At work: hardworking news journalists. At home: omnivorous fiction readers. We asked our colleagues what they've enjoyed most this year and here are the titles they shared.
The term "book ban" is used a lot in media and elsewhere when addressing the rise in challenges to certain books being allowed in schools and public libraries. But is it more political hyperbole or a censorship alarm bell?
Paul Tremblay's latest tale is dark, surprisingly violent, and incredibly multilayered — a superb addition to his already impressive oeuvre showing he can deliver for fans and also push the envelope.
An irresistible new Hulu series follows the quarter-life growing pains of a lonely South Londoner. It's based on a 2019 novel by showrunner Candice Carty-Williams.
Jill Ciment wrote about a relationship she had with a teacher when she was very young – that turned into a marriage – in Half a Life. Now, eight years after his death at 93, she reconsiders their relationship in light of the #MToo movement.
Reactions have been brutal to Canadian writer Sam Forster, who disguised himself as a Black man and traveled the U.S. to document how racism persists in society.
Morgan Talty's debut novel is a touching narrative about family in which the past and present are constantly on the page as we follow a man's life, while also entertaining what that life could have been.
Dreaming is often misunderstood. But in a new book, a neuroscientist argues that it’s one of the most vital functions of the human brain, and just about anyone can tap into dreams’ insights.
In Bomb Island, a teenager named Fish lives as the adopted son of island-dwellers who make their living running boat tours of the site where a nuclear bomb was accidentally dropped into the ocean decades ago.
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? Why are The Beatles, well, The Beatles? Behavioral economist Cass Sunstein explores the alchemy of fame.
Did you know on average a sloth will fall out of a tree once a week for its entire life? It's true — and the inspiration for Brian Cronin and Doreen Cronin's new children's book, Mama in the Moon.
Stuart Turton’s bizarre whodunit also works as a science fiction allegory full of mystery that contemplates the end of the world and what it means to be human.
This week Code Switch digs into The Ministry of Time, a new book that author Kailene Bradley describes as a "romance about imperialism." It focuses on real-life Victorian explorer Graham Gore, who died on a doomed Arctic expedition in 1847. But in this novel, time travel is possible and Gore is brought to the 21st century where he's confronted with the fact that everyone he's ever known is dead, that the British Empire has collapsed, and that perhaps he was a colonizer.
Taylor Brown's Rednecks is a superb historical drama full of violence and larger-than-life characters that chronicles the events of leading to the Battle of Blair Mountain.
