Elizabeth Strout’s new “Tell Me Everything” may be exactly the book her fans have been waiting for because it unites all three of her most beloved characters.

Olive Kitteridge, Lucy Barton and Bob Burgess have circled each other throughout Strout’s ten books, mostly set in the fictional Maine towns of Shirley Falls and Crosby, but they ...Read more

John Glionna has made a career as a rover, on the move from cities to towns to dusty little crossroads in search of stories to tell.

He covered everywhere from North Korea to New Zealand as a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, then most of the American West as the paper’s Las Vegas bureau chief. Later, Glionna traveled virtually...Read more

In the 1970s and ‘80s, during Argentina’s so-called “Guerra sucia” — “Dirty War” — a fascist military junta ruled with a bloody fist, executing tens of thousands of citizens.

That nation’s writers still grapple with this heinous legacy, the great Mariana Enriquez at the forefront. Translated by the prodigious Megan McDowell, ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — It's easy to assume Mike Africa Jr.'s MOVE days are completely behind him when walking through his manicured backyard, past his five-foot above ground pool, and into the state-of-the-art podcast studio behind his Clifton Heights home.

His studio lights are so dope they impress an Inquirer photographer. Seemingly, he's come a ...Read more

Edwidge Danticat keeps a little notebook for her two daughters, filling it with instructions and advice for them to read one day, when she’s gone.

It’s one of the ways Danticat has found to “wrestle with mortality,” she writes in her new book “We’re Alone.” In a way, as a friend of hers pointed out, the volume of essays is a ...Read more

Jerald Walker’s “Magically Black And Other Essays” is so funny that, even though it’s nonfiction, as you read it you might find yourself tempted to think he’s kidding. That’s because Walker’s a smart aleck; his jokes run the full range from so subtle you might miss them to keen observational humor, delivered with the impeccable ...Read more

Few diners at the recently-closed Eli’s Food & Cocktails knew the building where they were wolfing down crab cakes once housed the world’s first serial killer.

He’s Harry Hayward, who was hanged for the 1894 murder of Catherine “Kitty” Ging — who, like Hayward, lived in that Minneapolis building (now the Bellevue, but known as Ozark...Read more

Henry wakes with a jolt on Halloween morning in “William,” Mason Coile’s “debut” (it’s Canadian writer Andrew Pyper’s first book under that pen name).

“You were nightmaring,” his pregnant wife, Lily, says from a chair next to his bed. “You woke up like I fired a gun next to your ear.”

“Did you?” he asks.

Henry and ...Read more

Soon after the French Revolution, the Paris Salon emerged as one of the most prestigious annual art exhibitions in the western world.

Acceptance by the jury depended as much on politicking as merit, on what was permissible as what was au courant. Rejected artists could mount a solo show, which rarely flourished, or a breakaway group exhibition ...Read more

Debra Hendrickson used to avoid bringing up climate change at work. A pediatrician in Reno, Nevada, she treated kids for everything from asthma to depression without pulling their parents aside to explain how rising global temperatures are compromising human health. At least not until 2018.

That summer, Hendrickson was treating a boy for ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Sept. 7, 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 Games ...Read more

It was one of his earliest and most unforgettable moments in corporate life. Young Wilbur Ross was closing a real estate deal with the legendary Bill Zeckendorf at the real estate magnate’s panoramic and totally circular office. Catching Ross gawking at his surroundings, Zeckendorf comes up from behind, puts his arm around the young man, and ...Read more

California has inspired the works of acclaimed writers John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Isabel Allende, and Joan Didion. Now, a just-published book features a new generation of creatives ready to tell the state’s ongoing story.

“Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California” invites 24 authors to recount their lived ...Read more

For at least a decade, missing and murdered Indigenous women have gathered attention from officials and media. But Marcie R. Rendon’s “Where They Last Saw Her” argues the issue goes all the way back to the beginning of our country.

“Our women have been targeted since non-Native people got here. We have been ‘disappearing,’ we have ...Read more

At the end of Roddy Doyle’s novel of domestic violence, “The Woman Who Walked into Doors” (1996), Paula Spencer finally fights back after decades of physical abuse, braining her husband Charlo with a frying pan when she sees him looking “that way” at their daughter, Nicola.

“My finest hour,” she said. She couldn’t fight Charlo ...Read more

Chapters. I like ‘em.

The same probably could be said for any reader — almost every book is divided into chapters, so they come with the territory — but if you’re paying attention, you begin to spot ways writers use chapters and how those divisions alter meaning.

I’ve been thinking about chapters for a while but finally buckled down ...Read more

“Category Five” is an important addition to the literature on climate change. But it would have been far better if Porter Fox didn’t bury the lede amongst ephemera.

He touches all the important bases. Yes the oceans are warming, which is important in several obvious — and not-so-obvious — ways. Rising water temperatures create ideal ...Read more

Of all the technologies that have created buzz over the last few years, by far the buzziest is what's known as artificial intelligence — AI for short.

It's buzzy because the chatbots and data crunchers it has produced have startled users with their human-like dialogues and test-taking skills, and also because its critics, and even some of its...Read more

If you’re confronting an endless string of unread emails after a long weekend or summer vacation, try thinking of responding as a game. A status game.

Since reading the 2012 book "Games Primates Play," by University of Chicago behavioral scientist Dario Maestripieri, I’ve never looked at my inbox the same way. Email, writes Maestripieri, is...Read more