Scarlett Thomas' novel, set among wealthy girls at a British boarding school, is an audacious examination of disordered eating and social competition that turns dark when one of the girls drowns.
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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.
(Image credit: Beth Dubber/Netflix)
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.
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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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