Brittney C. Cooper's history of black women thinkers traces decades of struggle against racism and misogyny. It's a crucial cultural study and a dense, serious read that rewards close attention.
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John Scalzi's new novel — originally an audio book — imagines the implications of a world where 999 out of 1,000 murder victims pop back into existence, naked, confused and safe in their own beds.
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J.R.R. Tolkien's son Christopher proves an able guide through Beren and Lúthien, his father's haunting tale of a mortal man who falls in love with the daughter of a disapproving Elven King.
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Cartoonist Jillian Tamaki's new book is packed with of-the-moment topics — a pyramid skin-care scheme, a porn sitcom, a bedbug battle — but her existential wistfulness raises them to archetype.
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English author and artist Grayson Perry realized at age 12 that he wanted to wear women's clothes. That fascination is part of his new book, a funny, engaging look at what it means to be a man today.
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Sally Mott Freeman's book, The Jersey Brothers, recounts the story of three men swept up by Word War II. The youngest brother gets captured in the Philippines, and the two others struggle to bring him home. NPR explores why stories of World War II remain so compelling to us today.
Yes, he was the captain of the Enterprise, but William Shatner is also a dedicated horseman and founder of the Hollywood Charity Horse Show. His love of horses is on display in his charming new book.
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Sarah Gailey's alternate-history romp takes place in a United States that went ahead with a wild plan to farm hippos for meat. It's a delightful read that suffers only from being too short.
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Susan Rieger's new book follows an upper-crust, Upper West Side family whose certainties are thrown into doubt after their father dies and an unknown Other Woman sues his estate for child support.
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Édouard Louis' autobiographical novel is the story of a young man coming of age in a downtrodden French village. Critic John Powers calls it a "bulletin from the enraged heart of Le Pen country."
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The great American dancer Isadora Duncan led a tragic life, and her worst year — just after the deaths of her first two children in an accident, forms the core of Amelia Gray's powerful new novel.
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Journeys, near and far, into the past and even into near space, are the subject of the novels, memoirs and narrative histories that make up book critic Maureen Corrigan's early summer reading list.
Detroit garage-rocker Josh Malerman's second novel follows a fictional 1950s rock bad recruited by the government to find the source of a mysterious, ominous sound emanating from the Namib Desert.
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Katherine Heiny's first novel for adults is a warmhearted and funny — if overly long — portrait of a man who begins to doubt his chaotic, talkative second wife after 12 years of marriage.
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Alison Weir takes a fresh look at familiar territory in this retelling of the story of Anne Boleyn. Weir's version of Anne is fiercely smart and guilty only of craving power that was hers by right.
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Mary Mann's new book digs into a phenomenon as old as humanity: boredom. Why do we get bored? Is there a cure? Yawn is a thoughtful read, but its mix of autobiography and scholarship doesn't jell.
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Jessie Chaffee's novel about a troubled young American woman in Florence is beautiful and exhausting; stick with it, and you'll find a thoughtful reexamination of a classic trope, the American abroad.
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The title piece in Mexican master Juan Rulfo's The Golden Cockerel is a good story with a simple point: Life is short and then you die. It's the sketches and fragments that come after that amaze.
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There are plenty of story collections out now to start your summer with, but Tessa Hadley tops the pile with Bad Dreams, ten richly complex tales of characters pushing the boundaries of their lives.
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Paul Steinbeck's new book chronicles the antics, both on and off stage, of the storied jazz ensemble. Critic Kevin Whitehead says Message to Our Folks celebrates the band's success on their own terms.
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