Maureen Corrigan

Book critic MAUREEN CORRIGAN reviews the new book by Jan Morris about the powerful Japanese battleship that became "the noblest of kamikaze weapons" by hurled itself against the invading American forces in 1945.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two new books involving mysteries: one a biography of crime writer Agatha Christie; the other about The Golden State Killer.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Matt Young's debut memoir, about being a young Marine in Iraq.

Zadie Smith is justly celebrated for her chameleon-like gifts as a writer. In novels like White Teeth and On Beauty she's ventured deeply into the lives of a multi-racial assortment of immigrants to Great Britain and the United States. Her characters run the gamut from aspirational working-class kids, self-important academics, pensioners, young dancers and, to date, one Chinese-Jewish Londoner with a fixation on Golden Age Hollywood.

The classic coming-to-New-York story was a mashup of a few pleasurably predictable elements: a young person with dreams bigger than his or her bank account, a few roach-ridden apartments and crummy jobs, some eccentric friends and neighbors, and a couple of requisite hard knocks before ... success!

Book critic Maureen Corrigan has been reading some newly reprinted novels from the Harlem Renaissance. She says these novels about American racism hardly feel dated at all.

Leila Slimani's novel, which has just been translated from the French, is inspired by a real life horror: the 2012 murder of two children in New York City by their nanny.

Denis Johnson's posthumous short story collection, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, is full of last calls to his readers signaling, "Hurry up please, it's time."

Book critic Maureen Corrigan who was a fan of Sue Grafton, has an appreciation of the mystery writer who died at the age of 77 on December 28th. And then we hear an excerpt of Terry's 1989 interview with Grafton.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan lists her Best Books of 2002: