"[J]ust enough information about the plot, theme, style, history of publication, and suggested further readings to be both informative and evocative about each of the works."
"[W]ritten almost entirely under the influence of...an assemblage of canonical figures including (to list only those explicitly cited in 'The History of Love'), Isaac Babel, Franz Kafka and Bruno Schulz."
"[C]elebrates the golden age of the adventure comic book, the 'great, mad new American art form,' which spanned the years between the late 1930′s and the early 50′s. "
"E. L. Doctorow's 'Ragtime' is a highly original experiment in historical fiction. But the first thing to be said about it is that it works. It works so well that one devours it in a single sitting as if it were the most conventional of entertainments."
"[A] fable of an alternative universe, in which America has gone fascist and ordinary life has been flattened under a steamroller of national politics and mass hatreds. Hitler's allies rule the White House. Anti-Semitic mobs roam the streets."
