Chuck Klosterman's new collection of "fictional nonfiction" is full of people who subvert expectations and find ways around the systems that rule our lives. Also, there's a puma in an airplane toilet.
Rather than the time travel or war, the thrill of Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone's book becomes the connection between two lonely professional killers with the ability to inscribe letters on lava.
Colson Whitehead's harrowing new novel is based on a true story about a brutally abusive reform school in Florida where the grounds were pocked with the unmarked graves of the boys who died there.
After a cancer diagnosis, author and noted mountaineer David Roberts sets out on the trail of Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, remaining dutiful to the route some 240 years later.
Through his graphic memoir, the Star Trek actor-turned-author shows that while it may be too late to undo the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans, it's not too late to learn from it.
Mark Stryker covered jazz and its people for the Detroit Free Press for decades. He uses his reporter's eye and critic's ear to chronicle the musicians from the city who made their mark on the world.
Colson Whitehead's deeply affecting new novel is based on the true story of a segregated reform school in Florida where African American boys were brutalized and possibly murdered.
Elizabeth Lim's new young adult novel follows a girl who disguises herself as a boy and sets off for the emperor's court in place of her ailing father, who's been summoned as an imperial tailor.
Beatriz Williams' new novel follows a woman searching for her missing husband in London during World War II, jumping back and forth in time to show all the people and events that led her there.
New York Times columnist Margaret Renkl astonishes with her essays, a woven tapestry that makes one of all the world's beings that strive to live — and, in one way or another, face mortality.
Amanda Lee Koe's new novel was inspired by a famous photograph — Anna May Wong, Marlene Dietrich and the notorious actress and director Leni Riefenstahl, posing together at a Berlin party in 1928.
Margarita Liberaki's novel, first published in 1946, follows three young women growing up in the Athens countryside alongside a colorful cast of family members, secret-keeping servants and local boys.
Pablo Medina's The Cuban Comedy walks a fine line between poetry and political satire. It follows a woman in rural 1960s Cuba who longs to be a poet, and the troubles she faces when she succeeds.
Rory Power's debut novel combines creeping, corrupting body horror with the intense bonds between teenage girls at an isolated school for a post-apocalypse story that's fresh, horrible and beautiful.
Former CNN journalist Isha Sesay argues that the Nigerian government, the media, and the public have failed the 276 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by the terrorist group five years ago.
Craig Davidson's new novel follows a group of kids through a strange summer of hunting urban legends — it's a coming-of-age story that's also about loss, particularly what we lose when we grow up.
Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda's epic, gorgeous tale of a young woman with a monster inside her has won countless awards and been heaped with praise — but does it truly break new ground?
Alexi Zentner's new novel follows a high school football star's efforts to separate himself from his racist family. It'san unsparing story about race, class and the limits of individual possibility.
Jeff Guinn weaves in a portrait of America's burgeoning love affair with the automobile. But his book rests heavy on the men's positive attributes, while shying away from their "unfortunate flaws."
The baseball commissioner's charming, informative memoir is about the best you can hope to read from a powerful professional sports insider — even if Selig is too defensive on steroids.
Lisa Taddeo's first book is a work of deep observation, long conversations, and a kind of journalistic alchemy. She spent years with her subjects — and the investment pays off.
Marcy Dermansky's new novel is a tart lemonade of a summer read, full of outspoken characters, libidinous activity — much of it unwise — around a swimming pool, and a beautiful standard poodle.
There's little to surprise in this story, especially if you know a bit about the subject's life and his ideas. But author Jim Ottaviani finds a nice balance between the personal and the theoretical.
Few things go together better than romance and comedy — so in honor of this year's Summer Reader Poll, all about funny books, we've got four romances that will bring a smile to your face.
Chuck Wendig's massive new novel imagines a plague of sleepwalkers — unresponsive people endlessly walking to an unknown destination as a fearful, hate-ridden country tears itself apart around them.
