Portside

This new novel by Vietnamese-American poet and writer Ocean Vuong, is an immigrant's story that, writes reviewer McAlpin, is also about "beauty, survival, and freedom, which sometimes isn't freedom at all."

The Noise of Time, the new novel by Julian Barnes, is a fictionalized portrait of Dmitri Shostakovich, perhaps the most famous Russian composer of the Soviet era. Leslie Rieder, in this review, gives us a peek into the "utterly fascinating" tale Barnes has woven.