Book Reviews

Rhone Ranger’s Vinthology, Winemakers’ Profiles: Holiday Books I like to think that wine lovers are also book readers, at least to feed their oenophilia. So, for holiday gifts I can guarantee that the following books will make your drinking buddies very happy.

’Mary Poppins’ Writer Embraces Posh, Likes Hollywood Sucking Up Oscar-winning writer Julian Fellowes has found success late in life, and only after abandoning a modest acting career to chronicle the foibles of Britain’s upper class.

Beer-Brewing Women, Soused Workers Built Pyramids: Lewis Lapham “The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer,” according to the ancient Egyptians, and on that basis it was a happy society.

Barnes & Noble Delays Shipping of Nook, E-Book Reader (Update1) Barnes & Noble Inc., the largest U.S. bookstore chain, said Nook, its device for reading digital versions of books, sold out its initial production run and won’t ship new purchases until the week of Jan. 4.

Vanderbilt Life, N.Y. Novel Win National Book Awards (Update1) “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt” by T.J. Stiles won the $10,000 National Book Award for Nonfiction last night at a dinner at Manhattan’s Cipriani restaurant on Wall Street.

Perverse Nabokov Characters Torment Each Other in Final Novel Vladimir Nabokov made it clear before he died that he didn’t want his notes for his unfinished final novel published; he wanted them burned. But here they are 32 years later between hard covers, in a volume edited by his only child, Dmitri Nabokov, and it seems unlikely that very many people are going to complain.

Google Founder Sets Devilish Test in Auletta Book on ‘Frenemy’ Sergey Brin wanted to test a job applicant, so he gave her a snap assignment, writes Ken Auletta in his new book, “Googled.”

Palin Goes ‘Rogue’ on McCain, Facts, Reality: Margaret Carlson Until now, Sarah Palin has been operating from the safe remove of her laptop and gotten some things done, if you count suggesting that her son Trig would be left to die by Democratic health-care proposals.