Burying the Bones
by Hilary Spurling
The Week
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Muriel Spark
by Martin Stannard
(Norton, $35)
“Like a lot of great writers,” mischievous, Scottish-born novelist Muriel Spark “was actually a bit of a monster,” said Charles McGrath in The New York Times. Martin Stannard’s “thorough, judicious, and insightful” new portrait of Spark makes too many apologies for its subject’s flaws, but you can see the truth by reading between the lines. “A neglectful mother, a mercurial and inconstant friend,” Spark was ruthlessly devoted to her art for nearly 50 years. “She behaved, in short, like any number of male writers.”
A Great Unrecorded History
by Wendy Moffat
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $32.50)
The “almost desperately shy” author of Howard’s End and A Room With a View “surely would have been appalled at having his deepest secrets trotted out for public examination,” said Jonathan Yardley in The Washington Post. Yet that’s what Wendy Moffat does in this “earnest, rather self-satisfied” account of E.M. Forster’s closeted homosexual life. Her focus on the affairs that Forster kept secret crowds out exploration of his enduring work.
The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham
by Selina Hastings
(Random House, $35)
Past biographers have been fascinated by the role Somerset Maugham’s “furtive homosexuality” played in his life, but this “uncommonly absorbing” book lets us see its subject “in full,” said Martin Rubin in The Wall Street Journal. Maugham was the most popular writer of his day; the 98 movies created from his work remain a record. He was also a husband, a father, and a British spy. Selina Hastings writes beautifully and adeptly combines “sympathy for her subjects with a tough-minded sense of their less pleasant traits.”
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Music reviews: Chance the Rapper, Cass McCombs, and Molly TuttleFeature "Star Line," "Interior Live Oak," and "So Long Little Miss Sunshine"
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Film reviews: Eden and Honey Don't!Feature Seekers of a new utopia spiral into savagery and a queer private eye prowls a high-desert town
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Critics' choice: Three chefs fulfilling their ambitionsFeature Kwame Onwuachi's grand second act, Travis Lett makes a comeback, and Jeff Watson's new Korean restaurant
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”