Forgive me for being cynical, but I have a hard time believing that the White House and Michelle Obama are really upset by the portrayal of the first lady that emerges in Jodi Kantor’s new look at the president’s marital union. In the annals of irregularities that first ladies have been justly or unjustly accused of, sparring with a chief of staff — particularly one as combative as Rahm Emanuel — hardly registers as shocking or unexpected.

Last fall, the Library of America released two volumes featuring authors who wrote during the Harlem Renaissance, that vague early 20th century era when black novelists, artists, poets, musicians, essayists and even publishers pushed black culture to the forefront.

After publishing <span class="italic">Postwar</span>, his sweeping history of Europe since 1945, Tony Judt prepared to write an equally ambitious intellectual and cultural history of 20th-century social thought. But personal history intervened, in the form of Lou Gehrig’s disease. By late 2008, Judt could no longer use his hands. Two years later, he was dead.

After publishing <span class="italic">Postwar</span>, his sweeping history of Europe since 1945, Tony Judt prepared to write an equally ambitious intellectual and cultural history of 20th-century social thought. But personal history intervened, in the form of Lou Gehrig’s disease. By late 2008, Judt could no longer use his hands. Two years later, he was dead.

For Pico Iyer, Graham Greene looms large.

Desolate landscapes — inner and outer — form the backdrop

Eleanor Brown finds

An author has to be bold to write a book from the perspective of God. Even from theoretical physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, who first achieved literary success with 1993’s novel <span class="italic">Einstein’s Dreams, </span>it’s still a plucky gamble. In his new novel, Lightman again explores the creative scientific mind, here via the grandest of narratives — the creation of our universe from spur of the moment start to bittersweet end. It’s a literary experiment as heavy and airy as the Void in which the narrator Mr. g and his disapproving Aunt Penelope and steady Uncle Deva sleep and stroll.

Twenty years later, Barry Unsworth’s follow-up to ‘Sacred Hunger’ explores morality and history.

Volkswagen’s Beetle is an icon of two very different utopias.

Compared with James Wolcott, most literary journalists write like Amish farmers, their sentences plain as bib overalls. Not so this longtime columnist for Vanity Fair. Wolcott’s prose is high-maintenance, bangled with astonishing similes and metaphors, oiled to a high gloss. This is language on parade, as restless as the hopped-up patter of a carnival pitchman, as zingy as H.L. Mencken mocking a revivalist tent show. Admittedly, some slower readers might be overwhelmed by all the action on the page, and yearn for the more sedate pace and gentler irony of what Wolcott calls “the E.B. White elf academy.” But if you can surrender to the rush of this swooping carnival ride of a book, you’ll have a wonderful time with <span class="italic">Lucking Out</span>. Memoirs don’t come more entertaining than this.

“I’m reading <span class="italic">Mile Marker Zero</span> by William McKeen, which chronicles the Paris-like confluence of writers and artists in Key West in the 1970s. Makes you immediately want to buy a plane ticket south — and a time-machine.”

At this point in Tim Dorsey’s comic series about a serial killer who wreaks havoc on those who don’t respect Florida or its history, the Tampa author could easily give up any pretense of a plot.

Are we in need of a new <span class="italic">Jane Eyre</span>? Charlotte Bronte’s classic about a resourceful orphan — often called the first feminist novel — still holds up just fine, thank you. It benefits from a timeless story, unforgettable characters, thwarted romance, desolate settings, shocking tragedy and a mad wife in the attic. Who doesn’t love a mad wife in the attic? A recent film version featured rising ultra-hot stars Mia Wasikowska as Jane and Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester. No further proof is required of the book’s appeal.