Calypso by David Sedaris Little, Brown. 259 pages, $28. OF COURSE the book is funny; it’s by David Sedaris. We’ve known this about Sedaris since the morning of…More

Uglow’s portrait of Lear is intricate and sympathetic, and her analysis of his creative achievements sharp. She is informative about English society and culture in the 19th century, as well as events that were happening abroad. If Mr. Lear is short on details of the nonsense writer’s private life, it seems only in keeping with his exquisite perception of boundaries.

Set mostly in the Delta region of Mississippi where [Nick] White was born and raised, the collection (Sweet & Low) is divided into two sections. In a story in the first section, “The Lovers,” a widow slowly realizes the truth about her husband’s secret life after she discovers an unrecognizable pocket watch among her husband’s belongings. …
The stories in the second section are interlinked, focusing on the life of one Forney Culpepper, who matures from childhood to early middle age over the course of six varied and finely crafted stories.

Nicola Griffith’s new novel So Lucky, a slim book about the progress of a little-understood chronic disease, multiple sclerosis, seems unexpectedly narrow in scope when compared to previous efforts. However, the subject matter is partly autobiographical.