Poet Iman Mersal's book is a memoir of her search for knowledge about the writer Enayat al-Zayyat; it's a slow, idiosyncratic journey through a layered, changing Cairo — and through her own mind.
Many philosophical ideas get an airing in Rachel Khong's latest novel, including the existence of free will and the ethics of altering genomes to select for "favorable" inheritable traits.
April always brings some of the years' biggest poetry collections. So as it wraps up, we wanted to bring you two favorites — retrospective collections from Marie Howe and Jean Valentine.
The Letters of Emily Dickinson collects 1,304 letters, starting with one she wrote at age 11. Her singular voice comes into its own in the letters of the 1860s, which often blur into poems.
Novelist Amy Tan's The Backyard Bird Chronicles centers on an array of birds that visit her yard, as Trish O'Kane's Birding to Change the World recalls lessons from birds that galvanized her teaching.
Myah Ariel's debut is like a fizzy, angsty mash-up of Bolu Babalola and Kennedy Ryan as the challenges of doing meaningful work in Hollywood threaten two young lovers' romantic reunion.
These new books will take you from murder in present-day Texas to cryptography in Cold War Berlin to an online community that might hold the solution to a missing-person case.
A very sinister thriller with a dash of science-fiction and full of inscrutabilities, Sarah Langan's novel is as entreating and creepy as it is timely and humane.
NPR's Books We Love is a roundup of favorite books of the year, sorted and tagged to help you find exactly what you're looking for. From the meet cutes to the happy endings and through all the ups and downs in between, we're recommending great books for people who love love and romance.
Ursula Villarreal-Moura's debut novel movingly portrays its protagonist coming to terms with an imbalanced, difficult, and sometimes harmful friendship that was also a key part of her life for years.
In her new novel, Leigh Bardugo drags readers into a world of servitude, magic, power struggles, and intrigue — one where there isn't a single character that doesn't have a secret agenda.
Hanif Abdurraqib's latest book is about hoops, sure, but it's also about so much more. It's another remarkable book from one of the country's smartest cultural critics.
Eric Rickstad's novel is full of sadness and rage; it forces readers to look at one of the ugliest parts of U.S. culture, a too-common occurrence that is extremely rare in other countries.
Jordan Mechner is known for his video games. But here he brings to life the many twists and turns that underscore the pervasive impact of the past — and the connectedness that remains in the present.
Marie Mutsuki Mockett's latest novel about a wife and mother is wise and sensitive, and a stunning reflection on how we reinvent ourselves when we're left with no other choice.