The author’s much-anticipated new novel, a page turner set in a women’s correctional facility, reveals an imagination Dickensian in its amplitude — and in its reformist zeal.
Todd S. Purdum talks about “Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution,” and Fran Leadon discusses “Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles.”
A grumpy dwarf who rebels, a scared mini-dragon, and a green creature who’s not sure what he is in new books from Adam Gidwitz, Rebecca Stead and more.
One novel follows a group of gay ballroom dancers, another traces the life of a wealthy single mother and a third tells the story of a Brooklyn artist.
“Beneath a Ruthless Sun,” by the Pulitzer winner Gilbert King, is a searing true account of corrupt law enforcement, racial violence and heroism in Jim Crow Florida.
Senator John McCain, whose new book is “The Restless Wave,” thinks all children should read “Huckleberry Finn”: “It’s funny and it’s scary, and it teaches us to see past our differences.”
