Adam Sisman’s new John le Carré biography entertains and disappoints
While I expected the le Carré who emerges from it to be a womanizer, a fantasist and a self-server, I didn’t anticipate that he would be such a terrible bore
Book review
Friday
How the CIA interfered in the Congo
Stuart Reid relates the whole convoluted tale lucidly, conveying the steadily growing atmosphere of confusion and fear
The gap between technotopia and dystopia are never far apart
Mustafa Suleyman’s new book is a rousing call-to-arms for humanity
Two excellent books that offer new insight into The Iliad
A new translation and critical study explore the legendary poem’s numinous spell
Wednesday
Christopher Rufo’s new book is impressively erudite
America’s Cultural Revolution marks Rufo as an important, deeply knowledgeable thinker
Taylor Lorenz is optimistic about the internet
Extremely Online is mostly a story about money
Emily Carroll’s new graphic novel plays on our deepest fears
A Guest in the House is a beautifully plotted study of the madness of isolation, steeped in the tropes of fairy tale and horror
An admirable but flawed new biography of George Eliot
The Marriage Question shows us a woman fragmented
Bernie Taupin is more than just ‘Elton John’s lyricist’
The songwriter’s book is free of sentimental clutter, but it would take a heart of stone not to be moved by the takeaway message
A diverting but unsurprising new history of the Astor clan
There is a fine, perceptive book to be written about the Astors and their influence, but Astor: The Rise and Fall of an American Fortune is not it
Friday
Zadie Smith’s latest novel is glittering, grand and powerful
The Fraud is a consciously (but not self-consciously) literary novel
How missing persons cases work in the wild
The real science of searching in nature is the most interesting — and disturbing — part of Lankford’s account
Maureen Ryan exposes the Hollywood horror show
At the end of Burn it Down , it’s hard not to wish that the industry could simply be shut down and rebooted all over again
Drew Gilpin Faust, a rebel with a cause
In Necessary Trouble the historian and former president of Harvard has given us a clear-eyed account of a vexed era
Monday
William Boyd’s latest novel is immense fun
In The Romantic , it’s as if Boyd has distilled the essence of centuries of novel-writing
Visiting a forgotten chapter in American history
We May Dominate the World is a work of prodigious scholarship, featuring an extraordinary breadth and depth of sources
Elliot Page’s memoir is a tale of tragic self-destruction
For the author, transgenderism was an escape hatch
Sunday
Why is George Orwell so difficult to pin down?
The writer is an easy man to admire and sympathize with, but a hard one to like
Lady Caroline Lamb and the frantic bed-hopping between the great houses of England
Antonia Fraser paints a convincing, shocking picture of upper-class mores in the late eighteenth century
Lorrie Moore explores the thin veil between life and death
It’s hard to find writers ancient or modern who have used language with a music, wit and tenderness comparable to Moore’s