As "traditional bonds disintegrate in the face of industrialization, urbanization, and secularization, brands and objects become a means to curate and project who we are," writes reporter Adam Minter.
Saud Alsanousi's novel follows a group of Kuwaiti kids growing up in the 1980s — then jumps to a near future torn by sectarian violence. It's a resonant book that asks more questions than it answers.
Andre Perry's debut essay collection reads like a slightly fragmented memoir focused on the search for identity, the desire to write, and his constant sense of unease as a black man in Iowa City.
The characters in Nona Fernández' new book are coming of age during Chile's brutal military dictatorship — and for them, video games are a useful framework for understanding the dangers all around.
In With All Due Respect, the former U.N. ambassador says Trump's ex-Chief of Staff John Kelly and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked her to help them "save the country" from the president.
Jeanine Basinger argues, authoritatively and passionately, that the musical has never really left us, that there's relevance and inspiration to be gleaned from the golden age of Hollywood musicals.
Artist Peter Kuper has adapted Joseph Conrad's classic Heart of Darkness in a way that undercuts Conrad's depiction of Africa as a place of existential horror, and centers the African characters.
Vijay Seshadri has been named the twelfth poetry editor ofThe Paris Review. He says he sees a resurgence in American poetry right now, and a new recognition of different lives and experiences.
Kiersten White's retelling of the King Arthur story puts his queen Guinevere at the center — only she's not really Guinevere. She's a magic-wielding changeling, sent to court to protect the king.
The '50 City College of New York Beavers were the only team to win the NIT and the NCAA tournaments. Matthew Goodman's book details how a point-shaving plot came to dominate the team's legacy.
Biographer Meryle Secrest chases a theory that two key Olivetti computer visonaries' deaths did not happen as officially recorded. While a gripping read at times, there's not a lot of solid ground.
Rivers Solomon's lyrical, wrenching new novella is based on a track from the experimental rap group clipping., about a peaceful undersea race descended from slaves thrown overboard in the Atlantic.
Danny Fingeroth spends some time unpacking Lee's long-running dispute with Jack Kirby and others over ownership, but mainly offers strong insights into the forces that drove Lee and Marvel to success.
Under Carmen Maria Machado's narrative of a psychologically abusive relationship lies an academic view of female queerness, a play, a choose your own adventure book, a look at the mechanisms of abuse.
The stand-up comic's essays have soft and lovely moments, steering readers toward finding their own vulnerabilities. But Slate is not as open to self-exposure on the page as she is on the stage.
Journalist and Brain on Fire author Susannah Cahalan writes in an urgent, personal book that the '70s study by David Rosenhan had an outsized effect on psychiatry — and may have been fatally flawed.
Talia Hibbert's new novel stars Chloe, who's determined to get a life after years of coping with chronic pain, and Red, the mysterious and extremely annoying (at first) super at her new building.
Erin Morgenstern's long-awaited followup to The Night Circus imagines a world of magical doors leading to a literal underground sea — surrounded by layers of pleasurable mystery and mythography.
Wilson's new novel centers on a young woman taking care of two kids with a disturbing ability: When upset, they burst into flames. But in Wilson's hands, what could be scary is funny, even beautiful.
Nominally an environmental and social history of the Galápagos Islands, it lays bare the entangled issues confronting us as we attempt conservation efforts while facing a sweeping ecological crisis.
Writer Ben Blacker and artist Mirka Andolfo put a lively twist on the classic Stepford Wives story in their graphic novel Hex Wives, about a reincarnating coven of witches and their male adversaries.
Beneath the veneer of provocation, Andrea Long Chu's book is surprisingly tender, aiming to care for a universal ache — the frayed knot of selfhood, desire and power.
Anne Nelson links "the manpower and media of the Christian right," "finances of Western plutocrats," and "strategy of right-wing Republican political operatives" via the Council for National Policy.
Mira Ptacin spends time at Camp Etna and finds herself believing, at least, in the ideals of Spiritualism — emphasizing kindness, the importance of intuition, and the power of the unseen.
For October, our kids' books columnist Juanita Giles praises picture book author Todd Parr and his insight into the emotional needs of children who are dealing with loss, change — and other children.
