Book Reviews

With wit and subtle anecdote, Sayed Kashua explores the meaning of identity, prejudice and everyday life as an Arab-Israeli newspaper writer living in Jerusalem.

A story about violence, drug addiction and family dysfunction could have been too bleak, but Travis Mulhauser's Sweetgirl is nuanced, with sympathetic characters and carefully built suspense.

Robert Jackson Bennett makes a bold move in this second volume of his Divine Cities series — he abandons (mostly) the fan favorites from volume 1, and picks up years later in a different city.

Rachel Cantor's new novel tries to draw out the connections between love and scholarship in a tale of a frustrated translator looking for a new life. But it's occasionally too clever for its own good.

Jim Krusoe's new novel is hard to summarize. It's about the odd inhabitants of an odd, bunker-like apartment building — but also about life, death, and the importance of stories.

Elizabeth McKenzie's new novel about the pitfalls of approaching marriage is a sharply written romantic comedy with elements of experimental fiction. Maureen Corrigan calls it "totally endearing."

Charlie Jane Anders' debut novel follows a girl with magical powers and a technically brilliant boy, uneasy friends since childhood, who get caught up in an apocalyptic war between science and magic.

Finland hosts the World Science Fiction Convention in 2017 — but if you can't make it to Helsinki, hit the library: more and more Finnish speculative fiction authors are getting English translations.

Bill Bryson follows up his classic travelogue Notes From A Small Island 20 years later — older, grayer, and definitely crankier. It's a charming trip, though marred by a little too much grumpiness.