Reviews and Articles in General Publications

Entertainment Weekly August 13
An article by Lisa Schwarzbaum examines books made into movies, including Arthur Schnitzler's Dream Story (Eyes Wide Shut) and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House (The Haunting) and two others. Letter grades at the end of the article rate every movie lower than its corresponding book.

(Amazon doesn't list the edition of Schnitzler, called Dream Story, pictured in the EW article; it does list a Warner trade paperback called Eyes Wide Shut, which includes the screenplay and the novella by Schnitzler, to be published this month.)

§ Los Angeles Times August 11
According to this profile of author Kurt Andersen, the current hot book, as indicated by what people are seen reading on airplanes, is Andersen's Turn of the Century (Random House) A Beverly Hills hair colorist is quoted: ''The last time I went to New York six people in business class were reading 'Turn of the Century.' It was obvious that if you weren't reading that book, you just weren't in the loop.''

§ Salon August 10
A three-part feature by Craig Seligman reviews Samuel R. Delany's current books, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (New York University Press) and Bread and Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York (Juno).

Talk September
Tina Brown's new magazine (there's a website, but the contents of the issue aren't posted) has a decent book section called Book City. It includes a long piece by Martin Amis (page 222) eviscerating Thomas Harris's Hannibal, a list of ''Talk10'' books for summer reading (including A.N. Wilson's God's Funeral; the ten are featured on Barnes & Noble), and short review (page 228) by James Poniewozik of James Gleick's next book, Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (Pantheon, Sept).

(Thu 12 Aug 1999)

§ New York Times Book Review August 1
Gerald Jonas's SF column covers Ben Bova's Return to Mars (Avon Eos): ''Unfortunately, dramatizing human discord is not Bova's strong point. ... Where Bova shines is in making science not only comprehensible but entertaining...'' -- Madeleine E. Robins' The Stone War (Tor): ''hard to read, hard to love and hard to forget'' -- and Bruce Sterling's A Good Old-Fashioned Future (Bantam Spectra), a collection of stories that ''show Sterling at his best''.

Also, a short review by Scott Sutherland of Thomas M. Disch's The Sub: A Study in Witchcraft (Knopf): ''a peculiar pastiche of supernatural thriller, fairy tale and rural realism, a mix that sometimes results in jarring stylistic collisions. ... Disch could take a cue from Diana on the basics of making magic: good fiction, like good witchcraft, means never showing off.''

§ Washington Post Book World August 1
Charles Platt reviews Christopher Priest's The Extremes (St. Martin's), a book inspired by a 1987 shooting spree in Hungerford, England, on a day Priest happened to be driving through. Platt concludes ''Priest's previous novel The Prestige won the World Fantasy Award. The Extremes tackles a more challenging theme with great insight and maturity; it should find equal acclaim.''

§ CNN July 30
A review of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow (Tor), a full month before the book is due to appear on bookstore shelves. Reviewer Brad Morris calls the original Ender's Game ''an amazing piece of science fiction'', while the new book ''is ultimately just as powerful and inventive as the original.''

Also on CNN: an article, reprinted from Salon, about teen-aged writer Amelia Atwater-Rhodes's vampire novel In the Forests of the Night (Delacorte).

(Sun 1 Aug 1999)