Book Reviews

Stephen King Pins Town Under Dome, Folks Get Smashed Like Bugs “Under the Dome,” Stephen King’s vast new novel, chronicles the events after small-town Chester’s Mill, Maine, becomes trapped beneath a giant, impassable force field.

Kagan Says Military Brass Should Read Thucydides: Lewis Lapham As the desperate remnants of the Athenian force struggled to reach the Assinarus river, enemy missiles rained down from above. Some were impaled on their own spears, others drowned, entangled in their own equipment, and any survivors were butchered.

Paulson Defies Bulls, Makes $10 Million a Day on Wager: Books Smarts, good timing and a touch of the renegade. That’s what it took to pull off the investment coup that Gregory Zuckerman brings to life in “The Greatest Trade Ever.”

Doctorow Ponders Shock of ‘Ragtime,’ Tons of Junk: Interview A Broadway revival of “Ragtime” opens Nov. 15, bringing back E.L. Doctorow’s dizzying mix of Jewish immigrants, black musicians and upper-class WASPs crossing paths in turn of the century New York.

Long-Legged Princess Seduces French Leader in Giscard Fantasy A widowed French president named Jacques-Henri Lambertye starts a secret affair with Patricia, Princess of Cardiff, who has split up with her royal spouse and lives in Kensington Palace.

Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ Merits Close Study in China (Update1) China’s top political adviser Jia Qinglin has urged the study of a 2,500-year-old Chinese war manual called “The Art of War” to tackle challenges in the modern world, the state-run Xinhua News Service reported.

Roth’s Aging Actor Loses His Chops, Finds Lesbian Lover: Books Chapter 1: An elderly actor loses his chops, can’t perform. Fearing suicide, he checks himself into a psychiatric hospital. Chapter 2: After his release, he falls into an intense, rejuvenating affair with a lesbian 25 years his junior, the child of old friends. Chapter 3: Can any good come of this?

NDiaye Wins Goncourt for Novel About African Women (Update1) Marie NDiaye won France’s most prestigious literary award, the 106-year-old Prix Goncourt, for “Trois Femmes Puissantes,” a novel about three African women who struggle to maintain their dignity against all odds.