'Eileen' Is Dark, Damaged Fun
Ottessa Moshfegh's new novel follows a defiantly, triumphantly off-putting young woman who dreams of escaping her grim New England existence. Critic Jean Zimmerman calls it "pleasingly perverse."
Books
Everyone's Likely To Be Sad At This Year's Hugos
The Hugo Awards celebrate the best in science fiction and fantasy, but this year they're fraught with controversy after a self-identified conservative coalition organized to dominate the nominations.
For Summer Reading Lists, Some Schools Take A More Modern Approach
NPR's Audie Cornish talks with Kathryn VanArendonk, who teaches developmental reading and writing at Union County College, about how some schools are including contemporary books on summer lists.
NPR Bestsellers: Week Of August 20, 2015
The lists are compiled from weekly surveys of close to 500 independent bookstores nationwide.
NPR Bestsellers: Hardcover Fiction, Week Of August 20, 2015
A rich girl with a congenital heart defect and an underprivileged boy with athletic talents meet periodically over the course of 30 years in Jennifer Weiner's Who Do You Love. It debuts at No. 13.
NPR Bestsellers: Hardcover Nonfiction, Week Of August 20, 2015
Rinker Buck's The Oregon Trail recounts the author's old-fashioned journey down the historic route. It appears at No. 9.
NPR Bestsellers: Paperback Fiction, Week Of August 20, 2015
In Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty follows the fallout of a riot at a school trivia night that leaves someone dead. It appears at No. 10.
NPR Bestsellers: Paperback Nonfiction, Week Of August 20, 2015
In Black Mass, Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill recount James "Whitey" Bulger's rise to the top of Boston's drug trade while he was also informing for the FBI. It appears at No. 13.
Gothic Poetry And Grim Necessity In 'Shattered Wings'
Aliette de Bodard's new novel is set in a postapocalyptic Paris, devastated by a magical war between factions of fallen angels. It's a gritty mix of high gothic poetry and knotty angelic rivalries.
How Close Are We Really To A Robot-Run Society?
From self-driving cars to automated warehouses, humans are being pushed out of the equation. Soon, robots will "do a million other things we can't even conceive of," author John Markoff says.