|
Books |
Many people look down on “escapist” fiction. But sometimes—say, right now—we all might enjoy hopping out of our own lives and into those of investigators or secret agents finding adventure all over the world. Our critic Tom Nolan regularly rounds up the best such works for the weekend paper, and this time he highlights Olen Steinhauer’s latest, “The Last Tourist,” which takes its protagonist from Langley, Va., to the Western Sahara, to Madrid and to Switzerland. It’s one way to get around. Read the review —C.C. |
|
Q: | What series of mysteries or thrillers would you recommend for readers looking for escapist thrills? What book in the series should they start with? Email books@wsj.com, and be sure to explain why. |
|
|
|
| The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images |
|
|
Globe Jotter: Born to a schizophrenic mother and an absent father, Robert Stone (1937-2015) joined the Navy at 17 and found his vocation—as a writer, not a sailor. While at sea, he read Melville and Joyce and began creating stories of his own. Glimpses of South Africa, Cuba and Greece formed an outward-looking interest in the U.S.’s shifting role in the world, and its changing self-image. Over the next five decades, Stone published eight novels, most of them set abroad, in places like Vietnam and the Caribbean. Stone’s work, our reviewer concludes, shows the limits as much as the virtues of reportorial realism when it must confront the “zany and the crazy, the extreme and the extremist.” Leo Robson on “Child of Light” by Madison Smartt Bell. Read the review |
|
|
“Paolo, Emperor of Rome”: In Mac Barnett’s joyful picture book, a dachshund frustrated by being confined to quarters dashes out to enjoy the Eternal City. Read the review |
|
|
|
|
| Giant Talents, Giant Flaws |
| | War Fever By Randy Roberts & Johnny Smith In 1918, Babe Ruth began switching from pitcher to everyday player, as Woodrow Wilson’s draft stripped the Red Sox roster of hitters. The German-speaking Ruth dodged ethnic resentment and his swing-from-the-heels slugging transformed the sport. But during the flu epidemic, his fever climbed to 104. Read the review |
| The Second Life of Tiger Woods By Michael Bamberger The crucial moment in Tiger Woods’s professional turnaround may have been his arrest, shortly after 2 a.m., on Memorial Day 2017. He was required to perform 50 hours of community service and strictly monitored for a year; he couldn’t even have an alcoholic drink. Read the review |
|
|
|
Changes: Three new books ask: Will economic and political upheaval drive Americans apart, or is stability and common purpose still possible? Read the review |
|
|
| | | What Stars Are Made Of By Donovan Moore Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin belongs in the scientific pantheon. She was one of the first astronomers to apply the new laws of atomic physics to astronomical bodies and in 1925 uncovered the first hint that hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. But she got scant credit for years. Read the review |
| Frank Ramsey By Cheryl Misak Frank Ramsey’s name belongs alongside those of other Cambridge men such as Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin. Ramsey laid the basis for rational-choice theory and game theory, and the usually spiteful Lytton Strachey called him “one of the few faultless people, with a heavenly simplicity and modesty.” Read the review |
|
|
|
“The Last Days of El Comandante”: In Alberto Barrera Tyszka’s novel, it’s 2012 in Caracas, and all of Venezuela is praying for the recovery (or the death) of President Hugo Chávez. Read the review |
|
|
| | | Lady in Waiting By Anne Glenconner This daughter of the Earl of Leicester was picked to be one of six maids of honor at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, and, as Anne Glenconner, was lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret for 30 years; her duties included turning the garden hose on their neighbor’s despised cats. Read the review |
| Gresham’s Law By John Guy Thomas Gresham, by rehabilitating the English coinage of the 1550s and preaching fiscal probity to sovereigns who didn’t want to hear it, was a kind of Elizabethan Paul Volcker, though he was a councilor just as interested in his own net worth as in that of his royal patrons. Read the review |
|
|
| From Your Bookshelves . . . |
|
|
Novella: Reader Margery Widroe writes: “I just reread Katherine Anne Porter’s ‘Pale Horse, Pale Rider,’ a brilliant description of the 1918 flu, both from a personal point of view and from a view of the inadequate facilities—the overwhelmed hospitals, the ambulances racing down the streets, the exhausted medical staff, the fear, and the sudden loyalties. |
|
|
“The book is more than just reportorial; it is a reflection about war and war hysteria during a time of crisis. There is an atmosphere of mortality in everyday life. Death threatens at the beginning of the story and at the end.” |
|
| Five Best: Hannah Rothschild |
|
|
The author, most recently, of the novel “House of Trelawney” picks novels that pick apart their society. Read the article |
|
|
Towards the End of the Morning By Michael Frayn (1967) Cold Comfort Farm By Stella Gibbons (1932) The Pursuit of Love By Nancy Mitford (1945) The Way We Live Now By Anthony Trollope (1875) The Buddha of Suburbia By Hanif Kureishi (1990) |
|
|
The Wall Street Journal bestseller list is compiled from NPD BookScan data. |
|