To use a word that appears often in the novel, “Time of the Child” is a miracle.

Niall Williams’ gorgeous, wry and humane book is set in the fictional Irish hamlet of Faha, where much of his work (which also includes “Four Letters of Love” and “This Is Happiness”) takes place.

It’s 1962 and nearing Christmas, which is important...Read more

A hardboiled mystery set in the American Southwest, “The Arizona Triangle” is the debut novel by Sydney Graves, which is a not-too-hidden pen name for the writer Kate Christensen.

The author’s previous novels include “The Great Man” and “Welcome Home, Stranger.” Here, as Graves, she takes the Book Pages Q&A.

Q. Please tell ...Read more

The Author Clock, created in Chicago several years ago by a local engineer and finally arriving in stores this holiday season, has been forcing me to pause now and then, whenever I look up to see the time. Knowing the time used to be fast for me. But the Author Clock slows one’s relationship to time. I don’t know yet how I feel about it as a...Read more

When the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation” came to its end after seven seasons, it was an emotional day for all of the cast and crew, says Jim O’Heir, who played Jerry Gergich, the kind-hearted bumbler and butt of all jokes in the city of Pawnee’s parks department.

O’Heir was part of a talented ensemble that included Amy Poehler as ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- You can read Minneapolis poet Danez Smith’s work in two new books or, if you happen to be in New York, on subway walls.

Smith’s collection of poems, “Bluff,” was published by Graywolf Press earlier this year. And they curated the just-released “Blues in Stereo,” a collection of the early poems of the great Langston ...Read more

The epigraph of Melanie Cheng’s novel “The Burrow” comes from an unfinished Franz Kafka short story with the same title: “The most beautiful thing about my burrow is the stillness. Of course, that is deceptive. At any moment it may be shattered and then all will be over.”

Kafka’s work about an unidentified animal, barricaded ...Read more

ANAHEIM, Calif. — When Nat Eastman was a kid growing up in the San Fernando Valley, she and her oldest brother would read Harry Potter novels and write letters to each other about the books.

It wasn’t always easy to maintain the connection.

“My oldest brother spent 17 years in California prisons,” says Eastman, the assistant manager ...Read more

Great American novelist Cormac McCarthy was defensively private and didn't share much about the inspiration behind his books — or about himself. However, the author, who died in 2023, apparently lived out much of his bestseller "All the Pretty Horses" with a woman named Augusta Britt.

She was 16 when she met the then 42-year-old writer in ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Nov. 16, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2024 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2024, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "To Die For" ...Read more

Katherine Rundell wears several hats with style and aplomb. She is a fellow of St. Catherine’s College, Oxford; she is an award-winning children’s writer; and she is a biographer, author of the magisterial “Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne” — the Renaissance poet she convincingly claims to be “the greatest writer of ...Read more

Books are often sold with “If you’re a fan of X, you’ll love Y” pitches, but I’ve seldom encountered one that was more clearly a “If you’re a fan of” book than “Pony Confidential.”

It’s “Remarkably Bright Creatures” fans that “Pony Confidential” may appeal to. Instead of an octopus who observes and comments ...Read more

Four new graphic novels showcase a range of approaches and subjects, from deadpan horror comedy to a subversive retelling of an American classic, a fantasy adventure about a magical world next to our own and an odds-and-ends collection from an American master that is more than the sum of its parts.

Big Jim and the White Boy

By: David F. Walker...Read more

CHICAGO -- Of the many people whose lives still cast shadows on our history, one of them is that of a little boy, a 14-year-old named Emmett Till who left Chicago full of playful life and returned, as his mother, Mamie, said in 1955, “in a pine box, so horribly battered and waterlogged that someone needed to tell you this sickening sight is ...Read more

Jessica Elisheva Emerson’s debut novel, “Olive Days,” is out now from Counterpoint. Set in L.A.’s Pico-Robertson neighborhood, the story follows Rina Kirsch, a Modern Orthodox Jewish woman struggling with her faith and her marriage.

She recently took the Book Pages Q&A.

Q: Is there a book or books you always recommend to other ...Read more

Attica Locke’s new novel, “Guide Me Home,” is the final installment in her critically acclaimed Highway 59 trilogy of crime novels featuring Darren Mathews, a Black Texas Ranger.

Here, she takes the Book Pages Q&A.

Q: Is there a book or books that you always recommend to other readers?

“We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” by ...Read more

It’s ordinarily only the famous who first approach a nonfiction book by thumbing through the index, looking for their own name.

Unfamous, I nevertheless found myself doing just that this past summer while meandering through the stacks at Blackwell’s in Oxford, one of the largest and grandest bookstores in the world.

I had pulled from the ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Nov. 9, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2024 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2024, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "The Book of ...Read more

A slim science fiction novel that looks at our "precious and precarious" world through the eyes of six astronauts on the International Space Station has won the 2024 Booker Prize. Samantha Harvey, author of "Orbital," took home the award Tuesday.

The book focuses on a single day in the life of the astronauts on the ISS, where they discuss fears...Read more