Books

Throughout his broadcasting career, journalist and host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” Ari Shapiro has made connections with people from all walks of life. In his sparkling memoir, The Best Strangers in the World: Stories From a Life Spent Listening, Shapiro intimately invites readers into his childhood and beyond to show them how his youthful

When I was roughly 12 years old, I used to spend long summer hours at my family’s business, located in a boring Midwestern strip mall. We were situated off the highway and there wasn’t anywhere I could walk to, or much to keep my attention nearby, so I often spent my time reading a stack

Historical fiction is the star of our April issue (11 of our favorites!), but we’ve also got the first memoir from Big Fish author Daniel Wallace, Victor LaValle’s highly anticipated new horror novel and exceptional Earth Day books for kids. Upcoming issues of BookPage will bring special books for Mother’s Day and new releases from Hector Tobar,

I’m always fascinated by how books get interpreted differently across editions. The same story can get a wide range of covers that give very different impressions of what awaits. One especially interesting aspect of this is international book covers. There has been a lot of debate about UK versus U.S. covers, but there is a

Leta McCollough Seletzky, author of The Kneeling Man Counterpoint | April 4 In the famous photograph of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., one man is kneeling down beside King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, trying to staunch the blood from the fatal head wound. This kneeling man, Leta McCollough Seletzky’s father,

by Robin R. Means Coleman and Mark H. Harris So, you’re Black and find yourself in a horror movie. Our condolences. We hope you have your affairs in order. But maybe, just maybe, you can make it through unscathed if you take precautions to minimize your exposure to potential harm. The horror gods may be

In A Tempest at Sea, a twisty and turbulent installment of Sherry Thomas’ perennially entertaining Lady Sherlock mystery series, a glamorous Christie-esque cast sails into danger on the open seas. A Tempest at Sea is the seventh adventure of Charlotte Holmes, a brilliant detective who solves mysteries while pretending to be the assistant of her

promotional image from Universal Pictures When it was announced that Paul Tremblay’s apocalyptic horror novel Cabin at the End of the World was being adapted as a film by director M. Night Shyamalan, I was incredibly excited, in part because I had no idea how this was going to go. While I’m a fan of

Vietnamese writer Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s first novel to be translated into English, the award-winning The Mountains Sing (2020), spun an epic family saga centered on the Vietnam War. Her luminous new novel, Dust Child, is less spacious but still focuses on reverberations from that war. Through intersecting stories of Vietnamese and American characters, Dust

If you’re looking for an anti-censorship group to get involved with, you’re in luck. There are dozens across the country, with more popping up all of the time. While there is certainly a need for a national push against censorship — we need politicians at the federal level to do something — work at the

In 1767, Phillis Wheatley arrived in Boston via a slave ship at the age of 7. In the years leading up to the start of the American Revolution in 1775, she became famous across New England and in London for her poetry. For all her talent and influence on the issues of her day, such

The 2023 Women’s Prize longlist has been announced! After the 1991 Booker Prize shortlist was announced, then called the Man Booker Prize, and no women authors appeared on it, a group of journalists met and wanted more. Together, they founded the Women’s Committee and began the quest for starting a literary prize of their own,

Dr. Alexa Hagerty, an associate fellow at the University of Cambridge and an anthropologist with a Ph.D. from Stanford, can read bones. In Still Life With Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains, Hagerty explores the close connection between bones and words. Like words, bones can be articulated (arranged into a coherent form, such as a

The 2023 PEN/Faulkner finalists were announced Tuesday. The award has been granted for over 40 years to American authors, and is judged by writers who see a peer’s work as being the “first among equals.” The author who wins first place will win $15,000, and each finalist $5,000. This year’s judges were R.O. Kwon, Tiphanie Yanique, and

Gardening isn’t just for the countryside! This exuberant picture book celebrates the joys of community gardening and sharing food with neighbors and friends in the city. Red gingham patterned endpapers set the table for City Beet, a reimagining of a Russian folktale commonly known as “The Gigantic Turnip.” The story begins when young Victoria and

Illustrator, children’s author, and theatrical set designer Ian Falconer died Tuesday in Connecticut. The author is best known for his children’s book series Olivia, which is about a clever young pig. The award-winning series, with its stylish color scheme, debuted in 2000 and went on to include seven more books that altogether sold more than

Color: We can’t not see it, and yet we’re frequently unaware of the power of its strategic use, even as we feel the effects. But you’ll never take color for granted again after perusing Charles Bramesco’s Colors of Film, which explores the palettes used in 50 iconic films through four eras of cinema. Bramesco’s discussion

Economist Joel Waldfogel looked at how women and men have influenced the publishing industry for the last 70 years and found that since 2020 at least, women have been publishing more books than men. Data Waldfogel analyzed from “Goodreads, Bookstat, Amazon, and the National Library of Congress” revealed that the percentage of books published by