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Stories about precocious children always remind me of J. D. Salinger’s Glass family; brilliant, but victims of their own intellect. “Too smart for their own good,” T. S. Spivet’s father might say. The crotchety rancher doesn’t seem to know what to make of his twelve-year-old son and his obsession with…

Why bother reviewing a book written more than fifty years ago? Because (1) I’d never heard of it until recently; (2) I suspect many others haven’t either; and (3) an author who can lure you through a story running almost six hundred pages across minefields of mythical characters and untranslated…

If you’ve read George Orwell’s 1984,you’ll quickly recognize its origin in Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We. Both books depict totalitarian societies in which individual liberty takes a backseat to the welfare of the state – obvious references to Stalinist Russia. Zamyatin’s narrator, D-503, is chief engineer for the Integrator, a spaceship built…

This 1899 novel can be described best as a saga of greed and murder. McTeague is a large, slow-witted man who has escaped a mine worker’s life by learning dentistry from a traveling charlatan. Setting up his practice in San Francisco, he goes quietly about his business until a drinking…

I wish I could grant this novel a five-star rating. Though spoiled by vulgar language and an explicit sex scene, Sounds Like Crazy is one of the most original and well-executed novels I’ve ever read. Holly Miller, a thirty-year-old waitress, shares her life with The Committee, five inner personalities born…

Structurally, Far from the Madding Crowd is about a fickle young Englishwoman trying to do two things for which she is unqualified: run a farm and juggle suitors. Bathsheba Everdeen, a poor but beautiful maiden, inherits her uncle’s farm shortly after refusing a marriage proposal from Gabriel Oaks, a good-hearted…

A cat bite is the through-line for this novel of despair about a childless middle-aged couple who feel the world crumbling around them. Otto and Sophie Bentwood live in a declining section of Brooklyn Heights. Otto has just dissolved his law partnership with Charlie Russel due largely to personality differences.…

The frustration a reader encounters with The Trial is a key to understanding what makes it a great novel. It is a series of absurdities reflecting the very nature of human institutions. Joseph K., a prominent bank official, awakens one morning to find himself under arrest. He doesn’t know what he’s…

“No one will love you more or be meaner to you than your kids,” says a character in Landslide, Susan Conley’s moving novel about a woman struggling to raise two teenage boys. Jillian Archer, a fisherman’s wife and documentary filmmaker, chronicles her daily battles with Sam and Charlie as her…

What drives Under the Net is the clever way Iris Murdoch uses elements of a mystery novel to develop her theme. Jake Donaghue, the narrator, is content with his role as a mediocre writer and book translator until forced to vacate his London flat. His search for new lodgings takes…