September 27, 2011
CHILLING INVESTIGATIVE PROFILE of 2001’s anthrax attacks via US mail, and of the FBI’s (now dead) prime suspect.
Grade: B PLUS
THE MIRAGE MAN: BRUCE IVINS, THE ANTHRAX ATTACKS, AND AMERICA'S RUSH TO WAR
Bantam
2011
Tags: B Plus Reviews, Non-Fiction, True Crime, United States
September 26, 2011
BIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL ABOUT H.G. Wells would probably have worked better as a biography than this queasy hybrid.
Grade: SOLID B
A MAN OF PARTS
Viking
2011
Tags: Literary History, Novels, Solid B Reviews
September 25, 2011
FAST-PACED MYSTERY FEATURES women bodybuilders, a decades-old murder, and newly minted honeymooner private eyes.
Grade: B PLUS
PUMPED FOR MURDER: A DEAD-END JOB MYSTERY
New American Library/Penguin
2011
Tags: B Plus Reviews, Mystery, Novels
September 24, 2011
FASCINATING LOOK AT recent neuroscience around attention, and its synergies with technology and education.
Grade: B PLUS
NOW YOU SEE IT: HOW THE BRAIN SCIENCE OF ATTENTION WILL TRANSFORM THE WAY WE LIVE, WORK, AND LEARN
Penguin
2011
Tags: B Plus Reviews, Education, History of Science, Neuroscience, Non-Fiction, Psychology, Science
September 23, 2011
A POET’S MEMOIR of life with severe food allergies is more impressionistic than self-help, but insightful, wry.
Grade: SOLID B
DON'T KILL THE BIRTHDAY GIRL: TALES FROM AN ALLERGIC LIFE
Crown
2011
Tags: Health, Memoirs, Non-Fiction, Solid B Reviews
September 22, 2011
INFERTILITY, INFIDELITY, COMAS, and sisters as rivals: crisp writing can’t redeem soap-operatic UK chicklit.
Grade: B MINUS
WHAT'S YOURS IS MINE
Bantam
2011
Tags: B Minus Reviews, Novels, Women's Fiction
September 21, 2011
DELICATELY WROUGHT NOIR tales of crime from a distinguished German defense attorney, in crisp translation.
Grade: B PLUS
CRIME: STORIES
Knopf
2011
Tags: B Plus Reviews, Germany, Mystery, Short Stories
September 20, 2011
A HEADLINE-GRABBING MURDER in 1933 Paris, examined in depth, illuminates the culture and politics of the era.
Grade: B PLUS
VIOLETTE NOZIERE: A STORY OF MURDER IN 1930S PARIS
University of California Press
2011
Tags: B Plus Reviews, Biography, France, History, Non-Fiction, True Crime
September 19, 2011
A CORPSE AT A WEDDING launches the peppy plus-size paralegal Odelia Grey on her 6th juicy murder investigation.
Grade: SOLID B
TWICE AS DEAD
Midnight Ink
2011
Tags: Mystery, Novels, Solid B Reviews
September 18, 2011
A NAIVE AMERICAN TEEN’S days of revolution-chasing in 1980s South America revisited in a rueful, witty memoir.
Grade: B PLUS
REVOLUTION: THE YEAR I FELL IN LOVE AND WENT TO JOIN THE WAR
Henry Holt
2011
Tags: B Plus Reviews, Costa Rica, Memoirs, Nicaragua, Non-Fiction