Books

Books
Arts

'To Be Honest,' This Is A Sweet Book About A Savvy Young Woman

2:06pm August 22, 2018

by Alethea Kontis

Maggie Ann Martin's new novel follows Savannah, who's dealing with her sister's departure for college, her mother's obsession with her weight, and the cute new boy at school.

Dispatches From A 'Dopesick' America

4:08pm August 21, 2018

by Dave Davies

Author Beth Macy details opioids' odyssey from medicine to scourge, in her book about young heroin users, their long-suffering parents, doctors, drug company executives, cops, judges and drug dealers.

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'Severance' Is A Sardonic Wake-Up Call For All Of Us Stuck In Routine

3:37pm August 21, 2018

by Maureen Corrigan

Ling Ma's Severance is an unusual apocalyptic novel, says critic Maureen Corrigan. Satiric, playful and scary, it lends assurance that humor will linger even as the world comes to an end.

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Arts

'Coyote Doggirl' Is A Childlike Western With Hidden Depths

2:01pm August 21, 2018

by Etelka Lehoczky

Artist Lisa Hanawalt creates kids' stories for grownups, both on TV — she's the production designer for BoJack Horseman — and in her new book Coyote Doggirl, a candy-colored Western saga.

Books
Arts

'Sight' Is A Penetrating Vision Of Motherhood, Science And More

10:00am August 21, 2018

by Heller McAlpin

Jessie Greengrass' novel is packed with shimmering sentences and poetic paragraphs from a narrator who's never content to drift along, but must probe "the convoluted crenellations of the mind."

Books

Witty, Imaginative, Risky And Relentless — 'Flights' Soars

3:32pm August 20, 2018

by John Powers

Olga Tokarczuk's book won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize. Critic John Powers says the hard-to-classify work is positively exploding with maps, remembrances, riffs, history and more.

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Arts

Enter The Crypt, Tomb, Vault, Coffin (And More) Of Horror Comics

11:51am August 20, 2018

by Stephen Graham Jones

Horror comics enjoyed a golden age in the 1940s and '50s, before people got scared about kids reading gore and terror — but they never went away entirely, and now there's a new generation of scares.

Books
Arts

Once 'Ball Lightning' Gets Rolling, This Sci-Fi Mind-Bender Shines

10:00am August 19, 2018

by Colin Dwyer

The novel is Chinese writer Cixin Liu's first in English since his "Remembrance of Earth's Past" trilogy. And that series' radical creativity returns in this tale of scientific striving — eventually.

Books

Ada Limon On Poetry Collection, 'The Carrying'

7:57am August 19, 2018

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro asks Ada Limon about The Carrying, Limon's fifth collection of poetry.

Books

Taking Down America's First Organized Crime Ring

7:57am August 19, 2018

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with William Oldfield. His book, Inspector Oldfield and the Black Hand Society, is about his great-grandfather's work helping take down an infamous extortion ring.