Fyodor Dostoyevsky: A Writer's Life

Geir Kjetssa, Geir Kjetsaa. Ballantine Books, $19 (448pp) ISBN 978-0-449-90334-6

Turning to the novelist's neglected Diary of a Writer , Kjetsaa highlights Dostoyevsky's humanism and commitment to social justice and children's rights. ``This compact, highly readable biography offers fresh, controversial perspectives on many aspects of Dostoyevsky's life and work,'' noted PW. Photos. (Jan.)

Featured Nonfiction Reviews

Daniel Saldaña París

Novelist París (Ramifications) reflects in these striking essays on the complicated relationship between place and identity. Traversing the cities “that have marked my life,” Continue reading »

John Gilbert McCurdy

The 1774 trial of British army chaplain Robert Newburgh (1742–1825) for “vicious and immoral behavior” sheds valuable light on contemporaneous ideas about homosexuality, Continue reading »

Dean Jobb

Jobb follows up The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream with a top-shelf work of true crime focused on lovestruck “gentleman thief” Arthur Barry (1896–1981). A con artist since his Continue reading »

Corinne Fowler

“Colonialism... affected the remotest corners” of Britain’s landscape, demonstrates historian and curator Fowler (Green Unpleasant Land) in this revelatory Continue reading »