Kevin Young's new book puts forth an instantly convincing pairing of race and hoaxing — both a "fake thing pretending to be real." But he loses readers' trust with knotty, overly aphoristic writing.
(Image credit: Christina Ascani/NPR)
Richard Baker is an established voice in military science fiction; his latest, Valiant Dust, kicks off a new space adventure series. But it's hampered by shallow characters and cultural blindness.
(Image credit: Tor Books)
Weir returns to a successful formula in his new book — action and adventure in space, with a snarky voice and plenty of reader-friendly science — though this time the story moves to a moon colony.
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In Erdrich's new novel, fetuses seem to be randomly devolving and a new religious government is rounding up pregnant women, forcing them to give birth in prison-like hospitals.
(Image credit: Jennifer Kerrigan/NPR)
In 2014, British journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote a blog post about how tired she was of engaging with oblivious white people about race. That post went viral, and it's now the basis for her new book.
(Image credit: Christina Ascani/NPR)
Louise Erdrich's new novel is a frequently bizarre near-future dystopia that never really comes close to getting off the ground, but it won't dent her reputation as one of the country's best writers.
(Image credit: Jennifer Kerrigan/NPR)
The former vice president is out with a book that recounts in heart-wrenching detail his son Beau's diagnosis and death from brain cancer — and his deliberations about running for president.
(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Tiny filler words in human rapid-fire conversation hold the key to understanding how language is unique, according to a new book. But anthropologist Barbara J. King raises some questions.
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"Economic concepts don't readily lend themselves to cartoons," says the former Secretary of Labor, a talented cartoonist who's put a lot of thought into drawing abstract ideas like tax expenditures.
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Two new books about unreal islands and yet-to-be-real planets have much to tell us about what human beings want to know when we look around at the world — life is uncertain, and our fears need maps.
(Image credit: Antar Dayal/Getty Images/Illustration Works)
Even if you haven't seen the musical, you can keep warm this November with a delightful trio of novellas set in and around the battalion commanded by Alexander Hamilton at the siege of Yorktown.
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Emily Suvada's debut novel — a high-tech young adult dystopia — is bursting with ideas (and exploding viruses). And while it might seem like a conventional thriller, it's got a twist to reckon with.
(Image credit: Jennifer Kerrigan/NPR)
NPR's Ron Elving says historian Robert Dallek's latest tome "emphasizes the human scale of FDR's life, his interaction with the people around him and the interplay among his intimates."
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Author John Banville makes a valiant imaginative leap with Mrs. Osmond, his attempt to craft a new ending for the heroine of Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady, but he doesn't quite land it.
(Image credit: Knopf)
Activist Bill McKibben answers his own call for topical fiction with Radio Free Vermont, a gently surreal tale about a septuagenarian troublemaker who inadvertently sparks a secession movement.
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Part memoir, part travelogue, part science tome, Juli Berwald's book is thoroughly entertaining, and makes the case for the jellyfish as both fascinating animal and a bellwether for climate change.
(Image credit: Riverhead Books)
His new 700-page omnibus of collected bits and pieces shouldn't be read all at once — but taken in careful sips, it's a cheeky, crotchety, sometimes serious, sometimes satirical delight.
(Image credit: Jennifer Kerrigan/NPR)
His new 700-page omnibus of collected bits and pieces shouldn't be read all at once — but taken in careful sips, it's a cheeky, crotchety, sometimes serious, sometimes satirical delight.
(Image credit: Jennifer Kerrigan/NPR)
Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost reveals the final fates of several characters and ties up the show's narrative threads in a way that is as satisfying as The Return was mystifying.
(Image credit: Showtime)
Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost reveals the final fates of several characters and ties up the show's narrative threads in a way that is as satisfying as The Return was mystifying.
(Image credit: Showtime)
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