[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.