Crissy Van Meter's debut novel is so assured, it's hard to believe it's a debut. It's the story of a young woman dealing with her mother and her difficult family history on the eve of her wedding.
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Chris McCormick's new novel layers the glitz and artifice of pro wrestling over a wrenching tale of two Armenian cousins whose involvement with a militant Armenian liberation group goes badly awry.
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Stafford is often remembered as wife No. 1 in the many biographies and studies of poet Robert Lowell. But a new Library of America edition of her three novels showcases her masterful writing.
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Isabel Ibañez's debut novel blends fiber art magic and Bolivian-inspired fantasy, for a story that seems at first to be about revenge — but blossoms into something more complex and surprising.
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Miranda Popkey's novel tackles the complicated issues of female desire, sex and failed relationships through a troubled, unnamed narrator who reports on her conversations with a series of other women.
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Sean Adams' debut novel is set in the collapsed remains of a gargantuan, 500-story building somewhere in the American desert, once an entire metropolis and now surrounded by scavenger camps.
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Ada Calhoun talked to a lot of Gen X women about the angst they feel as they approach midlife — the pressure to have it all and the feeling that they should have done better for themselves.
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Veteran mystery author Lee Goldberg introduces a compelling new character in Lost Hills: Eve Ronin, rookie detective and unwilling media darling after her arrest of a famous actor went viral.
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The title of Kiley Reid's debut novel works on multiple levels — it can refer to chronological age or political era — and those different meanings echo throughout this funny, uncomfortable book.
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Few things haunt a critic more than loving something and not being able to share it. This year, Fresh Air critic John Powers circles back to Unbelievable, Atlantics, Where the Light Falls and more.
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It's easy to make fun of disgruntled teenagers, but in his funny new Nietzsche and the Burbs, author Lars Iyer depicts them accurately and with real sensitivity, never mocking or condescending.
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Bernardine Evaristo's nuanced and entertaining Booker Prize-winning novel is told from the point of view of 12 British women of color — all just a few degrees of separation apart from each other.
Ryan LaSala's new novel imagines a world where people get swept up in dangerous, all-encompassing dreams — and only a damaged, anmesiac kid and his friends have the power to fight them.
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Jeff Vandermeer's new novel, set on a far-future, post-apocalyptic earth, follows a trio of only vaguely human astronauts through a shifting, allegorical story that jumps back and forth across time.
(Image credit: Beth Novey/NPR)
Via popular music, Andrew Grant Jackson paints a vivid portrait of a year that was the last gasp of an age of possibility, when idealism gave way to economic recession and cynical disillusionment.
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Gou Tanabe's graphic novel adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's novella makes its monsters both terrifying and weirdly human. Even if space spheres aren't your thing, Tanabe's art still prompts wonder.
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Author Buddy Levy's superbly written, meticulously researched chronicle tells the adventure story of a group of explorers aiming to achieve "Farthest North" and claim the win for the U.S. in 1881.
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This year's list is a mix of literary fiction, true crime, memoirs and essays, from acclaimed authors as well as some brand new voices — and you won't be able to put any of them down.
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Filmmaker and author Darcy van Poelgeest's sweeping dystopian epic sometimes falls short on plot and character, but it's redeemed by virtuoso work from its illustrator, colorist and letterer.
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The ugly duckling who transforms into a swan is a common trope in literature and pop culture — Eva Leigh turns it upside down in My Fake Rake, which features a shy, quiet hero who gets made over.
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