Baum on Books

On the acknowledgment page to his new novel, “The Nickel Boys,” Colson Whitehead writes that in the summer of 2004, he learned about a 111-year-old reform school in Marianna, Florida – the Dozier School for Boys. It had been the subject of a recent Tampa Bay Times report, following discoveries by students at the University of South Florida of secret gravesites at the school. 

The genre is hot – the unreliable protagonist psychological thriller. Think “Gone Girl,” “The Girl on the Train,” “The Woman in the Window.” And now on the best-seller list, “An Anonymous Girl.” Typically, this genre follows a smart and sensitive young woman who soon finds herself in danger, a sympathetic but troubled soul who unwittingly endangers others as she tries to sort out what’s real and what’s the product of her admitted neurotic fantasies.

With his new book called “Howard Stern Comes Again” – two decades after the off-the-charts sales of “Private Parts” and “Miss America” – Howard Stern, the Shock Jock of the Western World, may disappoint those who expected his new memoir to be as shocking. But the old “poster boy for doing everything offensive,” as he once described himself, delightfully surprises . . . and charms. Though not to worry, he’s still outrageous.