Top readings

• Fri 9 at 7pm

• Good Reads

• Critics Laura Miller, Ben Ratliff and others discuss books singled out by the NBCC.

• Sun 11 at 7pm

• Sunday Night Fiction

• Satirical novelist Josh Barkan takes on American politics, global warming and destiny in Blind Speed. Nam Le goes global in his debut story collection.

• Tue 13 at 7pm

• Philip Gourevitch + Errol Morris

• The author and the filmmaker discuss their in-depth report on the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.

New reviews

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• Teen angst

• All Souls, by Christine Schutt

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• Schutt sets her new novel at an Upper East Side prep school.

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• Abu Ghraib investigation

• Standard Operating Procedure, by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris

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• Guilt and abuse are widespread in this look at a military scandal.

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• Stylish poetry meets punk sensibility

• The Weaklings, by Dennis Cooper

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• A novelist triumphantly returns to verse.

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• Globe-spanning stories

• The Boat, by Nam Le

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• Le's short tales take place on four different continents.

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• Zeitgeist reporting

• The Great Derangement, by Matt Tiabbi

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• A gonzo journalist discovers a disillusioned and deluded America.

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• Dark adolesence

• The God of War, by Marisa Silver

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• A boy's violent young life is played out in the bleak California desert.

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• Domestic meltdown

• Attachment, by Isabel Fonseca

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• A woman uncovers her husband's cheating ways.

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• Back to the Balkans

• The Lazarus Project, by Aleksandar Hemon

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• Hemon's novel shifts between old Chicago and the present-day Balkans

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• Cultural analysis

• Thirty-Eight Witnesses, by A.M. Rosenthal

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• The journalist's meditation on an infamous 1964 crime has been reissued.

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• Multigenerational epic

• The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdich

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• A 1911 massacre forever links an indian tribe and its white neighbors.

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• Autobiographical essays

• Have You No Shame?, by Rachel Shukert

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• A loud Jewish gal grows up in Nebraska, of all places.

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• Wordsmith's memoir

• A Writer’s People, by V.S. Naipaul

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• The Nobel laureate sizes up his youthful literary influences.

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• Genetic science

• Blood Matters, by Masha Gessen

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• The author takes an illuminating peek at her DNA.

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• Lyrical Western

• The Outlander, by Gil Adamson

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• A fed-up woman kills her hubby and is off for adventure in 1903 Canada.

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• Innovative fiction

• The Mayor’s Tongue, by Nathaniel Rich

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• The real and the fantastic merge in this serio-comic tale.

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• Junk-store page-turner

• Hubert’s Freaks, by Gregory Gibson

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• A graceful hustler discovers freak-show photos by Diane Arbus.

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• Sex-tour romp

• Willing, by Scott Spencer

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• In Spencer's new novel, a journalist joins wealthy johns on a hedonistic trip.

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• Postcollege travails

• All the Sad Young Literary Men, by Keith Gessen

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• A novel peers into three men's postadolescent enterprises.

Featured stories

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• Tying the not

• Novelist Andrew Sean Greer portrays a midcentury couple beset by secrets.

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• Caste in doubt

• Aravind Adiga pens a satire of class conflict in India.

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• Piece of cake

• Sloane Crosley cuts up with her debut essay collection.

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• Shelf esteem

• Literary agents, editors and publicists weigh in on the unpredictable world of publishing.

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• War music

• Poets use Google, experience rapture and foresee the end of the world.

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• Apocalypse sync

• Fiona Maazel talks about reincarnation, addiction and a devastating plague.

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• True grit

• In Lush Life, Richard Price captures the Lower East Side in all its grimy glory.

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• Reappear here

• Novelist Scott Heim returns with a mournful, reality-torquing thriller.

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• Singing the body electric

• Samantha Hunt revives a visionary resident of the Hotel New Yorker.

Recently reviewed

• The Drop Edge of Yonder, by Rudolph Wurlitzer

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• Trauma, by Patrick McGrath

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• Armageddon in Retrospect, by Kurt Vonnegut

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• The Second Plane: Terror and Boredom, by Martin Amis

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• Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri

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• Why We’re Liberals, by Eric Atlerman

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• The Runner, by David Samuels

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• The Ten-Cent Plague, by David Hajdu.

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• The Book of Dahlia, by Elisa Albert

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• The Rain Before It Falls, by Jonathan Coe

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• Black Postcards, by Dean Wareham

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• Another Thing to Fall, by Laura Lippman

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• Human Smoke, by Nicholson Baker

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• Physical Evidence, by Kent Jones

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• Blood Kin, by Ceridwen Dovey

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• Nazi Literature in the Americas, by Roberto Bolaño

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• Cleaver, by Tim Parks

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• Pictures at a Revolution, by Mark Harris

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• Unforgiving Years, by Victor Serge

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• Johnny One-Eye, by Jerome Charyn

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• Dangerous Laughter, by Steven Millhauser

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• The Diving Pool, by Yoko Ogawa

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