Richard Powers's The Time of Our Singing sings a ponderous tune—and those lyrics! Richard Sennett's Respect mixes sociology, memoir, and music interestingly, if dissonantly.

In her new book, Susan Faludi takes her reporter's microscope in search of American men. Predictably, she misses the forest for the trees.

Out of old-fashioned Irish literary stock -- crazy father, long-suffering mother, many restless children -- Emer Martin makes a modern, fast-paced (if slightly woolly) novel.

Chang-rae Lee’s new novel of the Long Island suburbs, Aloft, is billowing and insubstantial, like a cloud on a summer afternoon.

Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius
By Barbara Belford.
Random House; 385 pages; $29.95.

We can't escape the accelerating pace of modern life, argues James Gleick, so we might as well enjoy it. But that doesn't leave time for much else -- say, reading.

The Nautical Chart
By Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Managing a great fortune is a moral challenge. And David Rockefeller -- whatever you think of his accomplishments -- rose to it.

Jonathan Lethem fixates on adolescence, while Michael Chabon comes to terms with maturity.

Seth Mnookin goes inside the paper of record’s 2003 meltdown—and uncovers much inadvertent mirth.