John Leonard

Book critic John Leonard says that Murial Sparks' new, slim novel is packed with plot. The result isn't clutter, but richness. A Far Cry from Kensington, about a woman in the publishing world of 1950s London, reminds Leonard of Doris Lessing, only with a sense of humor.

Book Critic John Leonard reviews the latest installment of the Spencer detective series, the novel Crimson Joy by Robert Parker.

Book Critic John Leonard reviews Women in A River Landscape, the last novel by the late German author Heinrich Boll.

Book Critic John Leonard reviews Capote: A Biography, the biography of the American writer Truman Capote that was 14 years in the making. The author is Time magazine writer Gerald Clarke.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Thank God for the Atom Bomb, a new book of essays by University of Pennsylvania professor Paul Fussell.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Dream Time by poet and literary critic Geoffrey O'Brien. The book is a meditation on the turbulence of the sixties.

Book critic John Leonard reviews the novel Children of the Arbat, by the Russian writer Anatoly Rybakov.

Book critic John Leonard reviews The New Confessions, a novel by the British writer William Boyd. Boyd's earlier novels include Stars and Bars and An Ice Cream War.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Quinn's Book, the new novel by William Kennedy.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Getting Better: Inside Alcoholics Anonymous, by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Nan Robertson.