Book Buzz

• What book landed on my “to read” list this week? David Benioff’s City of Thieves. The New York Times says the story of two Stalin-Era prisoners in search of eggs “reminds us what a beautifully ambiguous world we live in.”

• Speaking of the Stalin Era, I’ve been religiously watching Niall Ferguson’s The War of the World series on PBS. Ferguson claims that WWII was not a war between evil and good, right and wrong, and I tend to agree. If you’d rather read than watch, he has a book by the same title.

• Twilight is still burning up the bestsellers lists. The series has actually inspired my 12-year-old niece to read, so I am feeling more kindly towards it. It has also inspired a tribute band and several companion books including The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide and Twilight: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion.

• Speaking of not-so-great-but-oh-so-popular authors, the latest Nora Roberts novel, Tribute, was released on Tuesday. I read one Nora Roberts series because the characters were supposedly Ukrainian, and it was one series too many.

• I read an interview this week with Thomas C. Foster, author of How to Read Novels Like a Professor. If that title sounds just too pompous and pretentious for you, Amazon recommends James Wood’s How Fiction Works and Larry McMurtry’s Books: a Memoir.