Maureen Corrigan

For some, the summer is a time to indulge in frothy beach reading: the latest chick lit or globetrotting, highly unbelievable thriller. But book critic Maureen Corrigan has taken a different tack this year: She's catching up on more substantial reading that she hasn't had time for yet.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Icendiary, the debut novel by British writer Chris Cleave. The story is triggered by an al-Qaeda bomb attack on a London soccer match.

For some, the summer is a time to indulge in frothy beach reading: the latest chick lit or globetrotting, highly unbelievable thriller. But book critic Maureen Corrigan has taken a different tack this year: She's catching up on more substantial reading that she hasn't had time for yet.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the Walt Whitman-inspired, time-traveling novel Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham. He is also author of the best-seller The Hours.

A novel about vampires prowling around dark forests and damp crypts in Central Europe may not seem like ideal summertime reading, but The Historian, a debut novel about Dracula by Elizabeth Kostova, is shaping up to be one of this season's big beach books. Book critic Maureen Corrigan has a review.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the biography Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft by Lyndall Gordon.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two new novels set in Cuba: Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban, the debut novel by Lisa Wixon, and Adios Hemingway by Cuban writer Leonardo Padura Fuentes. Translated by John King, Adios Hemingway is the latest in Fuentes' award-winning Inspector Mario Conde mysteries.

The new novel Thirty-Three Swoons by Martha Cooley is a detailed intrigue set in Manhattan, interweaving the worlds of theatre and the perfume industry. Cooley's previous work includes The Archivist. Book critic Maureen Corrigan has a review.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Them: A Memoir of Parents, by Francine du Plessix Gray.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Never Let Me Go, the new novel by Kazu Ishiguro, the author of the bestseller The Remains of the Day.