Robert Sullivan
Robert Sullivan is the author of The Meadowlands and A Whale Hunt. His newest book is Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants.
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler (Ballantine, $15). This novel is great, first, because Anne Tyler is a genius, a writer with the light touch necessary to play the deepest human chords, and, second, because it is about America and how, like Tyler’s hero, it strives to cocoon itself only in what it knows.
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene (Penguin, $13). A funny story about a single father who, trying to support his teenage daughter’s horse-riding habit, reluctantly moonlights as a British spy. It’s excellent comic Greene, though in the end the joke is not completely a joke: Within it swirls the darkness of governments, their secrets, and deathly paranoia.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Van by Roddy Doyle (Penguin, $13). Two unemployed guys in Dublin with kids, babies, and wives buy a van from which to sell fish and chips during the World Cup soccer finals. They work hard, laugh, fight, don’t talk, nearly kill each other and their customers, but then manage, somehow, to stay friends. Brilliant.
Great Plains by Ian Frazier (Picador, $13). The factual is crafted to feel personal but never memoirlike in these stories that grow from Frazier’s travels out on the plains. This is a book you want never to end, but then it ends perfectly, a nearly empty gas tank talking.
The Heather Blazing by Colm Tóibín (Penguin, $13). A beautiful, gripping, yet supremely contemplative novel about a man looking back at his life and his father. Tóibín’s writing is like the surface of a quiet lake, still and quiet but deep and seemingly bottomless.
The Big Rock Candy Mountain
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
How the woke right gained power in the US
Under the radar The term has grown in prominence since Donald Trump returned to the White House
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK
-
Codeword: April 24, 2025
The Week's daily codeword puzzle
By The Week Staff
-
Crossword: April 24, 2025
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff
-
Susan Page's 6 favorite books about historical figures who stood up to authority
Feature The USA Today's Washington bureau chief recommends works by Catherine Clinton, Alexei Navalny, and more
By The Week US
-
Ione Skye's 6 favorite books about love and loss
Feature The actress recommends works by James Baldwin, Nora Ephron, and more
By The Week US
-
Colum McCann's 6 favorite books that take place at sea
Feature The National Book Award-winning author recommends works by Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, and more
By The Week US
-
Max Allan Collins’ 6 favorite books that feature private detectives
Feature The mystery writer recommends works by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and more
By The Week US
-
John McWhorter’s 6 favorite books that are rooted in history
Feature The Columbia University professor recommends works by Lyla Sage, Sally Thorne, and more
By The Week US
-
Abdulrazak Gurnah's 6 favorite books about war and colonialism
Feature The Nobel Prize winner recommends works by Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison, and more
By The Week US
-
Elliot Ackerman’s 6 favorite books on war and duty
Feature The Marine veteran recommends works by Robert A. Heinlein, John le Carré, and more
By The Week US
-
Xochitl Gonzalez’s 6 favorite books that shaped her storytelling
Feature The best-selling author recommends works by Stephen King, Julian Barnes, and more
By The Week US