Book Reviews
CategoryBook Review: “50 Art Movements You Should Know” Covers 170 Years In 139 Pages
Everyone says “humbling” these days when they actually mean “flattering.” If you want to genuinely talk about “humbling,” think about how,..
Review: “Solo” Audiobooks Bring an (Overly) Expanded Star Wars Story Into Your Earbuds
The idea that a novelization represents an “expanded edition” of a movie is not news to anyone who met Camie and Fixer in the original Sta..
Audiobook Review: Rosamund Pike’s “Sense and Sensibility” is Cool as a Cucumber
Between Jane Austen’s two best-known novels, Pride and Prejudice is having a moment while Sense and Sensibility is taking a breather. Lizz..
Audiobook Review: Star Wars “Thrawn: Alliances” Pairs a Blue Man with a Dark Lord
Older gen-x fans and writers of Star Wars novels like to wax nostalgic about the late ’70s, when books like Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and..
Book Review: Jason Fry Follows “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” Through the Eyes of the Tico Sisters
Even after listening to Jason Fry’s Last Jedi novelization, I was a little fuzzy on the post-Empire politics of the Star Wars universe. Wh..
Audiobook Review: Maria Hummel’s “Still Lives” is, Indeed, Inert
Listening to Maria Hummel’s Still Lives shortly after Megan Miranda’s All the Missing Girls (2016), I realized I’d stumbled onto a contemp..
Audiobook Review: Han and Chewie’s summer adventures — for teens!
If Solo: A Star Wars Story is disappointing at the box office, it can’t be blamed on the crew at Penguin Random House Audio, who’ve been c..
Audiobook Review: Chris Nashawaty’s “Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story”
Part of Chris Nashawaty’s challenge in Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story is justifying the new book’s subtitle. The m..
Review: Audible Turns “Alien: Sea of Sorrows” Into a Charmingly Grotesque Audio Drama
On the face of it, the 1979 science fiction classic Alien doesn’t seem like a strong prospect for sequels — at least, not interesting ones..
Audiobook Review: Daniel José Older’s “Last Shot” is an 11-Hour Trivia Challenge for Star Wars Superfans
Since clearing the Expanded Universe decks in 2014 and declaring that only movies were canon, the Disney-era Lucasfilm has been busily re-..
“Excellences & Perfections”: Iconic Instagram Performance Is Bound and Sold
Excellences & Perfections is a book you can hold in your hands. It chronicles an 2014 performance by Amalia Ulman, who’s been called “the ..
Audiobook Review: “The Last Jedi” Brings a Little Whiz-Bang to a Heavy Story
I’m just old enough to be an original Star Wars kid: a trio of bounty hunters from Empire were among my first toys, and I went to see Retu..