The Virtual Bookcase : Other website book news/reviews

UK Telegraph : UK Telegraph Book section

Fortunes read here Telegraph View: A journey that will end at Oxfam?
Genre: Thrillers Jeremy Jehu's round-up of the latest thrillers
Strictly English by Simon Heffer: Part Three In the third of four extracts from his book instructing us on correct written English, Simon Heffer tackles the language of tabloid exaggeration
Bomber Country: The Lost Airmen of World War Two by Daniel Swift: review Sinclair McKay reviews Bomber Country by Sinclair McKay, a subtle and beautiful book about the men who crewed the bomber planes
Foster by Claire Keegan: review Sameer Rahim on a melancholy, lush collection of short stories: Foster by Claire Keegan
Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie by Stewart Home: review Sukhdev Sandhu relishes a delightfully scurrilous anti-novel, Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie by Stewart Home
A Page in the Life: Will Self Tim Robey goes to LA Fitness with Will Self, to discuss the author's new book about Los Angeles
Zero History by William Gibson: review Ed Cumming finds a subsonic buzz in William Gibson's novel Zero History
Everything is Broken: The Untold Story of Disaster Under Burma's Military Regime: review Simon Scott Plummer on Everything is Broken by Emma Larkin, an account of the troubles under Burma's Military Junta
Human Chain by Seamus Heaney: review Nobel Prize-winner Seamus Heaney's latest collection has an other-worldly aura, says Nick Laird
Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin ed by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare Bruce Chatwin was a solitary traveller, says his friend Paul Theroux, but his letters reveal a need to know the great and the glamorous
Tony Blair, the lightweight Tony Blair's drink revelations are hardly that - but they are a sales tonic, says Iain Hollingshead .
Extraordinary School for Boys: helping boys love literacy After fresh reports of the widening gender gap in schools, Gareth Malone tells how he helped some pupils learn to love literacy .
Jane Austen? Sorry, never heard of her It's better for the customer to be ignorant than the bookseller, says Rowan Pelling.
Why Paul Raymond, the porn king of Soho, was a hero Paul Raymond, owner of the Raymond Revuebar, is more than a sleazy footnote to 20th century history, writes Paul Willetts
JK Rowling donates £10m for MS research centre The writer said she believed the clinic, to be based at the University of Edinburgh, will become a world centre for excellence in its field.
John le Carré interview The spy master on the 'very bad things' in his past.

New York Times

Books of The Times: Simon Wiesenthal, the Man Who Refused to Forget A detailed biography of the legendary Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal shows him to be a complicated hero, an angel with dirty wings.


Books of The Times: At the Center of the Storm, but Still a Mystery Tony Blair’s memoir, “A Journey,” sheds little light on his political vision or on why he took Britain to war against Iraq.


Books of The Times: Young Man Seeks Poetry in World War II’s Ruins A British author links his grandfather’s World War II bombing missions to the war poetry of the time.


Roger Ebert: No Longer an Eater, Still a Cook After losing his lower jaw to cancer, the film critic, who can’t eat, has written a cookbook that is an ode to the rice cooker.


Books of The Times: The Lives Gained by Fleeing Jim Crow In “The Warmth of Other Suns,” Isabel Wilkerson documents the sweeping 55-year-long migration of black Americans from the South.


At Bookstore, Even Nonbuyers Regret Its End With more people choosing to buy books online, a Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side prepared to close early next year.


Books of The Times: Preppily Perplexed? A New Guidebook “True Prep,” Lisa Birnbach’s successor to “The Official Preppy Handbook,” addresses the adult world of funerals and second marriages and the post-1980 world of cellphones, the Internet and synthetic fleece.


Peace and War Like Jonathan Franzen’s previous novel, “The Corrections,” this is a masterly portrait of a nuclear family in turmoil, with a majestic sweep that gathers every sociocultural morsel of our shared millennial life.


Where It Hurts An expansive mix of medical reportage, history and memoir explores our relationship to pain.


The Language of Exile Milan Kundera’s essays illuminate music, painting and writing in the context of what he calls a “post-art” era.


Den of Antiquities Craig Childs explores archaeology’s ethical debates and the costs of discovering lost history.


Long Island Confidential A hapless teacher is hurled from one unsavory spot to the next in this fiercely satirical novel.

New York Times Sunday book review

Peace and War Like Jonathan Franzen’s previous novel, “The Corrections,” this is a masterly portrait of a nuclear family in turmoil, with a majestic sweep that gathers every sociocultural morsel of our shared millennial life.


Where It Hurts An expansive mix of medical reportage, history and memoir explores our relationship to pain.


The Language of Exile Milan Kundera’s essays illuminate music, painting and writing in the context of what he calls a “post-art” era.


Den of Antiquities Craig Childs explores archaeology’s ethical debates and the costs of discovering lost history.


Long Island Confidential A hapless teacher is hurled from one unsavory spot to the next in this fiercely satirical novel.


Revolutionary Road Seeing the march of American history in the story of the Boston Post Road, a colonial highway turned modern-day ribbon of retail.


Hangover in a Strange Land This memoir of traveling Europe is not shy about reporting on sex, drinking marathons or personal humiliation.


Her Darkest Places A Library of America collection showcases Shirley Jackson’s fascination with psychology, society and the terrors of everyday life.


Nuclear Family The final book in a four-volume series describes the fate of nuclear weapons since the Soviet Union fell.


I Get Around An absorbing biography of a man who was an academic, a writer, a tattoo artist and an avid sexual adventurer in pre-Stonewall gay America.


Jama’s Travels In this first novel, a Somali orphan roams the world.


Flyby This chronicle of the innovative Voyager mission also ponders the nature and meaning of exploration itself.


Steam-Driven Dreams How the Industrial Revolution transformed invention itself.


Where Hatred Ruled The story of a 1945 Mississippi case of a black man accused of raping a white woman that exposed the seething tensions of the early civil rights era.


Still Life With Ragpickers In the dystopia of this wry first novel, a hierarchical society forces young bachelors to find brides — or else.


Cloak and Swagger The hero of Alan Furst’s novel is devoted to ouzo, women and saving people from the Nazis — until they invade Greece.


Letters: Dear Jack, Dear Allen Letters in response to Blake Bailey’s review of “Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters.”