Kit Reed's would-be Southern Gothic chiller starts strong, with an amnesiac man stumbling into a house haunted by family secrets — but is ultimately undone by issues of plot, pacing and voice work.
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By turns funny, shocking and heartbreaking, Everett's new novel follows a painter who's deeply ambivalent about his apparently idyllic life and digs into the moments in his past that shaped him.
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David Weigel is primarily a political reporter, but in The Show that Never Ends he spins his love of prog rock into a detailed, affectionate history of a genre that's never completely gone away.
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Rosecrans Baldwin's new novel probably shouldn't have come out in summer: It's got the trappings of a beach read — a shore town, tourists, a murder — but it strays into some very dark territory.
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Our monthly romance roundup rolls on with four beach-appropriate reads for June, from the supernatural to the astronomical to an old-fashioned tale of family lost and found when you least expect it.
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Sarah Perry's historical novel is gloriously alive, teeming with bugs, moss and marsh, unconventional spirits and a darker undercurrent of fear about a legendary monster haunting the Essex coast.
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Set in 1947, Kate Quinn's novel follows two indomitable women, a math whiz and a retired spy, in a truly fabulous car as they pursue a quest through war-torn Europe in search of a missing relative.
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Charles Taylor's new book collects his writings about cult classics of the 1970s — films like Two-Lane Blacktop, Vanishing Point and Foxy Brown — and what they say about the culture of that era.
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Gabe Habash's audacious coming-of-age novel follows a charismatic, troubled, sometimes repellent college wrestler who comes close to the edge of madness after an injury derails his final season.
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Jenny Allen's new essay collection is sarcastic, funny and astute, finding humor in everything from her battle with cancer to the indignities of aging to her many, many linguistic pet peeves.
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David Sedaris is great company in this new collected volume of his diaries. He buries emotions deep, but describes the world around him (and his love for IHOP) in chaotic and delightful fashion.
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Jardine Libaire's novel — more a series of vignettes — follows two kids from very opposite sides of the tracks who fall hard in love in 1980s New York, and what happens when reality intrudes.
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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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