Books & Literature

From The Federalist Papers to The Feminine Mystique, Jay Parini's Promised Land examines 13 books that shaped and changed America. Maureen Corrigan has a review.

Author Tony Hillerman died Oct. 26 at the age of 83. He was best known for his mystery novels, which evoked the Najavo culture of the American Southwest. In this 1988 interview, Hillerman discusses writing and his attraction to Native American culture.

Elizabeth McCracken's new memoir, An Exact Replica Of A Figment Of My Imagination, details the devastating loss of the author's stillborn baby. Maureen Corrigan offers a review.

Unitarian minister Forrest Church was diagnosed with terminal esophageal cancer last February. He has written and edited over 20 books since 1985. His latest, Love and Death, is a memoir that confronts the fact of death and, in the process, offers readers a meditation on the end of life.

Iranian-American journalist Farnaz Fassihi was stationed in the Middle East from 2002 until 2006, where she covered the Iraq war and the daily struggles of the Iraqi people. She recounts her experiences in her memoir, Waiting for an Ordinary Day.

Photographer William Claxton got his start taking photos of jazz musicians in natural settings instead of smoky lounges. His 1967 film Basic Black was considered the first fashion video. He died Oct. 11 from congestive heart failure.

Curtis Sittenfeld's new novel American Wife is about a kind, bookish, young woman who marries a wealthy charismatic young man who eventually becomes president. It's based on the life of Laura Bush. One reviewer calls it "a compassionate, illuminating, and beautifully rendered portrait."

In Francine Prose's new novel, Goldengrove, a sister's sudden death leaves a young girl adrift. Prose is the author of 15 previous novels, including A Changed Man and Blue Angel, as well as the nonfiction book Reading Like a Writer.

Radical bombers battle strikebreaking capitalists while Clarence Darrow squares off against the "American Sherlock Holmes" in this very popular history of a trial that mixed murder, politics and celebrity in 1910 Los Angeles.

An anti-social Goth gal-pal adds fun and a bracing feminist perspective to Stieg Larsson's witty, hard-boiled tale, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Crime novelist James Crumley's detective tales were filled with sex, drugs, violence and profanity, and inspired comparisons to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, among others. Crumley died Sept. 17 in Missoula, Mont. He was 68.

Brenda Wineapple's highly engaging biography White Heat examines the poet's enduring friendship with editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Marlin Fitzwater spent 17 years as a government employee before being appointed White House press secretary under Ronald Reagan. He also worked for George H. W. Bush.

A new novel three decades in the making features time travel, screwball hidden identity plots and lively background music. Reviewer Maureen Corrigan calls The Little Book by Selden Edwards an "an ideal late-summer reading getaway."

Record producer Jerry Wexler died on August 15. He was 91. Wexler created the careers of some of the greatest musicians of the time, including Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Led Zeppelin.

Theodore Solotaroff, founder of The New American Review, died Aug. 8 of complications from pneumonia. He was 79. An influential man in the publishing world, Solotaroff helped writers like Philip Roth achieve recognition.

There are 100,000 private military contractors in Iraq. Mercenary John Geddes explains why he thinks this is a good thing. His new book Highway to Hell is an account of his experiences in Iraq as a soldier for hire.

Hostile womanizer, crack addict, New York Times journalist — David Carr has been all of those, sometimes simultaneously. For his memoir The Night of the Gun, Carr put on his investigative-reporter hat — to reconstruct his various sordid lives.