Speed Reader

 

Lapham, the editor of Harper's, has written a brutal and detailed condemnation of the Bush administration's cynical attacks on our civil liberties in the wake of 9-11. He also shows how the media and our educational systems are complicit in ensuring that Americans are largely ignorant of the threats to our constitutional rights posed by the Bushites.

 

A Mexican fisherman finds a dismembered human arm washed up on a California beach at the beginning of Francisco's second mystery novel. This setup leads to a carefully plotted thriller that critics have said lives up to the promise of Francisco's debut, last year's highly praised Confessions of a Deathmaiden.

 

I loved Lodge's last novel, Thinks ... . His latest—a warts and all fictionalization of the life of Henry James—hasn't been getting many rave reviews, but this British author and literary critic is almost always provocative. Odds are Author, Author will be an entertaining literary read.