fiction

New books this week: A foodie memoir, a missing child, witches illustrated, and more

9:07am March 11, 2025

Care and Feeding chronicles life in the culinary world. All the Other Mothers Hate Me follows a mom turned amateur detective. Plus, Karen Russell's first full-length novel since Swamplandia!

'Coming to New York' stories are alive and well in these two new books

1:49pm February 06, 2025

Kay Sohini's graphic memoir, This Beautiful, Ridiculous City, tells a story of migration and redefinition. Gay Talese gathers many of his great pieces about the city in A Town Without Time.

Queue Listen Now

Author Photo - Brittany Newell - credit to Shane Thomas.jpg

A pro dominatrix and novelist says empathy, curiosity and bravery are key to both jobs

1:29pm February 06, 2025

After publishing her first novel when she was 21, Brittany Newell started working as a dominatrix. The job gave her time to write — and plenty of material to draw from. Her new novel is Soft Core.

Queue Listen Now

Secrets feed on time in the masterful novel 'Mothers and Sons'

9:38am January 31, 2025

Adam Haslett's compelling novel focuses on the strained relationship between an asylum lawyer and his mother. It's a beautiful appreciation of the all-too-human mess of life.

Queue Listen Now

Here are the new books we're looking forward to this fall

7:00am September 04, 2024

Bad news: Summer's over. Good news: Fall books are here! We've got a list of 16 titles — fiction and nonfiction — you'll want to look out for.

Book covers of: Like Other Girls; The Dating Playbook; Before the Ever After; Snapped; The Redshirt: A Novel; The Right Swipe: A Novel

Pregame the Super Bowl with our favorite football fiction

10:46am February 08, 2024

by Beth Novey

Of course, leave it to the gigantic nerds at NPR to throw a literary tailgate ... but to thine own self be true, even if it means getting stuffed into your locker later this afternoon.

In Apple TV+'s Slow Horses, Gary Oldman plays Jackson Lamb, the slovenly, brilliant spy who's in charge of a group of failed British spies. The series is based on Mick Herron's Slough House novels. Herron says Lamb might not have "a heart of gold" but he does have "a moral code."

Arts
Books

Gary Oldman had 'free rein' in spy thriller 'Slow Horses' — now back for Season 3

5:05pm November 29, 2023

by Elizabeth Blair

Oldman plays the slovenly leader of failed British spies in the Apple TV+ drama, based on Mick Herron's Slough House novels. Herron is more interested in the character's failures than his virtues.

Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka holds his book The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida at the Shaw Theatre in London on Oct. 14. On Monday, his novel won the 2022 Booker Prize.

Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka wins 2022 Booker Prize

5:48pm October 17, 2022

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

The prestigious award was given to The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, which the judges hailed as "a searing, mordantly funny satire set amid the murderous mayhem of a Sri Lanka beset by civil war."

Books
Arts

Big city devotees find romance in a small town in Emily Henry's 'Book Lovers'

5:00am May 05, 2022

by Carole V. Bell

The playful and clever story pokes holes in pop culture assumptions about small towns from Hallmark movies to romance novels as two rivals in the publishing world find love far from the city lights.

Here's a sampling of books Code Switch readers recommended.

Books

What Code Switch Listeners Are Reading During The Pandemic

5:23pm October 23, 2020

by Natalie Escobar

Some want escapist reads to distract themselves during these times, while others are turning to books that lean into the darkness and dread of the pandemic.