The Stolen Crown: Treachery, Deceit, and the Death of the Tudor Dynasty by Tracy Borman (Atlantic Monthly Press). Reviewed by Bob Duffy. “This is an old and timeworn tale, but under Borman’s industrious scholarship, it takes on fresh urgency, at least for students of the period. She tells it in the vivid and expressive detail it deserves, and she writes brilliantly, one of the very best of the bevy of Tudor historians who have emerged in recent years. In short, The Stolen Crown is an engrossing and gracefully presented account worth dipping into for its insights into royal goings-on at the turn of the 17th century. For the serious reader, it’s equally worth lingering over, cover to cover.”

Shadow Ticket: A Novel by Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press). Reviewed by Diane Kiesel. “The answer for those who find reading Pynchon too much like slogging your way to an “A” in English 101 is to sit back and enjoy the man’s enormous talent for hitting the literary nail on the head through wordplay. Don’t worry about trying to understand the plot; instead, read Shadow Ticket to absorb and appreciate the beauty of the language.”

Playing Wolf: A Novel by Zuzana Říhová; translated by Alex Zucker (Catapult). Reviewed by Mariko Hewer. “Říhová’s writing is strongest when she zooms in on the mundane terrors of her story and falters only when she becomes too abstruse. Part I ends with a moment of discovery (the boy is missing), and part II begins two days later. Although flashbacks provide insight into what happened during those days, the emotional punch might’ve been more powerful had we been plunged straight into that aftermath.”

El Generalísimo: A Biography of Francisco Franco by Giles Tremlett (Oxford University Press). Reviewed by Andrew M. Mayer. “Tremlett augments his interpretation of the Franco era with detailed analyses from Paul Preston, Hugh Thomas, and other prominent historians, thereby ably painting a picture of Spain before, during, and after the dictator. Among other things, Tremlett explores Spain’s questionable ‘non-belligerent’ status during WWII, which Franco pragmatically adopted to avoid bombing attacks, while nonetheless quietly siding with the Nazis (which is part of the reason Spain wasn’t allowed to join NATO until 1982).”

Facing Infinity: Black Holes and Our Place on Earth by Jonas Enander; translated by Nichola Smalley (The Experiment). Reviewed by Paul D. Pearlstein. “Black holes, Enander explains, result when stars explode or collapse at the end of their life cycle, leaving behind an extremely dense core mass called a singularity. This core is so dense that it prevents anything from escaping it, including light. Hence, a black hole. (The late Stephen Hawking theorized that black holes may actually emit some light. If he is proven correct, our current understanding of them will need to be revised.)”

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