The Fear Index

Library Journal Physicist Alexander Hoffman left CERN (builder of the Large Hadron Collider, an underground particle accelerator near Geneva) following a nervous breakdown. Since then he has continued to develop his algorithmically programmed computer, VIXAL-4, a machine capable of operating independently and teaching itself at a rate far beyond the ability of human beings. Unable […]

The Cat's Table

Publishers Weekly: In Ondaatje’s best novel since his Booker Prize–winning The English Patient, an 11-year-old boy sets off on a voyage from Ceylon to London, where his mother awaits. Though Ondaatje tells us firmly in the “Author’s Note” that the story is “pure invention,” the young boy is also called Michael, was also born in […]

Death Comes to Pemberley

Liesl Schillinger [James's] innovation has been to transplant the dramatis personae from Austen into her own suspenseful universe, preserving their likenesses and life force…The greatest pleasure of this novel is its unforced, effortless, effective voice. James hasn't written in florid cod-­Regency whorls, the overblown language other mimics so often employ. Not infrequently, while reading Death […]