[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]

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Not a lot of reviews to get excited about this week. The May edition of Nico’s Book Radar will run tomorrow, so check back then for some additional reading ideas.

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My Beloved Brontosaurus, by Brian Switek. Reviewed by Tess Taylor (Barnes and Noble Review).

Dinosaurs are fucking awesome. I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Because of this, dinosaur books are almost always written with enthusiasm and even exhuberance, which in turn makes reading about dinosaurs more often than not also fucking awesome. Who wouldn’t want to check out a “zany, sometimes mind-blowing romp through the new science of old bones”–I’m in.

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Bunker Hill, by Nathaniel Philbrick. Reviewed by Walter Isaacson (Washington Post).

I used to live a block from the Bunker Hill monument, otherwise I might have overlooked this one. But if you’re in the mood for a history book, this actually looks pretty good. And anyone who wants to join in the post-bombing Boston love might want to dig into this and learn about the city’s revolutionary roots. I’ve already ordered a copy for a father’s day gift.

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Quickly: Franzen on spending time with a self-help book. Two US presidents co-leading the country sounds like a disaster. This novel about Mallory’s third Everest ascent has promise.

[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]

Waiting to be Heard, by Amanda Knox. Reviewed by Michicko Kakutani in the New York Times.

I’ve never been all that interested in the Amanda Knox case, but I was intrigued by this review, mostly because Kakutani strikes me as being quite naive here, in that she even reviewed the book at all. In the second paragraph, Kakutani mentions that “the Knox family, which hired a public relation company … soon after her arrest, … have promoted an image of [Knox] as an American innocent abroad who got caught up in the gears of a dysfunctional Italian justice system.” The book, you might be shocked to learn, presents Knox as an American innocent abroad who got caught up in a series of terrible mistakes. It might as well be a press release from Knox PR, but Kakutani treats it as a real account of Knox’s growth as a person. She still ends with a shrug, I’m just not sure why she didn’t start there.

Who is Ozymandias? And Other Puzzles in Poetry, by John Fuller. Reviewed by Nicholas Lezard at the Guardian.

This probably only appeals to a subsection of the reading public, but if you’re one of those select few, a measure of caution: Lezard says the “puzzles” are “infuriatingly complex,” though he later deems it a worthwhile read. If you’re of the school that believes that misreading a poem can reveal its beauty, you stand a better chance of liking it. If that statement made you roll your eyes, give it a miss.

The Democracy Project, by David Graeber. Reviewed by Ben Ehrenreich in the L.A. Times.

This study of the Occupy Wall Street movement was written by an anthropology professor with “anarchist politics, scholarly virtuosity and [a] long history of activism.” That sounds like about the best person to write a study of Occupy.

In brief: Not entirely sure that James Wood and Claire Messud are the “first couple of fiction,” but this is an interesting profile of them. … 30 things to tell a book snob. … The major winners of the LA Times Book Prize are all books we’ve discussed extensively on the Page Count Podcast. … Dwight Garner likes John le Carre’s latest, and recommends a le Carre “starter kit.” …

[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]

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Harvard Square, by André Aciman. Reviewed by Charles McGrath (New York Times).

I have a soft spot for fiction that takes place in New England and particularly Boston, and so this one, set right near C4′s home turf, obviously caught my eye. It seems like a fairly straightforward literary novel, dealing with class, relationships, and what it means to be an outsider. But the 1970s Cambridge setting and McGrath’s promise of the “slyly comic” have me interested in learning more.

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The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer. Reviewed by Heller McAlpin (Barnes and Noble Review).

Having grown up at one, a summer camp is another favorite setting of mine. This book sounds really good, and Franzenian in scope. If follows a group of friends from their time at an arts summer camp in the 70s all the way to the present, 50 years later. A book this big (in size and scope) takes some real chops to pull off. I don’t know anything about Wolitzer, but McAlpin seems to think she’s up to the task. Put this one in the ‘definitely’ column.

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There Was an Old Woman, by Hallie Ephron. Reviewed by Maureen Corrigan (Washington Post).

I’m not sure if I’m into the idea of a “thriller lite” or not, but the premise of this book (old people are suffering a seeming epidemic of dangerous falls in a low-income area of NY targeting for commercial development) does have promise. The book take place in a fictional corner of the Bronx, but draws on actual persons and events of history, which I like when done well. This one’s just a maybe for me, but worth a further look.

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Quickly: Pulitzer winners have been announced. This standalone story release of a story that didn’t make the cut for Saunders’s last collection, would be more interesting if it was free… Finally a review of a possibly interesting nonfic.

[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]

The Magic Circle, by Jenny Davidson. Reviewed by Michael Dirda in the L.A. Times.

I’m kind of a sucker for a book that uses games as its central mechanic. They can be really great, or really terrible, like any other kind of book. This one could likewise go either way; Dirda compares Davidson unfavorably to Muriel Spark, but his description of the premise makes it sound darkly fascinating. The Magic Circle follows three bored grad students who make up games that “blur the boundary between reality and ritual — and perhaps sanity and madness as well.” Dirda closes by saying “the spirited plot is allowed to eclipse its fascinating players,” but I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

The City of Devi, by Manil Suri. Reviewed by Adam Mars-Jones at the Guardian.

The City of Devi is a strange-sounding book about a Muslim love triangle between a man, his wife, and his homosexual lover. Mars-Jones says, “Indian homosexuality is enough of a taboo subject that it’s bracing to read about Jaz’s happy days of cruising in Hyderabad.” But, then there’s also a thriller plot involving cyber-attacks and widespread massacres. These elements, as you might suspect, don’t mix very well.

The Flamethrowers, by Rachel Kushner. Reviewed by Ron Charles in the Washington Post.

Similarly to City of Devi, Flamethrowers blends styles and tones, but the latter seems to work better. Charles absolutely raves over this book, calling Kushner “a superb recent-historical novelist.” That recent history is the art scene of 1970s New York, which Kushner blazes across in near-surreal prose.

In brief: Sorry, Joyce Carol Oates, but even this fluffy rave doesn’t convince that your latest rushed-out novel (a ghost story, of all things) will be worth picking up. … The premise of a new book about the CIA seems to be a catalogue of more ways in which the American government breaks its own laws to kill people. … A new nonfiction book, about a time when people didn’t believe that gorillas existed, might be a read-the-review-and-be-done-with-it situation. … Your official overhyped debut literary novel of the month. I just can’t stand another coming-of-age debut. … Another nonfiction book, this one about the science of winning, that you won’t need to actually read after the review.

[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]

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Life After Life, by Jill McCorkle. Reviewed by Ron Charles (Washington Post).

McCorkle (who’s name is endlessly fun to say) is known for her somewhat quirky short stories. I saw her read some a few years ago and quite enjoyed it. This novel doesn’t stray far from the mold, as it’s basically a linked set of short stories. The book (which has the same title as another anticipated book this month) follows the many inhabitants of an assisted living retirement center. Odds are the book balances funny antics–these debaucherous places are STD hotbeds–with sad encounters with mortality. (“If parts of the novel read like a needlepoint sampler, other parts read like needlepoint graffiti.”) Well-balanced, that could make for a good read.

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A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki. Reviewed by Lisa Schwarzbaum (New York Times).

I tend to not like when books are built around novelist protagonists, though this one does seems to be more purposefully a veiled memoir, and a thoughtful reflection on Ozeki’s life experience. If it’s well written, that’s something I can get on board with. Also, the premise made me think of Weezer, who I used to like before they decided to suck.

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Quickly: (Sorry for the short installment, I’m pretty slammed this week and haven’t had much time to read the Internet.) The Magic Circle sounds like it could be good if it doesn’t suck, but it seems likely to suck. Here’s a round-up of new baseball books, the one on expansion teams is the most interesting to me. Looks like Nico was right to be optimistic about the other Life After Life.

[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]

Middle C, by William H. Gass. Reviewed by Michael Dirda in the Washington Post.

Dirda says, “In Middle C, you will look in vain for heroes, detectives or friendly elves. You will, however, find a wizard.” Dirda then gets so complimentary that it borders on the absurd, comparing Gass favorably to Nabokov, and nonsensically saying that he’s realized Flaubert’s dream of “writing a novel about nothing,” even as he admits: “Not that he has totally eschewed a story line.” Still, getting a precise, experienced critic like Dirda to stumble over his words like this is no easy feat, and if you’re even mildly intrigued, Dirda will be happy to give you a thousand-word sales pitch.

The Secretary: A Journey With Hillary Clinton From Beirut to the Heart of American Power, by Kim Ghattas. Reviewed by Malcolm Forbes at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Maybe it’s because Hillary Clinton is the most ambitious ex-First Lady in modern American history, maybe it’s because—if she was five years younger—she’d have a hell of a chance of becoming the first female President, or maybe it’s because of the one-topic Tumblr dedicated to her, but Hillary seems like a fascinating biography subject. Ghattas, the BBC’s State Department correspondent, uses notes and interviews collected from four years of traveling with Clinton and assembles this account of her tenure as Secretary of State.

JN-T: The Life & Scandalous Times of John Nathan-Turner, by Richard Marson. Reviewed by Matthew Sweet in the Guardian.

Doctor Who might be “the most documented programme in the history of television,” but it’s also a distinctly British phenomenon. For casual stateside observers, this book might almost as interesting for its insight into the nationalized British television system as for its tales of sex scandals.

In brief: Fairly amusing mystery roundup in the NYT, including a wince-worthy tossed off opening line about setting a book in Buffalo. … A prominent “techno-utopianist” has a new book out. … Jane Goodall’s book has been postponed because it had the academic honesty of a lazy 8th-grader. She plagiarized from Wikipedia, for goodness sake. She’s lucky it wasn’t canceled outright. … Ron Charles reviews Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth Strout’s new book. … Here’s a book that could’ve fit into a mid-size article: Your Survival Instinct Is Killing You.  … A co-founder of the Tournament of Books interviews a couple of his judges in the B&N Review.

[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]

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Middle Men, by Jim Gavin. Reviewed by Katherine A. Powers (Barnes and Noble Review).

I’m always in the market for new short story collections, especially by writers I’ve never heard of. And if there’s one thing I like those stories to feature, it’s talking animals. If I can have two things, make them talking animals and a “sharp eye for fatuousness.” Unfortunately it doesn’t appear any of Gavin’s stories feature the former, but the latter, along with the rest of Powers’s praise makes me thing this story set might be worth a go all the same.

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Present Shock, by Douglas Rushkoff. Reviewed by Janet Maslin (New York Times).

Technology has made truly incredible advances in the last 20 years. Set against the past century, or even against all of human history, it’s not crazy to say it might be the most rapid advancement we have yet achieved. So how does this affect us? Rushkoff’s book addresses this, and it appears to be quite interesting–if a tad depressing. Have we really “lost our capacity to absorb traditional narrative” as a people and is an “eternal present” really our obsession? If you’re feeling philosophical and a little gloomy, this looks to be a good pick.

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Percival Everett by Virgil Russell, by Percival Everett. Reviewed by Mark Athitakis (Washington Post).

If you’re looking for a little postmodernism to cheer you up (and who isn’t?), the guy who wrote I Am Not Sidney Poitier–which I haven’t read but have heard is good–has a new book out. This book sounds smart, funny, and sad. It’s sort of about an addled old man telling stories to his son, and then also sort of about…other stuff I guess. Like most postmodernism, this book is probably a lot of work. But sometimes the books that challenge their readers are the most worthwhile.

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Quickly: I don’t think Demetri Martin is as funny as everybody else seems to think, and if the cover is anything to go by, I don’t think the drawings in his book of drawings are funny either. Honestly, I don’t really give a shit about the Tournament of Books, but if you do, you might find this interesting. (Sidenote: Rosencrans Baldwin sort of looks like Rick Santorum.)

[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson. Reviewed by Alex Clark in the Guardian.

This is not a great book review in the traditional sense, as Clark fumbles to explain even the premise of Kate Atkinson’s new novel. But perhaps that was a taller order than usual. Clark says that, just when you’re settling into the story, “it simply stops. If this sounds like the quick route to a short book, don’t worry: the narrative starts again – and again and again – but each time it takes a different course, its details sometimes radically, sometimes marginally altered, its outcome utterly unpredictable.” I honestly have no idea what the hell that would look like, but I’m intrigued enough that I’ll definitely be checking out the first few chapters. This one comes out April 2.

He Died with His Eyes Open, by Derek Raymond. Reviewed by A.L. Kennedy at NPR.com.

This is a write-up of an old favorite rather than a proper review. But it’s an eye-opener. Kennedy says that Raymond “has been described as the father of British noir. But he’s far beyond noir. There probably isn’t even a word for his kind of darkness.”

The Blue Book, by A.L. Kennedy. Reviewed by Wendy Lesser in the New York Times.

Now, it’s Kennedy’s turn. What kind of a book does a person who enthusiastically digs up a super-dark noir novel write? Apparently one with a “funny, dark, vituperative voice that serves equally well for tragic and comic moments.” And a whole lot of weirdness. A fitting end to this trio (and it’s only five bucks for the Kindle version).

In brief: Review of the odd-sounding but “ambitious” debut novel Ghana Must Go. … A book about sci-fi-sounding organisms that live in extreme conditions. … EL James is publishing a how-to guide to writing, because obviously that wasn’t a fluke. … I feel like I’ve seen a lot of books centered around perfume. They still fail to grab me.

[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]

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The Teleportation Accident, by Ned Beauman. Reviewed by Wendy Smith (Washington Post).

I tend to enjoy books with quirky, even oddball plots. This novel (a Man Booker candidate last year, but only now making it stateside), sounds like it has just such a plot: A German theater set designer in the 1930s chases some tail to America and somehow becomes involved with a CalTech professor who is working on creating a teleportation device. As Smith describes it, it sounds to me like a cross between The Great Gatsby and one of my favorite books of the past few years, Skippy Dies. “It’s rare for a book to stimulate the brain cells and the funny bone with equal gusto,” raves Smith, which is praise enough for me. Definitely looking further into this one.

Find it on Goodreads.

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Frances and Bernard, by Carlene Bauer. Reviewed by Claudia La Rocco (New York Times).

Dunno about this one. It could just as easily turn out to be sappy pap as it could be good. But for whatever reason I’m a sucker for epistolary novels, and I adore Flannery O’Connor’s short stories. So this novel, loosely based on the famous somewhat-involved friendship between Flannery and poet Robert Lowell, is one I can’t really go without mentioning here. Given my current press for time, I’m probably going to have to sit this one out unless I start hearing more people talking about it. But if you’re interested the review is worth a glance.

Find it on Goodreads.

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The Storyteller, by Jodi Picoult. Reviewed by Connie Ogle (Miami Herald).

Jodi Picoult can go fuck herself. Seriously, grab hands with New Hampshire’s other inexplicably successful hack writer Dan Brown and jump off the rocky cliff that used to be the Old Man of the Mountain. I know, I know this is a Holocaust book, so I’m automatically a dick for denouncing it. But this is a Holocaust book that–like pretty much all the other books by Picoult and authors of her ilk–reeks of overplotting and emotional oversaturation. It’s allegedly intended for adults yet it’s written at a novice reading level. Oh, and she wrote it concurrently with another book, which even she describes as a “light, fluffy fairytale.” Probably the perfect thing to combo with the Holocaust for a ping-pong writing session.

Find it on Goodreads.

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The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand, by Gregory Galloway. Reviewed by Tasha Robinson (A.V. Club).

As easy as it is to bemoan facile books like Picoult’s as part of a larger dumbification of books that is perhaps most easily recognizable in the cash grab for poorly written supernatural YA books that are probably read by more older adults than young ones, it’s encouraging to see at the same time books actually intended for YA audiences take the genre in mature and more literary directions. Look no further than this novel, which tackles the very heavy subject of teen suicide with a Groundhog Day approach. But rather cheapening the subject matter or, worse, being preachy, Galloway appears to handle it with grace:

It isn’t the usual supernatural wish-fulfillment adventure, or an anti-suicide lecture in narrative form; it’s an honest, aching character study that captures small-town life and small-town despair, and takes both to an intriguing extreme.

I’ve been reading an even larger amount of YA lately in my quest for fresh lesson plan material. You can definitely look forward to a C4 review of this one soon.

Find it on Goodreads

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Quickly: If you’re looking for some fresh reading material, the long list for the Best Translated Book Awards is a good place to start. In case you never heard of it or forgot about it, this is an excellent YA book that tackled the various horrors of WW2. Finally, If these were person-sized, I’d want to live in one.

[In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.]

The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, by Teddy Wayne. Reviewed by Jess Walter in the New York Times.

Satirist Teddy Wayne’s latest follows the first-person ramblings of a Justin Bieber-esque teen pop star. Jess Walter is a novelist in his own right, so it’s important to take his praise with a grain of salt, but boy does he ever gush. Walter says that writing a novel with such a voice is a feat in itself, and that “to create out of that entitled adolescent voice a being of true longing and depth, and then to make him such a devastating weapon of cultural criticism — these are feats of unlikely virtuosity, like covering Jimi Hendrix on a ukulele.” This book just got a little more interesting.

Instructions for a Heatwave, by Maggie O’Farrell. Reviewed by Joanna Briscoe in the Guardian.

Here’s another frothy rave. Briscoe kicks off this review of O’Farrell’s sixth novel by writing, “Maggie O’Farrell never fails to deliver, yet her dependable brand of eagle‑eyed storytelling rarely strays into the formulaic.” I just plain don’t believe that, because even my very favorite novelists deliver a dud one time out of six. The book itself follows an Irish family settled in London, and the terrible effects when the father simply disappears one day. Sounds quite interesting if the narrative really is as “acutely observed” as Briscoe claims.

My Brother’s Book, by Maurice Sendak. Reviewed by Liz Rosenberg in the B & N Review.

Sendak’s much talked about final work is a child-inappropriate illustrated meditation on grief and love. It centers around a man whose brother dies, and who faces the challenge of a godlike white bear to bring him back from the land of the dead. Rosenberg mixes in a bit of Sendak’s personal history and illuminates his influences and craft as well as the biographical details that informed this book.

Hand-Drying in America, by Ben Katchor. Reviewed by David L. Ulin in the L.A. Times.

Ulin sketches out the shape and meaning of a new collection by an odd comic strip artist. Ben Katchor created “Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer,” which is about as difficult to describe as you might think from the title. Hand-Drying in America seems to be a different strip, a series of one-offs loosely based on design and architecture, which Ulin says combine to form a kind of “atlas of Katchor’s imaginary city, a series of maps intended to chart its life.”

In brief: Michiko Kakutani reviews Mohsin Hamid’s new novel, one of the stars of Friday’s Book Radar. … This off-kilter mystery might be worth a shot. … The Guardian likes Deborah Levy’s latest collection, which comes out Tuesday. … The NYT reviews Will Self’s Umbrella, which was nominated for the Booker Prize last year. Remember that? Me neither.