Book Reviews

Jaime Cortez's debut collection, Gordo, is set in and around the same dusty California town that inspired John Steinbeck. It's a lovely portrait of a time and place that still manages to be universal.

This year's Summer Poll is all about the past decade in science fiction and fantasy, so we asked critic Jason Sheehan to come up with his own list of the new sci-fi that's blowing his mind.

Words can seem infinite — but language has limits. In his new poetry collection, Pilgrim Bell, Kaveh Akbar shapes language into prayer, into body, into patchwork — but only into what can be known.

In Sarah Zachrich Jeng's debut thriller The Other Me, a young woman wanders away from a boring birthday party and finds herself in a different life, with a husband and family she didn't have before.

Though Susan Williams' book is framed far too expansively, it overflows with fascinating information, research and bold ideas — especially regarding Congo's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba.

Perhaps most interesting in Tim Higgins' book are the hints at what might have been: Tesla could have built a plug-in hybrid, or sold itself to Google, or become a battery supplier.

You don't have to be Catholic to connect with Claire Luchette's vivid story of a lonely young woman yearning for community — and also for everything she gave up to be part of that community.

YZ Chin's Edge Case follows a Malaysian immigrant working at a lousy, sexist startup, worried about her marriage and the thought of having to move back home — all topics it handles beautifully.

No fewer than five assassins are on the high speed train at the center of Kotaro Isaka outlandish and virtuoso novel — and within pages, they're going after each other.

Novelist Hwang Sok-yong spent years in prison — a disruption that's reflected in the structure of his new memoir. It's a cinematic, riveting story that captures the struggles of his life and career.