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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Our kids' books columnist Juanita Giles has a secret: Her kids don't care about Harry Potter. But they do like Mike Johnston's relatably hapless boy wizard Wick, star of Confessions of a Dork Lord.
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Turkish author Burhan Sönmez's quiet, subtle fourth novel, about a man who wakes up in the hospital with complete amnesia, is deeply concerned with the linkages between memory and the body.
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Naomi Kritzer's new novel takes off from her award-winning story about an AI that loves cats. It's a wild, rollicking tale with a gritty truth at its core: You never know who you're talking to online.
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Robert Harris' genre-bending new book at first appears to take place in a medieval setting — and then you realize the young priest at its center is holding a cracked, defunct, centuries-old iPhone.
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Kristen Richardson traces the history of the practice, with firsthand accounts from diaries and letters, finding political strife, social upheaval, and machinations aiming to keep out "undesirables."
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Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch reveal the hows and whys of the whirlwind they uncorked by commissioning Christopher Steele to investigate Donald Trump's activities in Russia.
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Lance Rubin's new novel follows an aspiring young comedian as she navigates the rough waters of romance, improv and her father's failing health, with plenty of laughs to light the darker moments.
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Dexter Palmer's new novel is based on the strange true story of a woman who confounded the medical and scientific establishments of 18th century England by claiming she'd given birth to rabbits.
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Journalist Michael Powell's book is about basketball the same way that Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights is about football — sports are the ostensible focus, but the real interest is the community.
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Johannes Anyuru's unusual speculative mystery They Will Drown in Their Mothers' Tears follows two seemingly ordinary (at first) Swedish citizens dealing with the aftermath of a shooting.
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