Book reviews in The New York Times

'My Life in Middlemarch'

By REBECCA MEAD
Reviewed by JOYCE CAROL OATES

In her book about George Eliot's masterpiece, "Middlemarch," Rebecca Mead combines criticism and biography with the intimate tone of autobiography.

Chang-rae Lee: By the Book

The author of "On Such a Full Sea" has been rereading the classics he tackled in college - "big, complex works which I found arresting and difficult then and find arresting and difficult now."

·         By the Book: Archive

Author's Note

Writer of a Certain Age

By FAY WELDON

The author remembers when looks started to matter in publishing.

'The Visionist'

By RACHEL URQUHART
Reviewed by AMBER DERMONT

In this novel, a girl left with the Shakers begins to see angels.

'Leaving the Sea'

By BEN MARCUS
Reviewed by JIM KRUSOE

Navigating the terrors of adulthood, the characters in Ben Marcus's story collection resort to extreme survival strategies.

'My Age of Anxiety'

By SCOTT STOSSEL
Reviewed by NATHAN HELLER

Scott Stossel examines the painful mystery of anxiety.

'The Ghost of the Mary Celeste'

By VALERIE MARTIN
Reviewed by JOHN VERNON

Valerie Martin's novel explores the enduring enigma of a 19th-century ship found floating in the Atlantic without captain or crew.

'The Invention of Wings'

By SUE MONK KIDD
Reviewed by SUZANNE BERNE

Two women, white and black, strive for freedom in Sue Monk Kidd's novel.