'The Secret Life of Cows' Aims To Show Animals As Thinking, Feeling Beings
Farmer Rosamund Young's book will charm people who want to lap up more evidence that animals have personalities, but may not warm hearts of animal lovers who don't eat meat.
In June, Make Your Escape With These 3 Hot Reads
Summer's getting hotter, so here are three romances guaranteed to raise your temperature and take you on an adventure, from London's West End to Barcelona to a Harvard University classroom.
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In 'Fight No More,' Life Rushes By, But Sometime's There's Beauty
Lydia Millet's latest is a novel about death, disguised as a short story collection about real estate, alternately wrenching and hilarious, and full of joys on every scale.
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'Light Of The Stars' Looks To Other Planets To Illuminate Climate Change On Earth
Adam Frank's valuable new book looks at the history of our search for other planets — and uses lessons drawn from outer space to shed light on the effect humans are having on our own planet.
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'A Place For Us' Is A Skillfully-Drawn Family Saga
Fatima Farheen Mirza's first novel follows an Indian-American Muslim family — at its best, a happy family, but torn by tensions between a father and son who keep missing opportunities to connect.
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'Betty' Casts A Quirky Light On Life After Breast Cancer
This graphic novel from creators Julie Rocheleau and Vero Cazot is a light, often zany story of a woman dealing with breast cancer that never loses its grounding in the real pain she's going through.
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'Vera Kelly' Finds The Connections Between Deep Cover And The Closet
The personal is most definitely political in Rosalie Knecht's crisp, lively and subversive novel about a queer woman who discovers her early life in the closet makes her well-suited for espionage.
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2 First-Rate Suspense Novels Deliver Chills, Thrills — And Stunning Endgames
In the relaxed days of summer, critic Maureen Corrigan reflexively reaches for a mystery. This year, she's settling in with The Dime, by Kathleen Kent, and The Death of Mrs. Westaway, by Ruth Ware.
Sweet And Hot, 'The Kiss Quotient' Really Adds Up
Author Helen Hoang used her own experience on the autism spectrum to build the character of Stella, a straight-laced numbers whiz who falls for the escort she hires to help her work on relationships.
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In 'Death Notice,' The Thrills Don't Quite Translate
Zhou Haohui's high-octane cop drama Death Notice aims for Dragon Tattoo-type thrills, but gets dragged down by flat characterizations and odd romantic flourishes.
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'Mariam Sharma' Nails The Fun Road-Trip Vibe
Summer is the season for road-trips, and Mariam Sharma Hits the Road makes for a saucy, yet emotional ride, following three Pakistani-American teens on a journey through the Deep South.
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Mannered, Pretty 'Upstate' Is Quiet To A Fault
Critic and novelist James Wood has often dinged other writers for what he calls "hysterical realism," but his new novel Upstate — while beautifully written — goes too far in the other direction.
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In Haunted 'Florida,' The Storms And Panthers Are Always There. How Will You Survive?
In Lauren Groff's gorgeous, precise new story collection, Florida is a haunted place, full of eyes in the darkness — and angry, restless women, always on the move, always searching for something.
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An Epic Conversation Draws To A Close In 'Kudos'
Rachel Cusk's trilogy about a peripatetic writer and her many conversational partners winds up with Kudos. The books are essentially plotless — but there's plenty of joy to be found just in talk.
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Exploding Myths About 'Black Power, Jewish Politics'
In a new book, historian Marc Dollinger argues that the conventional wisdom of Jewish and African-American harmony during the civil rights era is flawed. And that the real story has lessons for today.
(Image credit: Charles Del Vecchio/Washington Post/Getty Images)
'Heavenly Bodies' Is Gorgeous — But Full Of Strange Silences
The companion piece to this year's Met Gala, Heavenly Bodies functions beautifully as an art object — but it has some odd blank spots, particularly around the contributions of women to Catholicism.
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Southern Gothic 'Florida' Spins Tales Of Hurricanes, Humidity And Humanity
Lauren Groff sets her new story collection in what she calls the "sunniest and strangest of states." Critic Maureen Corrigan says the tales are "brooding, inventive — and often moving."
(Image credit: Samantha Clark/NPR)
What Does Shakespeare Have To Do With 'Energy?' (Trust Us, There's A Link)
In his new book, Richard Rhodes lays out an accessible and surprisingly optimistic history of energy by exploring the lives of scientists and inventors — and a few unlikely people, like Bard of Avon.
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Sexuality, Mortality, Failure — 'My Ex-Life' Has Fun Asking Big Questions
A divorced couple reconnects after nearly 30 years apart in Stephen McCauley's new novel. Critic Maureen Corrigan says My Ex-Life is a social satire that's "suffused with generosity."
(Image credit: Claire Harbage/NPR)
'Some Trick' Takes On The Life Of The (Delightfully Irritable) Mind
Helen DeWitt's new story collection seems less like a book, and more like a series of notes from some vast, alien intelligence, capable of picking apart human habits with startling precision.
(Image credit: Samantha Clark/NPR)
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