Maureen Corrigan

Mark Kurlansky's The Food of a Younger Land presents a marvelous history of America's gastronomical oddities and antiques; a remembrance of tastes and customs past. Maureen Corrigan has a review.

Reed Farrel Coleman holds down a job as a commercial truck driver. But that doesn't stop him from writing mysteries in his free time. His Moe Prager series has won a slew of major awards.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan says the most remarkable aspect of Colm Toibin's new novel is its heroine, a "plain Jane" Irish immigrant with limited options.

Public intellectual George Scialabba contemplates the role of great — and not so great — thinkers in his new collection of essays, What Are Intellectuals Good For? Critic Maureen Corrigan calls it "a pleasure to read."

Kirstin Downey's biography of FDR's Labor Secretary Frances Perkins paints an inspiring and substantive portrait of the woman who ushered in the 40-hour work week.

When Henry Ford bought up a Connecticut-sized chunk of land in the Amazon River basin in 1927, he wasn't just planning to build his own vertically-integrated rubber plantation — he also envisioned the small-town America of his youth, reborn in the jungle.

By refusing to serve up even one likable main character, Zoe Heller's new novel raises implicit questions about readers' expectations about fiction. Reviewer Maureen Corrigan calls The Believers a "smart, caustic novel."

Isabel Gillies grapples with the sudden dissolution of her marriage in the memoir Happens Every Day. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls this "all too-true story" a "compulsive" and "chilling" late-night read.

Two recent contributions to the horror genre, Drood and the Twilight saga, have breathed new life into old thrills and chills. Maureen Corrigan has a review.

Maureen Corrigan reviews Brothers, Yu Hua's epic, 600-plus-page comedy that details life in a Chinese village from the early days of the Cultural Revolution to the giddy capitalist present.