," in which his hero d...
Going Out Guide: Free & easy
MONDAY Nora Titone book signing The author of "My Thoughts Be Bloody," a biography of John Wilkes Booth, reads and signs copies of her book at the same theater where Booth assassinated President ...
Allen Shawn's memoir "Twin"
In his memoir "Twin," Allen Shawn ponders the life of his twin autistic sister, Mary.