The Hall of Fame basketball coach, who died in August, leaves us with the private thoughts of a public man, one who both raged against racial injustice and embraced chances to make things better.
From Lovers Rock to The Good Lord Bird, the titles on John Powers' year-end list didn't simply distract; they also delved into enduring questions of freedom, dignity and survival.
Sam J. Miller's latest is set in an upstate New York town built on the bones of butchered whales. It's full of broken people, violent ghosts and flying whales, but the real monster is gentrification.
Manuel Vilas' quiet, intensely sad new, about a middle-aged man trying to connect with his estranged family while thinking a lot of deep thoughts about death, requires patience, but it's worth it.
Sealed into our little Zoom boxes, masked when we're in contact with others, it's easy to feel separated from the world during the pandemic. These 10 books can help break through the solitude.
Michael Eric Dyson's call to action is an invitation to reimagine law enforcement, education, workspaces and all other spaces in ways that eliminate racism, abuse, misogyny and xenophobia.
Fans of Jane Smiley's previous books will be pleased to see that talking horses make a return in her latest — plus a dog, a raven and a couple of ducks, all making lives for themselves in Paris.
Author Reid Mitenbuler's real target is a quintessentially American story of daring ambition, personal re-invention, and the eternal tug-of-war of between art and business.
Sometimes, when the days are getting shorter and the world seems like it's getting darker, a melancholy read seems like just the thing — so here are three fittingly dark novels in translation.
Ghostways is an examination of grief as a landscape that moves on without us — and the fragility of the green world we're longing to go back to post-pandemic.
People who claim that mask mandates deprive them of their personal freedom, Francis says, are "victims only in their own imagination." The book also addresses demonstrations against racial injustice.
Simon Han's debut novel follows a Chinese immigrant family in Texas, whose fragile peace is shattered after the father is wrongly accused of a crime, and it's up to the kids to restore balance.
Chloe Gong's new novel has some of the important aspects of Shakespeare's famous tragedy — but more than anything else, it's a rich portrait of a time and place not often seen in literature.
Artist and writer Lauren Redniss mixes art, design, and rigorous research with a prose style that is at once assertive, journalistic and poetic to create a book like no other.
The avant-garde theater director and actor pairs up with writer-director Todd London to present the story of his multi-faceted life, full of dramatic ups and downs — and celebrities.
Delphine Minoui's slim new book tells the true story of a group of Syrian resistance fighters who founded a 15,000-volume library in the basement of an abandoned building.
The anthropologist and physician teaches that the world needs not only medicine, but something more — a rejection of global racial inequalities and serious investment in the care of all people.
A free-spirited astrology blogger and a straitlaced insurance actuary agree to fake a relationship — and then really fall for each other in Alexandria Bellefleur's charming queer romance.
Ellen Cooney's new novel follows an unnamed hospital chaplain on her rounds, as she ministers to patients and grapples with her own internal questions. It's a quiet, inward-looking but hopeful story.
Obama's ascent thrilled millions but also stirred a countermovement that is still on the march. His new memoir, A Promised Land, covers his rise through the second year of his presidency.
Rapinoe's book traces her own political awakening in the hopes that other people will follow in her footsteps and understand that they have an imperative to speak out about injustice in the world.
The British author writes beautifully of her own recent bout with a personal winter, a period when she felt low and overwhelmed — and aims to help others to embrace their winters.
In We Keep the Dead Close, author Becky Cooper revisits the killing of Harvard graduate student Jane Britton. The 440+ page book is overstuffed with suspects, motives, red herrings and interviews.
Felicia Luna Lemus' memoir chronicles her attempt to make a life in California with her new wife — dealing with casual racism and homophobia, and then, terribly, the impact of the recent wildfires.
