The Great Depression of 1990, Ravi Batra...

The Great Depression of 1990, Ravi Batra (Simon & Schuster), is “a strange mixture of voodoo historical theories and sound economic analysis. It provokes, and we can use the provocation” (Paul Erdman).

You Must Remember This, Joyce Carol Oates (Abrahams/Dutton), is “a particularly bold effort.” Joyce Carol Oates “captures the complex nature of family during (the Korean War and the McCarthy hearings), a perplexing time in American history” (Helen Buck Bartlett).

Herself in Love and Other Stories, Marianne Wiggins (Viking). “The writer’s unpredictable artistry catapults us into the heart of estrangement and makes it an odd species of communion” (Richard Eder).

The Pearlkillers: Four Novellas, Rachel Ingalls (Simon & Schuster). The author, “more than a master storyteller, a superb artist,” is as monochromatic as Edgar Allen Poe, “going straight to her target with the same ease and surety as an arrow skims to its bull’s-eye,” yet her world view “is much more complex than Poe’s” (William Packard).