Book Reviews

Kate Atkinson's 2013 best-seller, Life After Life, depicted the century-spanning lives of Ursula Todd; her new book takes a more constrained approach to Ursula's brother, Royal Air Force pilot Teddy.

British artist Brian Catling's fiction debut, about a mysterious forest in an alternate-universe Africa, is finally in the U.S. Reviewer Jason Heller calls it an "eye-gouging, mind-bending spectacle."

Jim Shepard's new novel follows a depressed and probably doomed young boy in the Warsaw Jewish ghetto during World War II. Critic Michael Schaub calls it a "rewarding, shocking and beautiful book."

Eliza Kennedy's snappy new novel follows Lily Wilder, a high-powered litigator conflicted about her upcoming wedding because she's having too much fun with sex, booze and work to settle down.

Store shelves and libraries are packed with post-apocalyptic, dystopian novels right now. Critic Jason Heller has some suggestions to help you wade through the floods. And the fires. And the fallout.

First-time novelist Sabaa Tahir creates Capital Letter Fantasy in An Ember in the Ashes, with rebel Scholars battling an ancient, brutal Empire. Critic Amal El-Mohtar calls it "frequently riveting."