The Noise of Time

This Julian Barnes novel about the life of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich hits, forgive me, all the right notes. It presents biographical information, the political background, and a credible account of the composer's inner thoughts all in a compact, three-movement "sonata" package. The scenes describing a performance of Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District, its rejection by Stalin, and the mortal fear this caused in Shostakovich are particularly effective.

Adjustment Day

The themes in this Chuck Palahniuk novel are intriguing enough: another American revolution, a new nation segregated by race (or sexuality), a misunderstood guru. But the execution has a dashed-off quality that never succeeds in lifting the characters or the concept off the page. A novel that is not believable cannot be called a success, no matter how entertaining the special effects.

Idle Passion: Chess and the Dance of Death

Alexander Cockburn puts chess on the psychiatrist's couch with mixed results. The stories of the lives of some unusual chess champions (Alekhine and Morphy) and other figures like Stefan Zwieg will be of general interest. Plumbing the depths of Freudian theory in relation to chess, less so.