Reading this book is like stumbling into a dark theater where an indie film that barely slipped by with an R rating is playing, half over, on the screen. Think David Lynch meets Joe Esterhaus, only they’re women and they’re shooting... Read More

This book ought to carry a warning on its cover: “Mothers of Small Children Should Approach With Extreme Caution.” The author’s wrenching first-person account of trying to rescue her young daughter and son from their powerful,... Read More

Reading this book is like taking a long car ride with a literate, funny, insightful, and clinically depressed companion—who just won’t stop talking. Not that he should stop talking, but, whether the book passes as a joy ride or an... Read More

Psychiatrist Saul Dubinsky, a gentle soul in a skinny body, buries his anguish in prescription drugs after a patient attempts suicide. Self-medication leads to addiction, which leads to crime. The book begins with his arrest, but it is... Read More

Moments after she discovers her grandmother dead in the house they share, four- teen-year-old Miri Ortiz begs an adult male friend to take her in. She pitches him on marriage. When he declines, she makes another proposal: “ÔThen... Read More

What do Madame Bovary, Jane Eyre, and Bridget Jones have in common? They all suffer for love, of course. They also work, for the author, as literary examples of the real-life pain that most people in the Western world experience at one... Read More

The trick for any book is to get readers so engrossed that they stop noticing the form. Anyone immersed in a truly fine read probably isn’t thinking, “this story is told in flashback” or “interesting use of the unreliable... Read More

Children who have been abused or neglected aren’t like other boys and girls—and even the most loving adoptive parents will fail if they treat them like kids from normal, nurturing homes, say the authors. Keck and Kupecky point out... Read More