Didion, Revisited
“I didn’t know what I was getting into.” David L. Ulin on the experience of revisiting the writer whose novels…
BN Review
Nothing to See Here
In the new novel from the author of “The Family Fang,” a pair of siblings shares a mysterious — and…
Adrienne Brodeur on a Secret’s Destructive Allure
To be made party to her mother’s secrets was, for teenage Adrienne Brodeur, at first a sign of their deep…
The Topeka School
In the new novel from the author of “Leaving the Atocha Station,” the boundary between invention and memory isn’t a…
Breaking the Frame: Sarah Broom Unearths Her Family’s Story in “The Yellow House”
The author of the stunning new memoir “The Yellow House” took a reporter’s tools to trace her New Orleans family’s…
Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark
The hybrid punctuation mark has met with resistance from many readers and writers since its invention by an early printer.…
The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead’s new novel tells the story of two boys incarcerated a Florida “academy” — and raises haunting questions about…
David McCullough and the Meaning of History
Why the writer’s work capturing “the Spirit of America” has never been more timely.
Ocean Vuong and the Power of Loss
The poet-turned-novelist brings a haunting, fragmentary approach to the story of a young man’s relationship with his mother in “On…
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
Casey Cep revisits the true crime story that tantalized and eluded Harper Lee — and finds a window into the…
Say Nothing
The long-unsolved murder of a Belfast widow is the dark gateway into Patrick Radden Keefe’s portrait of terror, secrets and…
Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing
The most celebrated political biographer of our era unveils the painstaking methods out of which his masterworks have been built.
The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, A Revolution in Hollywood, And The Making of A Legendary Film
A new book revisits the making of Sam Peckinpah’s blood-soaked masterpiece.
The Border
Don Winslow concludes the epic drug-trade trilogy he began in “The Power of the Dog,” and his stories have never…
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
A sweeping new look at the modern history of American Indians challenges many of the narratives that have defined mainstream…
Five Books for Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Reading to explore and celebrate the life — and extend the legacy — of the great civil rights leader.
Kristen Roupenian: “We Have So Many Selves Wandering the World”
The author of the viral short story “Cat Person” talks with Maris Kreizman on that story and her new collection…
“The Trouble with All the Houses I’ve Lived In”: Lucia Berlin in Fiction and Memoir
A posthumous memoir and collection of stories from the author of A Manual for Cleaning Woman offer a glimpse into…
Ninth Street Women
Mary Gabriel’s group biography puts the spotlight on five trailblazers of abstract art — all of them women.
Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
A new life of the great foe of slavery and racism contends with its subject’s own monumental work of autobiography.