My review of this book appeared originally in another publication and is reprinted here:

Brooklyn Follies
By Paul Auster
Henry Holt and Company, $24.00, 304 pages
ISBN 0-8050-7714-6

Meet Nathan Glass. He is eager to tell you all about himself. But to hear Nathan tell it, he is—at least at the outset of this superbly comic novel—a cynical fifty-nine year old man who has returned to Brooklyn for only one reason: He is quietly waiting to drop dead.

My review of this book appeared originally in another publication and is reprinted here:

The World Made Straight
By Ron Rash
Henry Holt, $24.00, 304 pages
ISBN 0-8050-7865-5

Seventeen year old Travis Shelton lives in the mountains of western North Carolina, and—when Ron Lash’s superb tale of redemption and healing begins—young Shelton knows little of his family’s or his region’s history.