Where the God of Love Hangs Out
by Amy Bloom
The Week
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Day Out of Days
by Sam Shepard
(Knopf, $26)
The playwright and actor Sam Shepard should be forgiven his “childish contempt for middle-class America,” said Alec Solomita in The Boston Globe. In this new assemblage of stories, poems, and other fragments, Shepard’s fictional alter ego is hashing out his internal conflicts, “often with great precision and beauty.” Shepard remains an appealingly restless cowboy, genuinely confused by his own unease and capable of sudden detours into “profoundly satisfying” storytelling.
Fun With Problems
by Robert Stone
(Houghton Mifflin, $24)
Robert Stone appears “not quite at ease” writing short fiction; he’s better on an apocalyptic scale, said David L. Ulin in the Los Angeles Times. But Stone’s new story collection is in places “a return to form” for the author of the masterful novel Damascus Gate. Stone’s characters are all architects of their own misfortunes; they look to drugs, new jobs, or new bedroom partners for temporary consolations in a world “bereft” of God. The best stories make their strivings feel like a high-wire act.
The Secret Lives of Buildings
by Edward Hollis
(Metropolitan, $28)
Edward Hollis is an architect who seems to think “the world might be better off with less architecture,” said Kirk Savage in The Washington Post. Mixing fantasy and fact as he discusses 13 major structures from the Parthenon in Athens to a hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Hollis shows us that buildings should be thought of as “shape-shifting and impermanent.” They are “made and remade” by each passing generation, and to fixate on preserving them is to misunderstand their purpose.
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Hitler: what can we learn from his DNA?Talking Point Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator is the latest documentary to posthumously diagnose the dictator
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Government shutdown: why the Democrats ‘caved’In the Spotlight The recent stalemate in Congress could soon be ‘overshadowed by more enduring public perceptions’
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Crossword: November 22, 2025The daily crossword from The Week
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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.”