Book Reviews
The saga of how cult sci-fi novel “Dune” slowly permeated the mainstream over decades is a tale with almost as many twists and turns as “Dune” itself, and author Ryan Britt recounts it in the lively and entertaining “The Spice Must Flow,” writes AP’s Mae Anderson.
“There is no fixing Big Tech,” Cory Doctorow, a novelist and public-interest technologist who gained online fame with the blog “Boing Boing,” writes in his new book “The Internet Con: How To Seize The Means of Computation,” a manifesto for people who want to destroy it.
Millie Bobby Brown, best known as the actor who plays the character Eleven on hit TV show “Stranger Things,” has written a romance novel set during London in World War II.
Susannah Kennedy is left reeling when her mother Jane shockingly decides to take her own life, despite being a healthy 75 years.
Stephen King has created some remarkable villains, writes Associated Press reviewer Rob Merrill. But the married antagonists in his latest horror novel, “Holly,” are scary precisely because they seem so ordinary.
Comedian Maria Bamford details her decades-long journey to address her various mental health issues with compassion and humor in her new memoir, “Sure I’ll Join Your Cult.”
LaToya Watkins has surpassed the high bar set by her debut novel in her latest book, a collection of short stories titled “Holler, Child.”
Saul Austerlitz tells the story of how the 2004 film “Anchorman” was made and grew a cult-like following in his book “Kind of a Big Deal.”
Bill is found dead in his bed with two bullets in him and a wife who heard only one shot and didn’t see anything.
Artemisia Gentileschi’s painting skills quickly surpass her father’s. But her future as an artist in strict 17th-century Rome is tenuous at best.
James McBride has done it again. His new novel, “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,” is a gorgeous, ingenious, rollercoaster of a ride that celebrates the values of love and community—heaven and earth.
When an ex-cop-turned-private detective is found hanged from a tree, Chicago PD Detective Annalisa Vega figures his death must be related to one of three cases he had been investigating.
Group biographies are ambitious undertakings. To weave together divergent narratives, even about the most widely known figures, is a challenging feat; To make it coalesce, the writer has to find the right balance of substance and texture.
The unsolved murder of the beautiful Dot King captivated New York. But the hype around the case proved insufficient to catch the killer. So what happened?
In his memoir, “A Pocketful of Happiness,” Swazi-British actor Richard E. Grant charts his love story to his late wife, dialect coach Joan Washington who died of lung cancer in September 2021.
Genevieve Gornichec’s second historical fantasy novel “The Weaver and the Witch Queen” marries Norse mythology with romance and two dashing heroines, who each have to find their own way in 10th century Norway.
Richard Russo returns to what used to be North Bath, New York, in “Somebody’s Fool,” the third novel in his “Fool” series.
Yume Kitasei’s debut novel, “The Deep Sky,” begins in the pivotal moments just before a simple space walk goes horribly wrong.
Colson Whitehead is back with a sequel to his 2021 bestseller “Harlem Shuffle.” That irresistible novel, set in the 1960s, introduced Ray Carney, a Harlem furniture dealer with a “slightly bent” side.
Edie O’Dare was there that night in 1939 when Sophie Melrose, newcomer at FWM studios, was sexually assaulted by Freddy Clarke, famous for playing dashing heroes.
What do you do when your writing career lasts seven decades but you haven’t said everything you once thought about saying?
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Giorgio Parisi walks readers through his research on spin glasses and the history of scientific discoveries in “In a Flight of Starlings: The Wonders of Complex Systems.”
In “Sleepless City,” award-winning crime novelist Reed Farrel Coleman introduces Nick Ryan, a New York City cop turned fixer for the metropolis’s power elite.
When Kasey travels back to her hometown after 15 years away, her best friends are there to help her through it.
Biographer C.W. Goodyear chronicles the life of James Garfield in “President Garfield: From Radical from Unifier.”
Author Tom Rachman uses his new novel “The Imposters” to launch us on a global journey, using a fictional book by an aging Dutch author to tell a series of stories, each about a different kind of writer in a different place.
Kate Storey tells the history of the Kennedys by using the family’s famed compound as the backdrop in “White House By the Sea: A Century of the Kennedys at Hyannis Port.”
C.C. remembers when her family moved to Florida after everything in her life burned down, launching them into a comfortable middle-class life and a fresh start in a state her dad proudly brags has fireworks every night.
Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch’s lakefront engagement party to his longtime girlfriend is interrupted by the thunk of a boat colliding with something in the water.
What is it about stories of transgression that keep us wanting more of them? Tales of heists, con-artists and even murders permeate all corners of society, from Dostoevsky to “Tiger King.”
Fans of Ruth Ware’s thrillers have another to enjoy. “Zero Days” tells the story of a woman on the run and being framed for killing her husband.