A selection of summaries from The New York Times Book Review: Fiction “A Ballet of Lepers: A Novel and Stories,” by Leonard Cohen. (Grove. 272 pp. $18.) Yes, that Leonard Cohen. Before “Hallelujah” and “Suzanne,” the fledgling songwriter tried his hand at prose. This collection of his earliest works includes a novel, radio play and stories that are “fleetingly brilliant,” wrote Times reviewer Nathan Goldman. “They find him circling the subjects that would occupy him all his life — sex, violence, sacredness and the ecstatic moments when all of the above become...
