Book Reviews

The former vice president is out with a book that recounts in heart-wrenching detail his son Beau's diagnosis and death from brain cancer — and his deliberations about running for president.

In 2014, British journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote a blog post about how tired she was of engaging with oblivious white people about race. That post went viral, and it's now the basis for her new book.

Louise Erdrich's new novel is a frequently bizarre near-future dystopia that never really comes close to getting off the ground, but it won't dent her reputation as one of the country's best writers.

Tiny filler words in human rapid-fire conversation hold the key to understanding how language is unique, according to a new book. But anthropologist Barbara J. King raises some questions.

"Economic concepts don't readily lend themselves to cartoons," says the former Secretary of Labor, a talented cartoonist who's put a lot of thought into drawing abstract ideas like tax expenditures.

Two new books about unreal islands and yet-to-be-real planets have much to tell us about what human beings want to know when we look around at the world — life is uncertain, and our fears need maps.

Even if you haven't seen the musical, you can keep warm this November with a delightful trio of novellas set in and around the battalion commanded by Alexander Hamilton at the siege of Yorktown.

Emily Suvada's debut novel — a high-tech young adult dystopia — is bursting with ideas (and exploding viruses). And while it might seem like a conventional thriller, it's got a twist to reckon with.

NPR's Ron Elving says historian Robert Dallek's latest tome "emphasizes the human scale of FDR's life, his interaction with the people around him and the interplay among his intimates."

Author John Banville makes a valiant imaginative leap with Mrs. Osmond, his attempt to craft a new ending for the heroine of Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady, but he doesn't quite land it.