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Berkley

'When I Think of You' could be a ripped-from-the-headlines Hollywood romance

April 18, 2024 • Myah Ariel's debut is like a fizzy, angsty mash-up of Bolu Babalola and Kennedy Ryan as the challenges of doing meaningful work in Hollywood threaten two young lovers' romantic reunion.

NPR

5 new mysteries and thrillers for your nightstand this spring

April 17, 2024 • These new books will take you from murder in present-day Texas to cryptography in Cold War Berlin to an online community that might hold the solution to a missing-person case.

Atria Books

It's a wild ride to get to the bottom of what everyone's hiding in 'A Better World'

April 16, 2024 • A very sinister thriller with a dash of science-fiction and full of inscrutabilities, Sarah Langan's novel is as entreating and creepy as it is timely and humane.

Luke Medina/NPR

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Books We Love: Love And Romance

April 15, 2024 • NPR's Books We Love is a roundup of favorite books of the year, sorted and tagged to help you find exactly what you're looking for. From the meet cutes to the happy endings and through all the ups and downs in between, we're recommending great books for people who love love and romance.

Books We Love: Love And Romance

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Celadon Books

In 'Like Happiness,' a woman struggles to define a past, destructive relationship

April 12, 2024 • Ursula Villarreal-Moura's debut novel movingly portrays its protagonist coming to terms with an imbalanced, difficult, and sometimes harmful friendship that was also a key part of her life for years.

Flatiron Books

'The Familiar' is a romance, coming-of-age tale, and a story about fighting for more

April 11, 2024 • In her new novel, Leigh Bardugo drags readers into a world of servitude, magic, power struggles, and intrigue — one where there isn't a single character that doesn't have a secret agenda.

Random House

'There's Always This Year' reflects on how we consider others — and ourselves

April 3, 2024 • Hanif Abdurraqib's latest book is about hoops, sure, but it's also about so much more. It's another remarkable book from one of the country's smartest cultural critics.

Blackstone Publishing

'Lilith' cuts to the heart of the gun debate and school shootings

April 2, 2024 • Eric Rickstad's novel is full of sadness and rage; it forces readers to look at one of the ugliest parts of U.S. culture, a too-common occurrence that is extremely rare in other countries.

First Second

'Replay' spotlights resilience, loss, and intergenerational connectedness

March 21, 2024 • Jordan Mechner is known for his video games. But here he brings to life the many twists and turns that underscore the pervasive impact of the past — and the connectedness that remains in the present.

Graywolf Press

'The Tree Doctor' chronicles one woman's response to a series of life-changing crises

March 19, 2024 • Marie Mutsuki Mockett's latest novel about a wife and mother is wise and sensitive, and a stunning reflection on how we reinvent ourselves when we're left with no other choice.

Doubleday

'James' reimagines Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' with mordant humor, and horror

Fresh Air

March 19, 2024 • Percival Everett's retelling of Mark Twain's 1885 classic focuses on Huck's enslaved companion. James is a tale so inspired, you won't be able to imagine reading the original without it.

'James' reimagines Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' with mordant humor, and horror

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Doubleday

'James' revisits Huck Finn's traveling companion, giving rise to a new classic

March 18, 2024 • In a fever dream of a retelling, America's new reigning king of satire has turned a loved classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, upside down, placing Huck's enslaved companion Jim at the center.

Celadon Books

In 'The Manicurist's Daughter,' a refugee family goes on after its matriarch's death

March 15, 2024 • Author Susan Lieu transforms her acclaimed 2019 one-woman show — 140 LBS: How Beauty Killed My Mother -- into a memoir of her family after the death of her mother due to botched plastic surgery.

Vintage

The stories in 'Green Frog' are wildly entertaining and wonderfully diverse

March 14, 2024 • Gina Chung's collection is a fantastic medley of short stories that dance between literary fiction, fable, Korean folklore, and science fiction — and one that's full of emotional intelligence.

W. W. Norton & Company

Big-box store workers find themselves shut out of the American Dream in 'Help Wanted'

Fresh Air

March 13, 2024 • Adelle Waldman's novel is a workplace ensemble set in a Costco-like store. But, because Help Wanted is a group portrait, it tends to visit, rather than settle in with, its working class characters.

Big-box store workers find themselves shut out of the American Dream in 'Help Wanted'

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'The Extinction of Irena Rey' asks: Can anything be truly individual and independent?

Cover of The Extinction of Irena Rey Bloomsbury Publishing hide caption

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Bloomsbury Publishing

Books

'The Extinction of Irena Rey' asks: Can anything be truly individual and independent?

March 8, 2024 • Jennifer Croft's novel, centered on a group of translators working on a book, is surprising at every turn, moving from profound observations about nature, art, and communication — to surreal events.

NPR

3 collections take the poetic measure of America in the aftermath of the pandemic

March 7, 2024 • New collections The Gone Thing, Silver and Modern Poetry offer, if not a solution to trying times in America, then a kind of truth-telling companion, a mirror with a real person on both sides of it.

Flatiron Books

'Anita de Monte Laughs Last' is a complex dissection of art, gender and marriage

March 6, 2024 • Xochitl Gonzalez's novel looking at relationship power dynamics is a thought-provoking and brilliantly entertaining triumph that surpasses the promise of her popular debut Olga Dies Dreaming.

NPR

Kennedy Ryan's new novel, plus 4 other new romances by Black authors

March 5, 2024 • Black romance authors have been some of the leading advocates for change in the books industry. This Could Be Us, the latest by bestselling author Kennedy Ryan, hits shelves today.

This oral history of the 'Village Voice' captures its creativity and rebelliousness

Founded in 1955, the Village Voice stopped publishing print editions in in 2017. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption

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Drew Angerer/Getty Images

This oral history of the 'Village Voice' captures its creativity and rebelliousness

Fresh Air

March 4, 2024 • Tricia Romano's The Freaks Came Out To Write chronicles the passion and talent that made a great American newspaper — and the forces that killed it.

This oral history of the 'Village Voice' captures its creativity and rebelliousness

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A man fights expectations in 'I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together'

Pantheon

Fresh Air

February 26, 2024 • Philip Gefter's Cocktails with George and Martha traces the evolution of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — from Broadway sensation, to Oscar-winning film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Dishy-yet-earnest, 'Cocktails' revisits the making of 'Virginia Woolf'

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Little, Brown & Company

'Splinters' is a tribute to the love of a mother for a daughter

February 20, 2024 • In different variations of her signature, beautifully frank language, Leslie Jamison writes about her fantasy of stability and her uncertainty as to whether it's a dream she actually wants fulfilled.

Book Reviews

'When I Think of You' could be a ripped-from-the-headlines Hollywood romance

5 new mysteries and thrillers for your nightstand this spring

It's a wild ride to get to the bottom of what everyone's hiding in 'A Better World'

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Books We Love: Love And Romance

Books We Love: Love And Romance

In 'Like Happiness,' a woman struggles to define a past, destructive relationship

'The Familiar' is a romance, coming-of-age tale, and a story about fighting for more

'There's Always This Year' reflects on how we consider others — and ourselves

'Lilith' cuts to the heart of the gun debate and school shootings

'Replay' spotlights resilience, loss, and intergenerational connectedness

'The Tree Doctor' chronicles one woman's response to a series of life-changing crises

'James' reimagines Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' with mordant humor, and horror

Fresh Air

'James' reimagines Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' with mordant humor, and horror

'James' revisits Huck Finn's traveling companion, giving rise to a new classic

In 'The Manicurist's Daughter,' a refugee family goes on after its matriarch's death

The stories in 'Green Frog' are wildly entertaining and wonderfully diverse

Big-box store workers find themselves shut out of the American Dream in 'Help Wanted'

Fresh Air

Big-box store workers find themselves shut out of the American Dream in 'Help Wanted'

Books

'The Extinction of Irena Rey' asks: Can anything be truly individual and independent?

3 collections take the poetic measure of America in the aftermath of the pandemic

'Anita de Monte Laughs Last' is a complex dissection of art, gender and marriage

Kennedy Ryan's new novel, plus 4 other new romances by Black authors

This oral history of the 'Village Voice' captures its creativity and rebelliousness

Fresh Air

This oral history of the 'Village Voice' captures its creativity and rebelliousness

A man fights expectations in 'I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together'

Sloane Crosley mourns her best friend in 'Grief Is for People'

Tommy Orange's 'Wandering Stars' is a powerful follow up to 'There There'

Dishy-yet-earnest, 'Cocktails' revisits the making of 'Virginia Woolf'

Fresh Air

Dishy-yet-earnest, 'Cocktails' revisits the making of 'Virginia Woolf'

'Splinters' is a tribute to the love of a mother for a daughter