The Stacks
All book reviews
402 honest reviews across fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and more.
Showing 49-72 of 402
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
Beloved by Toni Morrison 1987 review. Sethe, a former slave living in Reconstruction-era Ohio, is haunted by the daughter she killed to save from slavery. Pulitzer Prize 1988 and one of the canonical American novels of the late twentieth century.
Klara and the Sun
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 2021 review. Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches the children passing by the storefront and waits to be chosen. Late-career Ishiguro at his most patient and most strange.
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
The Secret History by Donna Tartt 1992 review. A new student at a Vermont college is drawn into an exclusive Greek-studies seminar and the murder that the small clique conceals. The novel that defined the dark-academia register before it had a name.
American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
American Gods by Neil Gaiman 2001 review. An ex-convict named Shadow takes a job as bodyguard to a strange man named Wednesday and learns the old gods of immigration are still here, dying slow. The defining American urban fantasy of the 2000s.
The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
The Road by Cormac McCarthy 2006 review. A father and son walk south across a burned-out post-apocalyptic America toward an uncertain coast. Pulitzer Prize 2007 and one of the great American novels of the twenty-first century.
The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood 1985 review. In the near-future Republic of Gilead, women have been stripped of their rights, and the handmaid Offred remembers the world before. The most-cited dystopian novel of the late twentieth century.
A Game of Thrones
by George R. R. Martin
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin 1996 review. The book that rewrote what epic fantasy was allowed to do. Westeros, the Iron Throne, the deaths nobody saw coming. Required reading.
The Way of Kings
by Brandon Sanderson
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson 2010 review. On the storm-blasted continent of Roshar, an enslaved bridgeman, a disgraced scholar, and a young prince converge as the world races toward a forgotten war. The most ambitious epic fantasy debut since A Game of Thrones.
The Lincoln Lawyer
by Michael Connelly
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly 2005 review. Mickey Haller, a Los Angeles defense attorney who works out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car, takes a case that pulls him into something larger. The novel that launched a series and a film franchise.
It
by Stephen King
It by Stephen King 1986 review. Seven friends return to Derry, Maine, to face the shape-shifting evil they fought as children. One of the great American novels about childhood and the past.
The Stand
by Stephen King
The Stand by Stephen King 1978 (and 1990 Complete & Uncut) review. A weaponized plague kills 99 percent of humanity. The survivors are pulled toward Boulder or toward Las Vegas, and the novel that follows is one of the great American epics of its decade.
Fairy Tale
by Stephen King
Fairy Tale by Stephen King 2022 review. Charlie Reade inherits a Maine estate and discovers a portal to a fairy-tale world that has gone seriously wrong. Late-career King at his most generously narrative.
11/22/63
by Stephen King
11/22/63 by Stephen King 2011 review. An English teacher discovers a portal to 1958 and decides to stop the Kennedy assassination. The single best late-King novel and the rare time-travel book that earns its 849 pages.
Anthony Van Dyke
by Robin Blake
Anthony Van Dyke by Robin Blake 1999 review. A Yale University Press art-historical biography of the seventeenth-century Flemish portrait painter and his English court career.
Columbia Accident Investigation Report
by Robert Godwin
Columbia Accident Investigation Report 2003 edited by Robert Godwin review. The full text of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) report, the primary-source document on the 2003 Shuttle Columbia loss.
Apollo 12: The Nasa Mission Reports, Volume 2
by Robert Godwin
Apollo 12: The NASA Mission Reports, Volume 2 edited by Robert Godwin 2000 review. The primary-source NASA documentation volume on the second crewed lunar landing.
The Torch of Honor
by Roger MacBride Allen
The Torch of Honor by Roger MacBride Allen 1985 review. A near-future SF novel about an Earth-led expedition arriving at the colony world of New Finland to find it under Guard occupation.
The Fashionable P.I.
by Rida Allen
The Fashionable P.I. by Rida Allen 2002 review. A Boston PI series debut in which Mac Sullivan investigates a Newbury Street boutique murder that everyone wants to call accidental.
Hero at Large
by Steffie Hall
Hero at Large by Janet Evanovich writing as Steffie Hall 1987 review. A pre-Stephanie Plum romance where a Chicago insurance investigator gets stuck with a witness who refuses to behave.
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
by John Grant
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy edited by John Clute and John Grant 1997 review. The 1,049-page critical reference work that defined how the field thinks about itself.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Visual Companion
by Jude Fisher
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Visual Companion by Jude Fisher 2001 review. The official Houghton Mifflin tie-in companion to Peter Jackson's first Lord of the Rings film, with film stills, weapon designs, and location production notes.
Vie De France : Sharing Food, Friendship, and a Kitchen in the Loire Valley
by James Haller
Vie de France by James Haller 2008 review. A small-town New Hampshire chef takes his cooking-school students to the Loire Valley for a summer and rebuilds his cooking from the ground up.
Seal Island
by Kate Brallier
Seal Island by Kate Brallier 2007 review. A Cape Cod literary mystery about a marine biologist returning to her family's summer island after her sister's suspicious drowning.
The Weight of Dreams
by Jonis Agee
The Weight of Dreams by Jonis Agee 1999 review. A Nebraska ranching family confronts the limits of generational land ownership across one hard summer.