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In "Ecology of Fear," Mike Davis takes cruel pleasure in describing the disasters -- natural and man-made -- awaiting the Pompeii of the Pacific.

Stephen Sondheim, whose landmark musicals include "Company" and "Follies," gives a biographer good cause to call him Broadway's master of ambivalence.

In Richard Powers's "Gain," capitalism itself is the main character, and selling soap has never been so interesting.

Just when it seemed his "Border Trilogy" had thundered out of control comes Cormac McCarthy with a novel that lassoes the first two neatly.

"The Time of Our Time" is Mailer's compelling, exhausting anthologized account of Mailer's boxing match with history.

There's wit and good writing aplenty in Nick Hornby's "About a Boy." But the plot is a well-worn homily of emotional growth.