Shovel Ready

Adam Sternbergh’s taut, laconic, so-grim-you-have-to-laugh-to-stop-from-crying debut novel recalls two previous outstanding first genre novels which, curiously enough, are almost polar opposites.  

Talking Minnesotan

February 7: “On a first date, a Minnesota man might easily say: ‘Do you suppose a guy could maybe get a kiss before you went inside?’ ”  

Reagan Reexamined

February 6: “My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic. It is this: We win and they lose.”  

Down to the Crossroads

Aram Goudsouzian’s portrait of James Meredith (the first African American student at the University of Mississippi) and his 1966 “March Against Fear” is a stark look at the menace of racial unrest, and the forging of the Black Power movement.