THE SHIPWRECKED (244 pp.)—Graham Greene—Viking ($3). In 1935 a little-known English writer published his seventh novel, England Made Me. The critics brushed it off with mild praise; a writer whose ...

“He is very agreeable,” wrote a baroness in Belgium, introducing Graham Greene to a doctor running a leper colony in the Congo, but “very problematic.” Indeed so. The love of ambiguity and restless ...

When Arthur starts researching his new book about trees, he meets Phil, a hugely helpful resource, who becomes a good friend. Then Arthur meets Phil’s wife, Sarah and the two fall deeply in love. “God ...

Mewshaw, whom the longtime NPR book commentator Alan Cheuse once called “the best novelist in America nobody knows,” mentions both of these books in his memoir. In writing about Iyer’s book, Mewshaw ...