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As baseball's pennant race begins in earnest, Robert Birnbaum takes a look back at books about umpires; he also interviews Alex Beam about his new book on Joseph Smith, American Crucifixion.
Priscilla Gilman reviews Amy Bloom's novel Lucky Us for the Boston Globe.
Former NBCC president John Freeman discusses his new series of anthologies with Publishers Weekly.
Karl Wolff continues his NSFW Files series at website of the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography with a reconsideration of Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls.
NBCC finalist Ben Moser checks in with Tablet about his biography-in-progress on Susan Sontag.
Jane Ciabattari ranks the best post-Ian Fielding Bond authors for the BBC, and reviews Richard House's thriller The Kills for NPR.
Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain. The Los Angeles Times' Carolyn Kellogg reports.
Rigoberto Gonzalez reviews Francisco Goldman's memoir The Interior Circuit for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Max Winter reviews Amy Rowland's novel The Transcriptionist and John Skoyles' novel A Moveable Famine for the Boston Globe.
Randy Rosenthal interviews Jack Livings about his new story collection, The Dog, at Tweed's.
Joseph Peschel reviews William T. Vollmann's collection Last Stories and Other Stories for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Daniel Dyer reviews Hampton Sides' In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Micah McCrary reviews Eric LeMay's essay collection In Praise of Nothing for the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Jacob Siefring reviews Nelly Arcan's novel Hysteric for the Winnipeg Review.
Ron Slate reviews Michelle Huneven's novel Off Course at On the Seawall.