What does it mean to be alone? Is it physical solitude, or mental isolation? Allegra Goodman’s “Isola” asks these questions through the trials of Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval. Marguerite is ...

In a page-turner, things must by necessity go from bad to worse to unthinkable—and swiftly. The pages of Allegra Goodman’s historical novel, “Isola,” turn and turn beneath the readers’ fingers, as if ...

When I was very young, I loved a book, a classic in France, called “Nobody’s Boy” (original French title “Sans Famille”) by Hector Malot. Not intended as a children’s book, it became one anyway: the ...