Randall Mann's 'Proprietary' Reinvents Classic San Francisco Poetry
Our poetry reviewer Tess Taylor looks at Randall Mann's new collection, Proprietary, which looks at the changes in San Francisco.
'Woolly' Breathes New Life Into A Scientific Saga
Ben Mezrich's taut, entertaining new book follows the men and women who have dedicated themselves to cloning the woolly mammoth, and maybe reversing some of the damage humans have done to the planet.
(Image credit: Liam James Doyle/NPR)
'South Pole Station' Takes A Cool Look At A Hot Topic
Ashley Shelby's debut novel — set among an appealing mix of nerds and oddballs at Antarctica's Amundsen-Scott research station — is a refreshing diversion from summer's heat.
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'Golden Hill' Recalls The Dark Alleys And Twisted Virtue Of 18th-Century NYC
Francis Spufford's latest novel is set in 1746 Lower Manhattan, a world of spies, thieves, card sharks and crooked bankers. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls Golden Hill "intelligent and entertaining."
Despite A Strong Start, 'Modern Gods' Falls Short Of Its Promise
Critic Maureen Corrigan says Nick Laird's latest novel begins as a tale of two Irish sisters, but ultimately turns into "a lot of wild blather" about political and religious orthodoxies.
How Thelma & Louise Drove Hollywood 'Off The Cliff'
Becky Aikman's new book is a fierce, funny chronicle of the making of Thelma & Louise — the Hollywood forces arrayed against it, and the effect it had on the industry on both sides of the camera.
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The Charm Of 'Spoonbenders' Is No Cheap Trick
Daryl Gregory's new novel spans decades in the life of the Amazing Telemachus Family — a con-man, card-sharping patriarch and his troublesome psychic children, whose powers haven't helped them any.
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'The Outer Cape' Shows Us That Every Place Has A Dark Side
Patrick Dacey puts his characters through the wringer in his new novel, a wrenching saga of a profoundly unhappy family set against the ostensibly idyllic background of Cape Cod.
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'I Want The Pages To Turn': Librarian Nancy Pearl's Summer Reading List
Ahead of the July 4th weekend, the Seattle-based librarian shares a stack of eight recent favorites. She includes thrillers, mysteries, family sagas and an homage to the game rock, paper, scissors.
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Cultural Appropriation Is, In Fact, Indefensible
Recently, the New York Times published an essay defending cultural appropriation as necessary engagement. But that's a simplistic, misguided way of looking at appropriation, which causes real harm.
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Multiple Narratives Mean Non-Stop Action In 'The Child'
Fiona Barton's latest — a followup to last year's hit The Widow — picks up with journalist Kate Waters as she digs into another cold case, this one an infant skeleton found at a building site.
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In 'Amatka,' A Warped And Chilling Portrait Of Post-Truth Reality
Karin Tidbeck's new novel is set in the mysterious city of Amatka, an agricultural colony ruled by a totalitarian government — but this is no standard dystopia. In Amatka, language has strange power.
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An Ancient Curse Awakens In 'The Suffering Tree'
A family curse, a resurrection and a vengeful witch are at the center of Elle Cosimano's Southern Gothic chiller The Suffering Tree. But the book elides its setting's history of racial violence.
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'Too Fat, Too Slutty' Challenges Cultural Expectations Of Women
Anne Helen Petersen's new book is a thoughtful consideration of several public women — from Nicki Minaj to Hillary Clinton — who've run up against the invisible expectations our culture has of them.
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'The Force' Is Basically 'Game Of Thrones' With Cops — And That's Pretty Great
Don Winslow's new novel is packed with crooked cops and crookeder crooks, all defending their territories and trying to maintain a status quo where everyone earns, everyone eats and no wars break out.
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Shades Of Gray Turn Sumptuous In 'Chain Letter'
In Chain Letter, cartoonist Farel Dalrymple returns to The City, the mysterious metropolis at the heart of his early 2000s series Pop Gun War. It's a weird, complicated and charming place.
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'The Sarah Book' Is An Unsparing Primal Scream Of A Book
Scott McClanahan's semi-autobiographical novel is packed with loss, pain and existential anguish, but his narrator — also named Scott — refuses to give up, no matter how often he's knocked down.
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'The Alchemist's Daughter' Is No Frankenstein's Monster
Theodora Goss's novel takes bits and pieces from several different monstrous mythologies — Jekyll and Hyde, Dr. Moreau and more — but she makes something new and deceptively intricate out of them.
(Image credit: Liam James Doyle/NPR)
'Democracy In Chains' Traces The Rise Of American Libertarianism
Nancy MacLean's book stretches back to 19th century Vice President — and ardent secessionist — John C. Calhoun to find the roots of modern libertarianism, which she calls a threat to democracy.
(Image credit: Jessica Diaz-Hurtado/NPR)
In The Refrains Of 'Arabia Felix,' A Reminder: Often The End Is Just A Start
Of the scholars who set out on a 1761 quest to Yemen, only one came back alive. But don't let their looming doom distract from the drama in Thorkild Hansen's hybrid of history, fiction and travelogue.
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