weekend reads

Colin Barrett's debut collection deals with some dismal topics. But Tessa Hadley, who picked the book for our Weekend Reads series, praises the Irish writer's "lovely, high-flown, playful" writing.

In this installment of our Weekend Reads series, author Meg Medina selects Skila Brown's novel in poems Caminar, which follows a young boy who survives the slaughter of his village in Guatemala.

M.G. Vassanji's book, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, wrestles with questions of identity in a story about a young Indian boy coming of age in 1950s Kenya, a time of great political unrest.

In honor of National Poetry Month, our latest Weekend Read is Fred Moten's collection The Little Edges. Poet Douglas Kearney says Moten's power is in his attention to music, both in text and subject.

Margaret Drabble's The Millstone, set in the 1960s, tells the story of a young, unmarried woman who finds herself pregnant. Author Tessa Hadley says this 50-year-old novel is a weekend must-read.

In this installment of Weekend Reads, Jean Kwok recommends Lisa See's novel China Dolls, about the unlikely friendship formed by three young women on vaudeville's all-Asian "Chop Suey Circuit."

In our Weekend Reads series, NPR's Rachel Martin talks to Meg Medina about Isabel Quintero's novel, Gabi, a Girl in Pieces. It's the story of a Mexican-American teenager struggling with her identity.