Saunders's strange, fascinating novel involves griping, sniping characters in limbo between life and death near the start of the Civil War, often in denial about their circumstances, with Abraham Lincoln's young son Willie at the center of a struggle for control of his soul. “Only then (nearly out the door, so to speak) did I realize how unspeakably beautiful all of this was, how precisely engineered for our pleasure, and saw that I was on the brink of squandering a wondrous

Desai's first novel in decades is a 688-page tale that meanders through India, New York, family and romantic relationships, and career false starts, with missteps, mysterious, powerful magical realism elements, and an undercurrent of darkness and despair. The messy resolutions felt appropriately hard-fought after the characters' extended struggles. Sonia is living away from her Indian family while she studies writing in Vermont, and after growing up used to having multiple fa

I can't stop thinking about this fascinating near-future climate-change story of desperation, loyalty, and determination in Kolkata, India, and how a tiny bit of empathy might have unraveled the increasingly devastating whirlwind of conflict between the two main protagonists, who are each both hero and villain. It was her duty, as a guardian, to put into action the beautiful ideal of hope. Ma thought harshly: This was what it looked like. Hope for the future was no shy bloom

I've loved the other three books I've read by Lily King, but I didn't connect with the Heart the Lover characters and didn't believe in...

Ian McEwan's new literary fiction looks back upon our present with a cutting 2119 eye. An enthused future academic and a contemporary...

Smith was inspired by the real-life Victorian England case of a cockney impostor attempting to wrest an inheritance from the nobility,...

Patrick Ryan's literary fiction traces decades of the messy, poignant lives of two families shaped by uncompromising societal...

Gary Shteyngart's story of an uncommonly intelligent fifth-grader, Vera, allows for a precocious child's point of view and observations...

This story-within-a-story-within-a-story reveals a clever woman working within the 1920s confines of her sex to outsmart Wall Street...

Death of the Author explores the connection of an author to her work--and how a story can take on a life of its own--in this novel...

Galland offers a detailed peek into the London of Shakespeare's company and the life of starring "boy player" Alexander Cooke, his best...

Carr's newest novel is a captivating series of character studies within a tightly knit Irish seaside community in the late 1900s. While...

O Caledonia is a modern classic, literary fiction that encompasses darkly funny passages and tragic consequences set against a gloomy...

Ocean Vuong's literary fiction offers unexpected bonds between characters coping with desperation, addiction, lies, hunger, and past...

Davies's slim, luminous, heartbreaking novel sets a story of isolation and human connection against the brutal removal of impoverished...

Six More Great Bossy Literary Fiction Reads I read so many read literary fiction books last year, this is my second best-of-the-year...

In Curtis Sittenfeld's wonderful second short-story collection, we meet imperfect characters, often fortysomething women, in moments...

Six Great Bossy Literary Fiction Reads I read so many read literary fiction books last year, I'll need another best-of-the-year list. But...

Time of the Child feels like poetry in prose form, and Williams richly shapes a small-town Irish community's everyday and extraordinary...

This slim, debut novel about a small-town community in northern Maine introduces various faulted, interconnected characters making their...