Heller McAlpin
Heller McAlpin is a New York-based critic who reviews books regularly for NPR.org, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.
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Joseph Skibell's new collection of personal essays is full of offbeat life lessons, moving from whimsy to weight. And, as he puts it, though the stories are true, they're full of "imaginary things."
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Michel Houellebecq's dark satire Submission caused a furore in his native France with its depiction of an Islamist takeover. But critic Heller McAlpin calls it "too distasteful to be amusing."
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Sloane Crosley's new novel, The Clasp, follows a group of disaffected 30-somethings who gather for a classmate's posh wedding — but the casual misanthropy of the characters dims the book's pleasures.
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Patti Smith's new memoir is a dreamy, elegiac recollection of loved ones gone too soon, energized by her interests and travels. It jumps in time, from her husband's death in 1994 to Hurricane Sandy.
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Critic Heller McAlpin calls Valeria Luiselli's novel a "philosophical funhouse" that melds the story of a charming auctioneer with meditations on the value of objects and the power of story.
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Jesse Eisenberg specializes in playing (and writing about) jittery, antisocial nerds. Critic Heller McAlpin says the wonder is the empathy he brings to the sad sacks in his new story collection.
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Stephanie Clifford's debut novel, about the desperate social strivings of a young woman in Manhattan, has its roots in the tragic, old-money fascinations of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth.
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Jeff Bartsch's new novel is about a brainy couple who, after meeting at a 1960s spelling bee, conduct their troubled love affair through secret clues in the crosswords they compose for newspapers.
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Patricia Marx's comic memoir chronicles her four-month attempt to boost her brainpower. Critic Heller McAlpin says anyone clever enough to have written this book shouldn't worry about her brain.
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Professional Scrabble fan John D. Williams' new memoir is chock full of interesting tidbits (like lists of important words with Q, X and J) but gets bogged down in tedious biographical detail.