Eye on Books

What does it mean to inherit something? To what lengths would you go to recover something dear to you, that you'd lost? How does your memory affect your feelings about what's dear to you? Nicole Krauss may not have the answers, but she sure asks the right questions, in her novel "Great House." It'...

Mary Shelley may have only scratched the surface of narrative possibilities when she wrote "Frankenstein" nearly two centuries ago. The formidable Dean Koontz has taken the Frankenstein theme in his own unique direction with a series of books, the fourth of which is "Frankenstein: Lost Souls." And...

Thanks to classic books like "The Right Stuff" and various astronaut memoirs we know a lot about the astronaut selection process, and the science of space travel. But there are details - lots of little details - about what author Mary Roach calls "the curious science of life in the void." In her b...

A couple of years ago doctors told Edward Ugel he had to either lose fifty pounds, or continue on the road to a premature death. Well, that got his attention. And he embarked on what he calls "turning around the cruise ship." In his book "I'm With Fatty" Ugel takes us with him on his yearlong quest...

George Allen -- the former U.S. Senator and Governor of Virginia -- likes to say he grew up with one foot in sports and the other in public service. The son of legendary NFL coach George Allen, he got regular, early exposure to valuable lessons in sportsmanship. Later, in Richmond, then in Washin...

Ex-Navy Seal Scot Harvath is looking for work, as Brad Thor's book "Foreign Influence" opens. Good thing for him the private sector is ready to scoop up a man with his skills, and before long Harvath is halfway around the world on a mission to find a bad guy nicknamed The Troll...

From the early days of the Ronald Reagan administration to the arrival of Sarah Palin, syndicated cartoonist Nicole Hollander has been speaking to a loyal audience of millions, through her alter ego Sylvia, speaking truth and snark to power. Now Hollander brings together the highlights of those thi...

"Daily Show" viewers know Samantha Bee well. The self-deprecating Most Senior Correspondent now takes readers on a hilariously guided tour of her childhood and adolescence -- parents, step-parents, grandparents and nuns along for the ride -- in her irreverent memoir "I Know I Am, But What Are You?"...

Uh oh, Vinnie's been kidnapped - bad, bad people are demanding a six-figure ransom. So Stephanie Plum, of course, leads the effort to get him back, in the new Janet Evanovich mystery "Sizzling Sixteen." The effort is not entirely altruistic, of course, since Stephanie, Connie, Lula et al owe their...

Twenty-five years after the events of Bret Easton Ellis' iconic novel "Less Than Zero," Clay, Blair, Julian and Rip return for a new story. In "Imperial Bedrooms," Ellis brings his cast into a 21st century that is different but the same, comfortable and creepy. Their respective fates will be anythi...