When Caesar Was King: How Sid Caesar Reinvented Comedy by David Margolick

Schocken Review by Walter Cummins The hardest I’ve ever laughed took place more than fifty years ago. David Margolick’s book brought it all back in full hysterics, the experience of…

A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction by Elizabeth McCracken

Ecco Review by Walter Cummins When first reading A Long Game, I kept wondering who the book was written for. The title and the author would attract those of us…

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

Europa Review by Walter Cummins This, Miller’s tenth novel, was a finalist for the 2025 Booker Prize and received two major British awards for historical fiction. The story is historical…

The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins by Sonny Rollins, Edited by Sam V.H. Reese

New York Review Review by Walter Cummins I’ve been listening to Sonny Rollins’ saxophone for decades, including one live performance with bad acoustics that he still managed to overcome, and…

A Desert Between Two Seas by A. Muia

Georgia Review by Paul Willis A. Muia’s richly entangled grouping of fourteen short stories, A Desert Between Two Seas, explores the afterlife of the Spanish missions in Baja California.  While…

The Future of Truth by Werner Herzog

Penguin Review by George Yatchisin  Who better than Werner Herzog, the Bavarian mad genius, to take us on a heady time-travelling exploration on what truth might mean/be/permit? The Future of…

Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress by Roy Scranton

Stanford Review by Walter Cummins I wish Impasse had been written when my wife was still alive. The book would have provided so much information and so many ideas to…

Hitler and My Mother-in-Law by Terese Svoboda

OR Books Review by Walter Cummins Terese Svoboda could have begun the title of her latest book with a number of other famous or familiar names—Goebbels, Goering, Martha Gellhorn, H.V.…

A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar

Knopf Review by Walter Cummins A Guardian and a Thief is chaotic novel, filled with surprising turns and ironic shifts, with characters whose plans constantly backfire, causing accidental but often…

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

Hogarth Review by Walter Cummins When I read The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny I hadn’t known Kiran Desai had devoted twenty years to creating the novel, but I suspected…