Books & Literature

On August 3, Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn died of heart failure at age 89. Solzhenitsyn exposed the atrocities committed by the Soviet Gulag in his work, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Fresh Air remembers the Nobel Prize winner.

As a journalist, John Darnton spent 40 years at The New York Times. As a novelist, he writes colorful mysteries. His newest murder yarn, set in a big-city newsroom that seems awfully familiar: Black and White and Dead All Over.

As war continues and the economy sags, Maureen Corrigan recommends three historical works that provide insight into coping with trying times.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and the American Experimental Music by George E. Lewis. The book tracks the history of Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, an organization that promoted the development of new jazz styles.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan picked out two debut books by young writers that mix personal history and social commentary

Mystery novelist Janwillem Van de Wetering was once a motorcycle gang member in South Africa, an aspiring monk in Kyoto, Japan and a policeman in Amsterdam. The Dutch author of The Hollow-Eyed Angel, The Blond Baboon and The Maine Massacre died July 4 at the age of 77.

Dorothy's Toto and Elle's Bruiser have a friend in common: animal trainer Bill Berloni. Berloni has been training stage animals for over 30 years. His new book is Broadway Tails: Heartfelt Stories of Rescued Dogs Who Became Showbiz Superstars.

Author of new-wave sci-fi — and the much-loved children's story The Brave Little Toaster — took his life last week. Fresh Air remembers the novelist, poet and critic.

Before Tony Montana, there was Meyer Lansky. True-crime writer T.J. English recounts the history of a mob-ruled Havana before the 1959 revolution.

With plenty of nods to The Great Gatsby Joseph O'Neill's Netherland explores dreams and ambition in post-Sept. 11 New York City. Maureen Corrigan calls the novel "marvelous."

Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews John Edgar Wideman's new book, Fanon (a Novel), which mixes fiction, biography and memoir in an effort to capture the life and mind of psychiatrist and revolutionary Frantz Fanon.

The debut short-story collection by Nigerian writer and Jesuit priest Uwem Akpan offers a sobering view of a world in which atrocity is commonplace, and the unthinkable is the everyday.

McSweeney's contributor Dan Kennedy found what he thought was a dream job in the music industry: Director of Creative Development at Atlantic Records. Rock on: an Office Power Ballad is the tale of his time at the label — where he arrived just in time for what he describes as the collapse of the music business.

Novelist Ron Hansen is best known for his tales of Western bandits and whiskey runners, but he claims his inspiration for these unsavory characters is divine. The author of Exiles discusses writing, faith and his status as a Catholic deacon in a secular literary world.

Whether he's lancing boils, getting crabs from thrift-store trousers or sitting in a hospital waiting room dressed only in his underwear, one thing is clear: David Sedaris is not shy about sharing embarrassing, cringe-worthy moments.

When Bob Morris' widowed father decided to start dating again — at the age of 80 — guess who found himself sorting through the personals? In Assisted Loving, Morris chronicles the search for Dad's new Ms. Right — and his own misadventures in the romantic jungle that is Manhattan's gay ghetto.

Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan presents her nonfiction summer reading list — three true tales, plus one book of fiction she just couldn't resist.

In his new biography, Kirby: King of Comics, TV and comics writer Mark Evanier details the life and career of noted comic artist Jack Kirby, the co-creator of the Marvel Comics characters the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk and X-Men.

There are beach books full of sun and cotton candy and beach books dappled with shadow and sardonic humor. The very different beach books Maureen Corrigan recommends all have one thing in common: They carry a reader far beyond the familiar.

Fresh Air film critic David Edelstein reviews Reprise, the first feature film by Norwegian writer and director Joachim Trier.