• ACHEBE, Chinua:
  • The Education of a British-Protected Child (B) -- essays
  • Home and Exile (B) -- African literature
  • Morning Yet on Creation Day (B) -- essays
  • See also: Conversations with Chinua Achebe (B)
• ACOCELLA, Joan: Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism (B+)
• ADAIR, Gilbert: The Real Tadzio (B+) -- Thomas Mann's Death in Venice
• AMIS, Martin:
  • The Second Plane (C) -- September 11, 2001-2007
  • The War against Cliché (A-) -- book reviews
• ARMSTRONG, Karen: A Short History of Myth (B-)
• ASONG, Linus: Detective Fiction and the African Scene (-) -- From the 'Whodunit ?' to the 'Whydunit ?'
• ATHILL, Diana: Stet (B+) -- an editor's life
• AZAM ZANGANEH, Lila: The Enchanter (B+) -- Nabokov and Happiness
• BARNES, Julian:
  • Nothing to be Frightened of (B) -- death
  • Something to Declare (B+) -- France and Flaubert
• BAYARD, Pierre:
  • How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read (A)
  • Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong (B) -- Reopening the Case of The Hound of the Baskervilles
• BÉNABOU, Marcel:
  • Dump This Book While You Still Can ! (B)
  • To Write on Tamara ? (B+)
  • Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books (A-)
• BENNETT, Ronan: Double Jeopardy (B) -- The Retrial of the Guildford Four
• BERNHARD, Thomas: My Prizes (A-) -- Bernhard on the prizes he has won
• BERNSTEIN, Stephen: Alasdair Gray (B)
• [BIOY CASARES, Adolfo: Borges]
• BLOCH, William Goldbloom: The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel (B)
• BLOM, Philipp: To Have and to Hold (B) -- on collecting
• BOLAÑO, Roberto: Between Parentheses (A-) -- Essays, Articles and Speeches, 1998-2003
• BONNET, Jacques: Phantoms on the Bookshelves (B) -- book-mania
• BORGES, Jorge Luis:
  • On Writing (A-)
  • Selected Non-Fictions (UK title: The Total Library) (A) -- various
  • This Craft of Verse (A-) -- Norton Lectures
• BOWERS, Neal: Words for the Taking (A-) -- poetic plagiarism
• BOYLE, James: Shamans, Software, and Spleens (A-) -- copyright
• BRACEWELL, Michael: The Nineties (C) -- pop culture
• BRECHT, Bertolt: Stories of Mr. Keuner (A) -- aphorisms
• BROCH, Heramnn: Geist and Zeitgeist (B+) -- The Spirit in an Unspiritual Age
• BROOK, Chris (ed.): K Foundation burn a Million Quid (A)
• BROTTMAN, Mikita: The Solitary Vice (C) -- Against Reading
• BURTON, Robert: The Anatomy of Melancholy (A+)
• CARTER, Angela: Shaking a Leg (B) -- collected writings
• CASANOVA, Pascale: The World Republic of Letters (A-)
• CODRESCU, Andrei: The Posthuman Dada Guide (B) -- tzara and lenin play chess
• COETZEE, J.M.: Stranger Shores (B) -- literary essays
• CORLISS, Richard: Lolita (A-) -- Nabokov and Kubrick film
• CREWS, Frederick: Postmodern Pooh (B) - critical parody
• DALOS, György: The Guest from the Future (B) -- Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin
• DANTO, Arthur C.: The Madonna of the Future (B) -- art criticism
• DART, Gregory: Unrequited Love (B+) -- stalking
• DE BOTTON, Alain::
  • The Art of Travel (B+)
  • How Proust can change your Life (A-) -- self-help
  • Status Anxiety (B)
• DEKKERS, Midas: The Way of all Flesh (B+) -- ruins and decay
• DENING, Greg:
  • Mr. Bligh's Bad Language (A+) -- the mutiny on the Bounty
  • Performances (B+) -- history as theatre
• DISCH, Thomas: The Stuff our Dreams are made of (B-) -- science fiction
• DONOGHUE, Denis: Words Alone (B+) -- the poet T.S.Eliot
• DUROZOI, Gérard: History of the Surrealist Movement (A-)
• DYER, Geoff:
  • Anglo-English Attitudes (B) -- various
  • Out of Sheer Rage (A-) -- D.H.Lawrence
  • Ways of Telling (B) -- John Berger
  • Yoga for People Who Can't be Bothered to Do It (B+) -- travel
  • Zona (B+) -- A Book about a Film about a Journey to a Room
• ECO, Umberto:
  • Confessions of a Young Novelist (B) -- the Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature, 2008
  • Experiences in Translation (B+)
• ELKINS, James: What Happened to Art Criticism ? (B)
• ELLIOTT, Anthony: The Mourning of John Lennon (B)
• ENQUIST, Per Olov: Kartritarna (A-)
• EPSTEIN, Jason: Book Business (B+)
• ESTERHÁZY Péter: Utazás a tizenhatos mélyére (B+) - soccer and more
• ESTERMANN, Alfred: Schopenhauers Kampf um sein Werk (B+) - Schopenhauer and his publishers
• FIGUEIRA, D.M.: Translating the Orient (B+) - The Reception of Sakuntala in Nineteenth-Century Europe
• FLEMING, John: Stoppard's Theatre (B)
• FORD, Mark: Raymond Roussel and the Republic of Dreams (A-)
• FOSTER, Don: Author Unknown (B+) -- On the Trail of Anonymous
• FOUCAULT, Michel: Death and the Labyrinth (B+) -- on Raymond Roussel
• FOURNEL, Paul: Need for the Bike (B+) -- bicyling
• FRANZEN, Jonathan:
  • The Discomfort Zone (A-) -- A Personal History
  • How to Be Alone (B+) -- various
• FRASER, Robert: The Novels of Ayi Kwei Armah (B)
• FRAYN, Michael: Celia's Secret (B+) -- behind-the-scenes joke
• FUENTES, Carlos: This I Believe (B) -- An A to Z of a Life
• GADDIS, William: The Rush for Second Place (B) -- various
• GAO Xingjian: The Case for Literature (B+)
• GASS, William H.:
  • Reading Rilke (B+)
  • A Temple of Texts (A-) -- various
  • Tests of Time (B+) -- various
  • See also Conversations With William H. Gass (B), ed. T.G. Ammon
• GHANOONPARVAR, M.R.: Translating the Garden (B)
• GINGERICH, owen: The Book Nobody Read (B+) -- Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus
• GOYTISOLO, Juan:
  • Landscapes of War (B) -- from Sarajevo to Chechnya
  • Space in Motion (B) -- various
• GRACIÁN, Baltasar: The Oracle (B+) -- classical self-help
• GRAY, Alasdair:
  • The Book of Prefaces (A) -- anthology of prefaces
  • See also: Alasdair Gray (A-) -- Critical Appreciations and a Bibliography
• GREEN, Jack: Fire the Bastards ! (B) -- sins of the book reviewers
• GROSSMAN, David: Lion's Honey (B+) - The Myth Of Samson
• GROSSMAN, Edith: Why Translation Matters (B)
• GROSSMAN, David: Writing in the Dark (B+) -- Essays on Literature and Politics
• GRÜNBEIN, Durs:
  • Galilei vermißt Dantes Hölle (B+) -- various
  • Warum schriftlos leben (B) - various
• HEPPENSTALL, Rayner: Léon Bloy (B)
• HERBERT, Zbigniew :
  • The King of the Ants (B-) -- mythological essays
  • Still Life with a Bridle (B+) -- Holland, art, etc.
• HEYWARD, Michael: The Ern Malley Affair (B+)
• HILL, Geoffrey: Style and Faith (B+) -- literary criticism
• HITCHINGS, Henry: Dr.Johnson's Dictionary (US title: Defining the World) (B+)
• HOFSTADTER, Douglas: Translator, Trader (B+) -- An Essay on the Pleasantly Pervasive Paradoxes of Translation
• HOLUB, Miroslav:
  • The Jingle Bell Principle (B-) -- short pieces
  • Shedding Life (A) -- various
  • Supposed to Fly (B) -- various
• HONEGGER, Gitta: Thomas Bernhard (B+) -- biographical study
• HOUELLEBECQ, Michel: Public Enemies (B-) -- Dueling Writers Take On Each Other and the World; with Bernard-Henri Lévy
• ICKS, Martijn: The Crimes of Elagabalus (B) -- The Life and Legacy of Rome's Decadent Boy Emperor
• IZZO, Jean-Claude: Garlic, Mint, and Sweet Basil (-) -- Essays on Marseilles, Mediterranean Cuisine, and Noir Fiction
• JACKSON, Kevin: Invisible Forms (B+) -- literary curiosities
• JAMES, Clive: Cultural Amnesia (B+) -- Necessary Memories From History and the Arts
• JIN, Ha: The Writer as Migrant (B)
• JOHNSON-DAVIES, Denys: Memories in Translation (B) - A Life Between the Lines Of Arabic Literature
• JOSIPOVICI, Gabriel: What Ever Happened to Modernism ? (B)
• KEATS, Jonathon: Virtual Words (B) - Language on the Edge of Science and Technology
• KEENE, Donald: Five Modern Japanese Novelists (B)
• KEHLMANN, Daniel: Wo ist Carlos Montúfar ? (B) - various
• KELLMAN, Steven G. (ed.): Switching Languages (B) - translingual anthology
• KELLY, Katherine (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard (-)
• KELLY, Stuart: The Book of Lost Books (B-) -- An Incomplete History of all the Great Books You'll Never Read
• KERTÉSZ, Imre: The Holocaust as Culture (B+)
• KESHAVARZ, Fatemeh: Jasmine and Stars (B-) -- Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran
• KILITO, Abdelfattah: Thou Shalt Not Speak My Language (B+) -- translation in the Arab world
• KLÍMA, Ivan: Between Security and Insecurity (B-)
• KORDA, Michael:
  • Another Life (B+) -- the publishing industry
  • Making the List (C) -- the bestseller lists
• KRÁL, Petr: Working Knowledge (B)
• KUNDERA, Milan: The Curtain (B+) -- the novel
• LANDERS, Clifford E.: Literary Translation (B) -- A Practical Guide
• LARKIN, Emma: Secret Histories (US title: Finding George Orwell in Burma) (B)
• LARSON, Charles R. The Ordeal of the African Writer (B)
• LEHMANN, Chris: Revolt of the Masscult (B-)
• LEM, Stanislaw: A Stanislaw Lem Reader (Ed.: Peter Swirski) (B-)
• LEVIN BECKER, Daniel: Many Subtle Channels (B) -- In Praise of Potential Literature
• LEVY Dore J.: Ideal and Actual in The Story of the Stone (B)
• LEWIS, C.S.: An Experiment in Criticism (B) -- about literary criticism
• LICHTENSTEIN, Rachel: Rodinsky's Room (with Iain Sinclair) (B+) -- Jewish history in London
• LOVELL, Julia: The Politics of Cultural Capital (B) -- China's Quest for a Nobel Prize in Literature
• MAAR, Michael:
  • Speak, Nabokov (A-) -- more on Nabokov
  • The Two Lolitas (B+) -- Nabokov's and ... von Lichberg's ?
• MACFARLANE, Robert: Mountains of the Mind (B+) -- A History of a Fascination
• MAHFOUZ, Naguib: Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber (B) -- Reflections of a Nobel Laureate 1994-2001
• MALIK, Kenan: From Fatwa to Jihad (B) -- The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy
• MANGUEL, Alberto:
  • Into the Looking-Glass Wood (B) -- various
  • A Reading Diary (B)
  • The Library at Night (B)
  • With Borges (B+)
• MARAINI, Dacia: Searching for Emma (B) - Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary
• MARÍAS, Javier: Written Lives (B)
• MATHEWS, Harry:
  • The Way Home (A-) -- various
  • (ed.) Oulipo Compendium (A)
• MICHAUX, Henri:
  • A Barbarian in Asia (A-)
  • Miserable Miracle (B)
• MILLER, Toby: The Avengers (B) -- study of the TV series
• MITCHELL, W.J.T.: The Last Dinosaur Book (C+) -- dinos as cultural icon
• MONTGOMERY, Scott L.:
  • Science in Translation (B+)
  • The Scientific Voice (B+)
• MORETTI, Franco:
  • Atlas of the European Novel 1800-1900 (C+)
  • [Graphs, Maps, Trees]
  • [ed. The Novel]
• MORRILL, Donald: The Untouched Minutes (B) -- home invasion
• MOTTE, Warren (ed.): Oulipo: A Primer of Potential Literature (B+)
• MULDOON, Paul: To Ireland, I (B) -- Clarendon Lectures in English Literature
• MULISCH, Harry:
  • Het seksuele bolwerk (A) -- Wilhelm Reich and sex
  • De toekomst van gisteren (A) -- about an unwritten book
• MURRAY, Janet H.: Hamlet on the Holodeck (B-) -- the future of fiction
• MURRAY, Les: The Quality of Sprawl (B+) -- thoughts about Australia
• MYERS, B.R.:
  • Han Sorya and North Korean Literature (B+) -- The Failure of Socialist Realism in the DPRK
  • A Reader's Manifesto (B)
• NABOKOV, Vladimir: Nabokov's Butterflies (B+)
• NADDAFF, Ramona A.: Exiling the Poets (B+) -- censorship in Plato's Republic
• NAFISI, Azar: Reading Lolita in Tehran (B+)
• NAIPAUL, V.S.:
  • Literary Occasions (A-) -- essays
  • Reading & Writing (A-) -- A Personal Account
  • The Writer and the World (B) -- essays
• NERUDA, Pablo: Passions and Impressions (B)
• NGUGI wa Thiong'o:
  • Decolonising the Mind (B) -- African literature
  • Globalectics (B) -- Theory and the Politics of Knowing
• NICHOLSON, Geoff: The Lost Art of Walking (B) - The History, Science, Philosophy, and Literature of Pedestrianism
• NOIVILLE, Florence: Literary Miniatures (B) -- author profiles
• O'GRADY, John P.: Grave Goods (B+) -- Essays of a Peculiar Nature
• O'NEILL, Patrick: Polyglot Joyce (B) -- Fictions of Translation
• OZ, Amos:
  • How to Cure a Fanatic (A-)
  • The Story Begins (B) -- Essays on Literature
• OZICK, Cynthia:
  • Art & Ardor (A-) -- various
  • The Din in the Head (A-) -- various
  • Fame & Folly (A-) -- various
  • Metaphor & Memory (B+) -- various
  • Quarrel & Quandary (B+) -- various
• PAMUK, Orhan: The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist (B) -- Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 2009
• PAZ, Octavio: An Erotic Beyond: Sade (A-)
• PEREC, Georges:
  • Species of Spaces and Other Pieces (A-) -- various
  • Thoughts of Sorts (A-)
• PHILLIPS, Adam:
  • The Beast in the Nursery (B) -- On Curiosity and Other Appetites
  • Darwin's Worms (B) -- Darwin and Freud
  • Promises, Promises (B) -- Essays on Literature and Psychoanalysis
• POOL, Gail: Faint Praise (A-) -- The Plight of Book Reviewing in America
• QIAN Zhongshu: Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts (B+) -- Stories and Essays
• QUEENAN, Joe: One for the Books (B) -- his reading life
• QUIGNARD, Pascal: The Roving Shadows (B+)
• RABASSA, Gregory: If This Be Treason (B) -- Translation and its Dyscontents
• RAHBARAN, Shiva: Iranian Writers Uncensored (B) - Freedom, Democracy, and the Word in Contemporary Iran
• RICARD, François: Agnès's Final Afternoon (B) -- An Essay on the Work of Milan Kundera
• RÍOS, Julián: The House of Ulysses (B+) -- a fictional reading of Joyce's classic
• ROUSSEL, Raymond: How I Wrote Certain of my Books (A-)
• RUBIN, Jay: Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words (B)
• RYANG, Sonia: Reading North Korea (B) -- An Ethnological Inquiry
• SAFOUAN, Moustapha: Why are the Arabs not Free ? (B) -- The Politics of Writing
• SALMON, Catherine: Warrior Lovers (A-) (with Donald Symons) -- Erotic Fiction, Evolution and Female Sexuality
• SCHIFFRIN, André:
  • The Business of Books (B+)
  • Words and Money (B-)
• SCHMIDT, Arno:
  • Radio Dialogs I (A-) -- author portraits
  • Radio Dialogs II (A-) -- author portraits
• SCHWEIZER, Bernard: Hating God (B) -- The Untold Story of Misotheism
• SEBALD, W.G.:
  • Campo Santo (B) -- various
  • On the Natural History of Destruction (B-) -- German war literature
  • See also: The Emergence of Memory (B+), Lynne Sharon Schwartz, ed. -- Conversations with W.G.Sebald
• SECORD, James A.: Victorian Sensation (A-) -- study of a literary sensation
• SELF, Will:
  • Feeding Frenzy (B)
  • Junk Mail (B)
• SHEA, Ammon: Reading the OED (B+) -- One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages
• SHKLOVSKY, Viktor: Knight's Move (B)
• SILVERSTEIN, Michael: Talking Politics (B) -- The Substance of Style from Abe to 'W'
• SINCLAIR, Iain:
  • Crash (B+) -- essay on the Ballard book and the Cronenberg film
  • Lights out for the Territory (B) -- London
  • London Orbital (B) -- around the M25
  • Rodinsky's Room (with Rachel Lichtenstein) (B+) -- Jewish history in London
  • Sorry Meniscus (A) -- the Millennium Dome
• SKURNICK, Lizzie: Shelf Discovery (B) -- The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading
• SMITH, A.C.H.:Orghast at Persepolis (B) -- Peter Brook/Ted Hughes production
• SMITH, Ken: Junk English (B)
• SOKAL, Alan: Fashionable Nonsense (B-) -- unscientific postmodernism
• SONTAG, Susan: Where the Stress Falls (B)
• SOYINKA, Wole:
  • The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness (B)
  • Climate of Fear (B) -- The Quest for Dignity in a Dehumanized World
• SPACKS, Patricia Meyer: On Rereading (B)
• SPUFFORD, Francis: The Child That Books Built (B)
• STANDAERT, Michael: Skipping Towards Armageddon (B) -- The Politics and Propaganda of the Left Behind Novels and the LaHaye Empire
• [STEAD, C.K.: Book Self -- The Reader as Writer and the Writer as Critic]
• STEIN, Gertrude: Writings 1903-1932 (B+) -- includes essays and portraits
• STEINER, George:
  • Grammars of Creation (A-) -- the end of beginnings
  • Lessons of the Masters (B)
  • My Unwritten Books (A-)
  • No Passion Spent (A) -- various
• STEPHENSON, Neal: Some Remarks (B) -- Essays and Other Writing
• ŠUKYS, Julija: Silence is Death (B+) -- The Life and Work of Tahar Djaout
• SZENTKUTHY Miklós: Marginalia on Casanova (A-)
• TABAN Lo Liyong: Another Last Word (B) -- East African literature and politics
• [THIRLWELL, Adam: Miss Herbert (also: The Delighted States) -- A Collage of Novels, Romances, & Their Unknown Translators, Containing Ten Languages, Set on Four Continents, & Accompanied by Maps, Portraits, Squiggles, Illustrations, & a Variety of Helpful Indexes]
• THOMAS, Chantal: The Wicked Queen (B+) -- the pamphlets denouncing Marie-Antoinette
• TOLEDO, Camille de: Coming of Age at the End of History (B)
• TOURNIER, Michel: The Mirror of Ideas (B-) -- duality
• TRESILIAN, David: A Brief Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature (B)
• TURLE, Bernard: Diplomat, Actor, Translator, Spy (B+) -- on the translating life
• UGRESIC, Dubravka:
  • Karaoke Culture (B+) - various
  • Nobody's Home (B+) - various
  • Thank You for Not Reading (B+) -- Essays in Literary Trivia
• VARGAS LLOSA, Mario:
  • The Language of Passion (B+) -- various
  • Letters to a Young Novelist (B)
  • The Perpetual Orgy (A-) -- Flaubert and Madame Bovary
  • The Temptation of the Impossible (B+) -- Victor Hugo and Les Misérables
  • Wellsprings (B+)
  • A Writer's Reality (B+)
• VENUTI, Lawrence: The Scandals of Translation (B+)
• VICKERS, Graham: Chasing Lolita (B) -- How Popular Culture Corrupted Nabokov's Little Girl All Over Again
• VITALE, Serena: Pushkin's Button (B-)
• WACHTEL, Andrew Baruch: Remaining Relevant after Communism (B+) -- The Role of the Writer in Eastern Europe
• WALDROP, Rosmarie: Lavish Absence (B+) - Recalling and Rereading Edmond Jabès
• WATERS, Lindsay: Enemies of Promise (B+) -- Publishing, Perishing and the Eclipse of Scholarship
• WECHSLER, Robert: Performing without a Stage (B-) -- translation
• WEINBERGER, Eliot:
  • Karmic Traces (A-) -- various
  • 9/12 (B+) -- New York After
  • Outside Stories (B+) -- various
  • What Happened Here (B+) -- Bush Chronicles
  • Works on Paper (B+) -- various
  • Written Reaction (B+) -- various
• WENINGER, Robert: Framing a Novelist (--) -- Arno Schmidt
• WHITE, Curtis: The Middle Mind (B+)
• WHITE, Patrick : Patrick White Speaks (C+)
• WILSON Robert Anton: Coincidance (B-) -- various
• WILMSEN, Edwin N.: Journeys with Flies (B) -- anthropological
• WINCHESTER, Simon:
  • The Alice behind Wonderland (A-)
  • The Professor and the Madman (UK title: The Surgeon of Crowthorne) (B+) -- creation of OED
• WINTERSON, Jeanette: Art Objects (A-) -- various
• WISE, Christopher (ed.): Yambo Ouologuem: Postcolonial Writer, Islamic Militant (B-)
• WOLFE, Tom: Hooking Up (B-) -- various
• WOOD, Gareth J.: Javier Marías's Debt to Translation (A-) -- Sterne, Browne, Nabokov
• ZAID, Gabriel:
  • The Secret of Fame (B+)
  • So Many Books (A-) -- Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance
• ZBARSKY, Ilya: Lenin's Embalmers (B-)

Return to top of page.

© 2013 the complete review

Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links