VINTAGE REVIEWS

Released: July 19, 1933

"One wonders, in reading this book whether there is not here another Thomas Burke in the making."
This book falls into two distinct parts, both with an underlying common theme, the revealing of poverty at close range. Read full book review >
LOVE IN THE RUINS by Walker Percy
Released: May 17, 1971

"It is to be read — and best read more than once."
A fanciful, suggestible, strafingly comic view of man and all his manifestations at a future point in time when "Death is winning. Read full book review >

52 PICKUP by Elmore Leonard
Released: April 15, 1974

"Mitchell is one of those stubborn, unintimidatable types who likes to handle things alone without benefit of counsel or the police and the story Leonard tells is new enough to be different — an armtwisting pageturner of considerable excitement."
Mitchell, a man of wealth even if it's all tied up in his automobile accessory plant, commits one of those meaningless indiscretions after 22 years of marriage in the form of Cini whom he picks up in a bar-brothel. Read full book review >
Released: June 4, 1940

"Direct, uncompromising, a distinguished piece of writing whose very subject matter will make it almost impossible to sell."
A strange and powerful book, standing quite apart from anything I can recall. Read full book review >
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
FICTION & LITERATURE
Released: April 14, 1939

"One half of dealer's orders to be filled with firsts."
This is the sort of book that stirs one so deeply that it is almost impossible to attempt to convey the impression it leaves. Read full book review >

THE CITIZEN KANE BOOK by Pauline Kael
Released: Oct. 28, 1971

"Miss Kael's piece is, expectably, spankingly entertaining as well as informative and the dual project will have its new-old appeal."
The only name that doesn't belong above is that of Orson Welles', for if Citizen Kane was not only his greatest movie but is still as fresh as the day that it opened, he had nothing to do with "The Shooting Script" which, along with takes from it, and notes by Gary Carey, constitute three quarters of this book. Read full book review >
Released: Nov. 11, 1974

"Book-of-the-Month Club selection for December and who's to doubt the popular potential or continuing torsion—like a leather thong vise."
ANATOMY OF A MASS MURDER IN COLD BLOOD—or exsanguination (bleeding to death)—only one of the particulars you will pick up in this account of the Tate-LaBianca trials as told by the prosecuting Deputy D.A. and professor of criminal law who is also a TV consultant. Read full book review >
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE by Anthony Burgess
Released: Jan. 8, 1962

"What happens to Alex is terrible but it is worse for the reader."
The previous books of this author (Devil of a State — 1962 — The Right to an Answer — 1961) had valid points of satire, some humor, and a contemporary view, but here the picture is all out—from a time in the future to an argot that makes such demands on the reader that no one could care less after the first two pages. Read full book review >
MOVING PICTURES by Budd Schulberg
Released: Aug. 1, 1981

"Leisurely and ramblingly informative rather than gripping, then: a grand, funny tinsel-town cornucopia bursting with first-hand, second-hand, and third-hand tales."
Father was optimistic B. P. Schulberg—philanderer, compulsive gambler, publicist (he dubbed Pickford "America's Sweetheart"), scenarist, lieutenant to "Uncle Adolph" Zukor, founder of Preferred Pictures, manager of Paramount, discoverer of Clara Bow, archenemy of L. B. Mayer. Read full book review >
PORTRAIT OF HEMINGWAY by Lillian Ross

"The first - not the most."
This portrait of Hemingway is a "Profile" which was originally done for The New Yorker in 1947, introduced by a prologue touching on the continuity of their friendship which began at that time, his generosity towards her (as towards many other writers), and briefly the unexpected response to the "Profile" which many found "devastating" although it met this magazine's criteria of objectivity and high fidelity (and the subject's approval). Read full book review >
LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry
FICTION & LITERATURE
Released: June 1, 1985

"It will appeal to all lovers of fiction of the first order."
This large, stately, and intensely powerful new novel by the author of Terms of Endearment and The Last Picture Show is constructed around a cattle drive—an epic journey from dry, hard-drinking south Texas, where a band of retired Texas Rangers has been living idly, to the last outpost and the last days of the old, unsettled West in rough Montana. Read full book review >
Released: March 28, 1974

"For the rest, Terkel finds 'the desperation is unquiet' and here, at least, it's eloquent."
There is hardly an interviewer, commentator or probing journalist among us who can elicit so much grief and passion, so many forlorn hopes and decayed dreams, so much of the tedium and frustration of daily existence from his subjects as Studs Terkel. Read full book review >
Kirkus Interview
Clinton Kelly
January 9, 2017

Bestselling author and television host Clinton Kelly’s memoir I Hate Everyone Except You is a candid, deliciously snarky collection of essays about his journey from awkward kid to slightly-less-awkward adult. Clinton Kelly is probably best known for teaching women how to make their butts look smaller. But in I Hate Everyone, Except You, he reveals some heretofore-unknown secrets about himself, like that he’s a finicky connoisseur of 1980s pornography, a disillusioned critic of New Jersey’s premier water parks, and perhaps the world’s least enthused high-school commencement speaker. Whether he’s throwing his baby sister in the air to jumpstart her cheerleading career or heroically rescuing his best friend from death by mud bath, Clinton leaps life’s social hurdles with aplomb. With his signature wit, he shares his unique ability to navigate the stickiest of situations, like deciding whether it’s acceptable to eat chicken wings with a fork on live television (spoiler: it’s not). “A thoroughly light and entertaining memoir,” our critic writes. View video >