The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia by James Palmer A Mad, Bad, and Brutal Baron A review by Anne Applebaum Like a contemporary reincarnation of Adela Quest, the heroine of E.M. Forster's A Passage to India, James Palmer was both attracted and repelled by his first encounter with the grotesque, grimacing, wooden gods of Inner Mongolia: I entered the shrine of a gruesome god, his sharp teeth grinning and his head festooned with skulls. I wasn't certain who he was, since the Tibetan pantheon inherited by the Mongolians is replete with such figures. In a small dark room, with incense burning and other gargoyles looming, it seemed capable of an awful, twitching animation; I felt it might lick its lips at any moment. A rural Mongolian couple were kneeling on the floor before it, chanting and kowtowing; they'd brought oranges to feed the god and cash to bribe him. Even after the pilgrims had left, I didn't want to stand in front of the thing, let alone examine it closely; it was the first time I'd had any concrete sense of the word "idol." Although he was "raised... Read the entire review More reviews from New York Review of Books

About My Life and the Kept Woman: A Memoir by John Rechy

The Adventures of Pinocchio (New York Review Books) by Carlo Collodi

Aeneid (08 Edition) by Vergil

Afloat by Guy De Maupassant

Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend by Richard Stoneman

Alice in Jamesland: The Story of Alice Howe Gibbens James by Susan E. Gunter

All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen

American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum

Antoine's Alphabet: Watteau and His World by Jed Perl

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World by Niall Ferguson

At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches by Susan Sontag

Beijing Coma by Ma Jian

The Believers: A Novel by Zoe Heller

Benjamin Disraeli (Jewish Encounters) by Adam Kirsch

Big Squeeze: Tough Times for American Work (08 Edition) by Steven Greenhouse

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll

The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia by James Palmer

Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry

A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited about Obama and Why He Can't Win by Shelby Steele

Boxing: A Cultural History by Kasia Boddy

Breath: A Novel by Tim Winton

Can't Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research by Sue Halpern

Chagall: A Biography by Jackie Wullschlager

The China Lover by Ian Buruma

Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt by Joyce Tyldesley

Cold War at 30,000 Feet: The Anglo-American Fight for Aviation Supremacy by Jeffrey A. Engel

The Comanche Empire (Lamar Series in Western History) by Pekka Hamalainen

The Complete Ripley Novels: The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, the Boy Who Followed Ripley, Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith

Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China by Kang Zhengguo

Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer by Michael A. Elliott

Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee

Douglas Fairbanks by Jeffrey Vance

Dreams from the Monster Factory: A Tale of Prison, Redemption and One Woman's Fight to Restore Justice to All by Sunny Schwartz

Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey

Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 by J. H. Elliott

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned: Stories by Wells Tower

The Executor: A Comedy of Letters by Michael Kruger

A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton Economic History of the Western World) by Gregory Clark

Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population by Matthew Connelly

The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam by Tom Bissell

Fire and Knowledge: Fiction and Essays by Peter Nadas

Frank O'Hara: Selected Poems by Frank O'hara

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux

God's Silence by Franz Wright

Henry James: The Mature Master by Sheldon M Novick

Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme by Tracy Daugherty

Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme by Tracy Daugherty

His Illegal Self by Peter Carey

Home: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

Invisible Cure (07 - Old Edition) by Epstein

Jia: A Novel of North Korea by Hyejin Kim

The Last Chicken in America by Ellen Litman

Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories by Katha Pollitt

Let's See (08 Edition) by Peter Schjeldahl

The Letters of Samuel Beckett: Volume 1, 1929-1940 (Letters of Samuel Beckett) by Samuel Beckett and Martha Dow Fehsenfeld and Lois More Overbeck

Letters of Ted Hughes by Ted Hughes

Littlefoot: A Poem by Charles Wright

Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design, and the Future of Faith by Philip Kitcher

The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved by Judith Freeman

Lost Paradise by Cees Nooteboom

Lush Life: A Novel by Richard Price

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom by Simon Winchester

Mother's Milk by Edward St Aubyn

My Three Fathers: And the Elegant Deceptions of My Mother, Susan Mary Alsop by William Patten

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West by Edward Lucas

The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means by George Soros

Nine by Andrzej Stasiuk

Notebooks by Tennessee Williams

Nothing to Be Frightened of by Julian Barnes

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler

Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth (Massey Lectures) by Margaret Eleanor Atwood

Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography by Stanley Plumly

Prisoner of the State: the Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang (09 Edition) by Zhao Ziyang

Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century by Tony Judt

Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 by Susan Sontag and David Reiff

The Reserve: A Novel by Russell Banks

The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good about the Good News? by Peter J Gomes

Sea Change: Poems by Jorie Graham

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal by Gore Vidal

Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe

Shadow of the Silk Road by Colin Thubron

The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker

The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies by Bert Holldobler

Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World by Paul Cartledge

Things I've Been Silent About: Memories by Azar Nafisi

Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice (UK Edition) by Patricia Fortini Brown

Tomorrow by Graham Swift

Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States by Trita Parsi

The Tremendous World I Have Inside My Head: Franz Kafka: A Biographical Essay by Louis Begley

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Unknown Terrorist: A Novel by Richard Flanagan

U.S. vs. Them: How a Half Century of Conservatism Has Undermined America's Security by J Peter Scoblic

Vincent Van Gogh: Painted with Words: The Letters to Emile Bernard by Leo Jansen

Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War by Michael J. Neufeld

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin

When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina (Studies in Communication, Media, and Public Opinion) by W. Lance Bennett

A Writer's People: Ways of Looking and Feeling by V. S. Naipaul

For over 45 years, the New York Review of Books has been the place where the world's leading authors, educators, artists, and political leaders turn when they wish to engage in a spirited debate on literature, politics, art, and ideas. We invite you to join them. Subscribe today and get a full year (20 issues) of the New York Review for just $69 — a $50 savings off the cover price!

Click here to subscribe and save $50!

• back to top

Follow us on...