"The Big Crowd" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), by Kevin Baker.   Kevin Baker keeps on finding new veins to mine for New York City's history. Already known for his "City of...

"Men We Reaped: a Memoir" (Bloomsbury USA), by Jesmyn Ward   The last chapter of Jesmyn Ward's memoir, "Men We Reaped," begins with a litany of statistics "about...

"Goat Mountain" (Harper), by David Vann   Gun owners like to say they teach their children to never point a loaded weapon at another person. But what if a father let his...

My first translation in the series Kollezzjoni Traduzzjonijiet Letterarji is that of Balzac’s long short story La maison du chat qui pelote/Id-dar tal-qattus bir-rakketta f’idu. This...

The German Memoirs of a Maltese Intellectual – Giovan Francesco Buonamico (1639-1680), authored by Arnold Cassola, will be launched at the German-Maltese Circle, Messina Palace, 141, St...

I should have known better. Never judge a book by its cover. Or, more appropriate in this case: never approach a book on the strength of a review.   The review in this case linked the...

Best-selling US author Tom Clancy, known to millions for his Jack Ryan series of novels, has died aged 66, his publisher has confirmed.   Clancy wrote a string of best-selling spy and...

"The Final Cut" (Putnam), by Catherine Coulter and J.T. Ellison   What happens when you mix Catherine Coulter, a best-selling author of FBI procedurals, and J.T. Ellison, an...

Bond is back, much as we remember him but also subtly different. To the latest Bond author, the dashing secret agent looks a bit like Daniel Day-Lewis.   British writer William Boyd, who has...

"The Woman Who Lost Her Soul" (Atlantic Monthly Press), by Bob Shacochis   It's hard to talk about "The Woman Who Lost Her Soul" without giving away too much of its...