

Review of Heart the Lover by Lily King
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...
Oct 7


Review of What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan's new literary fiction looks back upon our present with a cutting 2119 eye. An enthused future academic and a contemporary...
Sep 30


Review of The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Smith was inspired by the real-life Victorian England case of a cockney impostor attempting to wrest an inheritance from the nobility,...
Sep 24


Review of Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
Patrick Ryan's literary fiction traces decades of the messy, poignant lives of two families shaped by uncompromising societal...
Sep 18


Review of Vera, or Faith by Gary Shteyngart
Gary Shteyngart's story of an uncommonly intelligent fifth-grader, Vera, allows for a precocious child's point of view and observations...
Aug 27


Review of Trust by Hernan Diaz
This story-within-a-story-within-a-story reveals a clever woman working within the 1920s confines of her sex to outsmart Wall Street...
Aug 7


Review of Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
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...
Jul 31


Review of Boy by Nicole Galland
Galland offers a detailed peek into the London of Shakespeare's company and the life of starring "boy player" Alexander Cooke, his best...
Jul 3


Review of The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr
Carr's newest novel is a captivating series of character studies within a tightly knit Irish seaside community in the late 1900s. While...
Jun 25


Review of O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker
O Caledonia is a modern classic, literary fiction that encompasses darkly funny passages and tragic consequences set against a gloomy...
Jun 19


Review of The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong's literary fiction offers unexpected bonds between characters coping with desperation, addiction, lies, hunger, and past...
Jun 12


Review of Clear by Carys Davies
Davies's slim, luminous, heartbreaking novel sets a story of isolation and human connection against the brutal removal of impoverished...
Jun 3


Six More of My Favorite Literary Fiction Reads of the Year
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...
Apr 25


Review of Show Don't Tell: Stories by Curtis Sittenfeld
In Curtis Sittenfeld's wonderful second short-story collection, we meet imperfect characters, often fortysomething women, in moments...
Mar 19


Six of My Favorite Literary Fiction Reads of the Year
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...
Mar 7


Review of Time of the Child by Niall Williams
Time of the Child feels like poetry in prose form, and Williams richly shapes a small-town Irish community's everyday and extraordinary...
Mar 4


Review of The Road to Dalton (Dalton, Maine #1) by Shannon Bowring
This slim, debut novel about a small-town community in northern Maine introduces various faulted, interconnected characters making their...
Feb 12


Review of The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Much of The Safekeep feels claustrophobic, quiet, and hopeless, but unexpected shifts late in the story turn accepted histories on their...
Jan 9


Review of Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Robinson's gentle novel Gilead spans generations of fathers and sons and explores a reverend's complicated relationship with his troubled...
Dec 12, 2024


Review of Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst
Our Evenings explores a young, often cruel, existence at a British boys' boarding school; later fits and starts of exploring sexuality...
Dec 10, 2024