Boyle (Talk to Me) skewers American culture, masculine identity, and the modern age in his splendid latest collection. In “These Are the Circumstances,” a suburban husband kills a rattlesnake in his backyard, with disastrous results. In “The Thirteenth Day,” an outbreak of Covid-19 on a cru... Continue reading »

Das’s searing debut centers on the plight of sex workers in contemporary Calcutta, India. Cell phones now enable sex workers to make their own deals, so pimps and madams have been forced to diversify their activities, bribe more officials, and take harsh measures against those who flout their “arran... Continue reading »

Novik dazzles in her brilliant and compulsively readable final Scholomance fantasy, which picks up immediately after the events of The Last Graduate. Galadriel “El” Higgins has successfully trapped 92% of all wizard-hunting monsters, or mals, in the magical boarding school Scholomance, now ... Continue reading »

Rai (First Comes Like) continues her hot streak with this delightful action-packed rom-com/caper mash-up full of jewel heists, sizzling hot sex scenes, and high-stakes backroom poker games. Mira Patel ran from her family’s less-than-legal life in Las Vegas when she was 18. Now she’s settled... Continue reading »

In this taut, claustrophobic drama from Stechshulte (The Amateurs), a man named Glen’s road trip to attend a friend’s wedding takes an unexpected turn. When his car breaks down on an isolated stretch of road on a dark and rainy night, the familiar horror premise brings him to the home of th... Continue reading »

Spanning 30-plus years and 11 collections, Nurkse’s poems are as fresh and bizarre as ever, lingering at checkpoints, border crossings, transit areas, and “that uncertain moment/ between false dawn and dawn.” Nurkse’s portraits of travelers—with “their suitcases tied with twine, their sacks made of ... Continue reading »

This propulsive thriller from Parks (Woman in Shadow) follows a small-town art instructor who must face her past to stop a murderer. Sam Williams is miraculously unscathed after an SUV crashes into the temporary classroom where she teaches art to elementary schoolers in LaCrosse, Wash. An i... Continue reading »

Mestyanek Young’s page-turning debut details her escape from the Children of God religious cult and her disillusionment after joining the U.S. Army. Born into the Children of God, the author endured relentless extreme hunger, as well as sexual and physical abuse at the hands of the “Uncles,” or pred... Continue reading »

Chef Forkish (The Elements of Pizza), founder of Ken’s Artisan Pizza, turns his attention to developing doughs and techniques specifically for pans and Dutch ovens in his magnificent latest. His revised starter, a natural levain, calls for reduced flour, takes only a week to produce, and re... Continue reading »

Smith (On the Road with Saint Augustine), a philosophy professor at Calvin University, delivers a lyrical exploration of how faith intersects with history and time. He posits that many Christians live “nowhen” and “imagine themselves wholly governed by timeless principles, unchanging convic... Continue reading »

Taiwanese American high schooler June Chu, a Midwesterner, searches for love and autonomy in Gracia’s emotionally raw debut. June just wants to be “good enough” for her mother—who is never short on Chinese proverbs and constantly compares June to her valedictorian older sister. But third-place wins ... Continue reading »