Simon Tolkien's new novel was inspired by his grandfather J.R.R.'s time on the Somme — but in theme, tone and style, it owes more to Charles Dickens than to The Lord of the Rings.
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Katherine Arden's new novel deftly weaves Russian fairy tales with tactile details to create a gorgeously wintry tale of magic, marred slightly by a clunky ending that's clearly setting up sequels.
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Anna Pitoniak's novel follows Evan and Julia, newly-minted Yale graduates trying — and finding it difficult — to make new lives for themselves in New York City on the eve of the crash of 2008.
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In Han Kang's sharp, almost painfully sensitive new novel, set during and after South Korea's 1980 Gwangju student uprising, people spill blood — but they also brave death to donate it.
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Carrie Vaughn — known for her Kitty Norville urban fantasies — ventures offworld with Martians Abroad, a high-school adventure that pays fun, thoughtful homage to Robert Heinlein's "juveniles."
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The characters in Ottessa Moshfegh's new collection are cold, unfiltered, frequently pathetic — all suffering from unease and nameless longing, made understandable by each perfectly-built story.
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Rachel Cusk's latest — the second in a trilogy that began with Outline — follows a writer unmoored by the breakup of her marriage, and the people she meets as she goes about her strange new life.
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In a new collection, 16 essayists describe how Michelle Obama helped change the perception of black women and the White House.
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The second installment of Laura Anne Gilman's gritty, mythmaking Devil's West series follows Isobel, the Devil's Left Hand, as she learns the extent of her powers and battles an ancient, angry spirit.
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Samanta Schweblin's debut novel starts as a warped child's game, and evolves into a terrifyingly toxic eco-horror tale in the vein of short-but-creepy Latin American classics like Pedro Páramo.
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Every once in a while, NPR's go-to books guru sends host Steve Inskeep a big stack of books. They're generally "under-the-radar" reads — titles she thinks deserve a little more attention.
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Lijia Zhang's debut novel — about a young woman in China who fights her way out of the sex trade to become a teacher — is sensitively drawn, full of folk wisdom and concise, touching imagery.
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Noy Holland's new collection brings together several decades worth of difficult-to-describe stories — some only a few paragraphs long, and all of them hallucinatory and maddening in the best way.
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A new collection of some of Fussell's most celebrated essays showcases the food and travel writer's tough-girl philosophy. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls Eat, Live, Love, Die an inspiring work.
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Aravind Adiga's new novel centers on Manju, a boy from Mumbai, and his tyrannical father, who wants just one thing: To raise the world's best cricketers. But what does Manju want for himself?
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Caitlin Kittredge's comic series about psychic soldiers on the run from government experiments is brisk, colorful fun, complemented by Steve Sanders' stylish character designs and deft illustrations.
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It's been 23 years since Tad Williams wrapped up his epic Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series. Now, he returns to the land of Osten Ard in a brief gem of a story that sets up a fresh epic to follow.
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Emily Bitto's new novel is set in the overheated avant-garde art scene of Depression-era Melbourne, where two girls — conventional Lily and sharp-tongued, exotic Eva — form a complicated bond.
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Emily Fridlund's electrifying debut novel History of Wolves is a contemporary coming-of-age story about a young woman — but it avoids the familiar story arc so common to other novels in that genre.
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A new wave of romance novels features brainy heroines in science, technology, engineering and math — and the prejudices and obstacles they face on their way to a satisfying happy-ever-after.
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