"Who in their right mind tries to bond with their kids by taking them on a tour of North Korea?'" American aid worker Mark Andrews does when he arrives in Pyongyang with 16-year-old son Simon and 12-year-old daughter Mia. He's convinced "the trip would be...
Earlier this year, the National Book Foundation announced the addition of a fifth National Book Award: the National Book Award for Translated Literature. The news made me positively giddy: such specific recognition feels long overdue because I'm convinced translators do some of the hardest literary...
*STARRED REVIEW In Russell's new backyard stands a giant maple tree with "great big limbs and a trunk so wide, even Russell's dad could not wrap his arms around it." When Russell deems it ideal for a new fort, his dad initially hesitates: "'I don't know...
"Twirly-whirly,/ loop-dee-loop" takes Trampoline Boy up "into the blue, blue sky." Each "BOING" enables him to see something new, from his own backyard to far beyond the clouds. In the morning, after school, and "until the sky turn[s] pink," Trampoline Boy finds contentment in the...
Although Fresh is Pulitzer Prize-winning Jeffrey Eugenides's (Middlesex) first-ever collection, the contents might seem familiar as only two of the 10 stories are actually "fresh" – the opening "Complainers" and closing "Fresh Complaint." The rest appeared in various publications between 1989 and 2013. What's truly new...
At just two hours, Matthew Weiner's debut novel is more of a novella, perhaps its length (or lack thereof) a reflection of his television expertise. Screen aficionados will certainly recognize Weiner's name: he's creator/producer/director of the wildly successful Mad Men and writer/producer of the groundbreaking...
John Scalzi (Redshirts) explains in his snappy introduction, which he reads, that he has "two natural [writing] speeds": novel-long and "really short." This 18-piece collection showcases his "fast, punchy, and to the point"-shortest. For such a "miniature" book, it's got quite a full cast: Allyson...
After 10 years of surveillance-heavy luxury living as wife to Byron, the founder of the ubiquitous Gogol Industries, Hazel flees to her widowed father's trailer to find her septuagenarian parent unpacking a sex doll. Despite the changing locations, Byron still looms, via a brain-implanted chip...
Although the "Son of Sam" law prohibited criminals from profiting from their crimes by writing books or creating other crime-based entertainment, the Supreme Court struck down the law in 1991 citing First Amendment violations. Decades later, Dawkins, a convicted murderer serving life without parole, received...
After introducing a stupendous community of left-behind stateside military wives in her debut collection, You Know When the Men Are Gone, Siobhan Fallon presents in her first novel two women who have accompanied their U.S. Army husbands to Jordan. Shared circumstances ease Cassie and Margaret...
*STARRED REVIEW That Aviva Grossman became infamous as "Florida's answer to Monica Lewinsky" provides a quick snapshot of why she's now living in small-town Maine as Jane Young. As a 20-year-old intern to Miami Congressman Aaron Levin, she not only had that affair with the married,...
Jeff Talarigo, a peripatetic global citizen whose spare, exquisite fiction also tends toward the international – Japan for The Pearl Diver (2004), the North Korean and Chinese border for The Ginseng Hunter (2008) – alchemizes his time in Gaza into this affecting novel in loosely...
Susan Rieger (The Divorce Papers) shows how a wealthy Manhattan family's marital dysfunctions break, prune, and graft the branches of their family tree. Rupert Falkes, a British orphan-turned-New York elite, is dead. As far as the world knows, he's survived by his blue-blooded wife, Eleanor, their...
As a boy, Nek Chand "played and planted, laughed and listened ...
Beyond the barrage of soul-depleting headlines is this much-needed reminder of utter goodness, when one brave woman affected the lives of dozens of young children. And books – that very best antidote for all '-isms' – were, of course involved. Among the 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent who...
Emilia Nightingale returns from Hong Kong to her childhood home in Peasebrook in the middle of the English Cotswolds when she inherits Nightingale Books after her father's death. Taking over the establishment means that the villagers immediately become part of her inheritance, including a klepto...
Kirby Heyborne deploys his gentle charm to give voice to 12-year-old Walter Lavender Jr. who, owing to "a motor speech disorder," might seem mute to the outside world but has an imaginative soul that can't be silenced. Always an insightful observer, Walter is an unparalleled...
When Diane dies in a car accident, her daughters, 18-year-old Mary and 4-year-old Hannah, are left effectively with nothing. The family's rundown New Jersey seaside motel, which has always been home, is less than worthless owing to back taxes. Without resources, Mary and Hannah head...
Maile Meloy (Madame Lazarus) makes her narrating debut with this disturbing thriller that showcases a parent's worst nightmare – the disappearance of children. Best friends and cousins Liv and Nora take their husbands and two children (each) on a holiday cruise. The families bask in...
Jule West Williams is "the kind of woman it would be a great mistake to underestimate." Her background might be imagined, but the self-assessment is exact. Her invented 10-year "highly unusual education" – not unlike the epic journeys of white hetero heroes, which she both...
