John Leonard

Book critic John Leonard reviews the new novel "Markers" by Sidney Zion. Zion wrote a puffball biography of Roy Cohn a couple of years ago, Leonard says this novel, about the New York underworld, also draws from Cohn's life. It's published by Donald I. Fine.

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Our Grandmother's Drum," by Mark Hudson. Hudson draws the novel from his experiences living with a small tribe in Gambia.

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Absence," a new novel by Austrian writer Peter Handke.

Book critic John Leonard reviews "The Quest for El Cid," by Richard Fletcher.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Deirdre Bair's new biography of Simone de Beauvoir.

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Solomon Gursky Was Here," the new novel by Canadian writer Mordecai Richler. Richler's also the author of "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" and "Joshua Then and Now."

Book critic John Leonard reviews Janet Malcolm's controversial book, "The Journalist and the Murderer." The book questions the ethics involved in the trust journalists create in their subjects, focusing on the case of writer Joe McGinnis, whose book "Fatal Vision," was a portrait of murder suspect Jeffrey MacDonald.

Book critic John Leonard reviews the new book by British writer Fay Weldon, "The Cloning of Joanna May." Weldon has also written, "The Life and Love of a She-Devil."

Book critic John Leonard reviews the new biography of French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil (pronounced "vile"). It's called "Utopian Pessimist," and it's by David McLellan.

Book critic John Leonard reviews the novel "Dorit in Lesbos" by Toby Olson.