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Farrar, Straus & Giroux

This 'Wolf' Will Bite You — And You'll Like It

August 3, 2020 • Laura Van Den Berg's new collection is full of uncanny, exquisite, and painful stories about death, about loss and isolation and falling for the wrong person. Her writing will get under your skin.

Europa Editions

For Summer, 3 Translated Novels To Transport You

August 1, 2020 • You may not really be able to leave the house right now, but of course fiction can take you all over the world. Here are three novels that will help you escape — to Japan, to Portugal and to Spain.

Random House

Yiyun Li Continues Her Conversations With The Dead In 'Must I Go'

July 31, 2020 • Yiyun Li's new book — about a woman looking back on her life by annotating the diary of her late ex-lover — plays with both Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire and Li's own previous work.

In 'True Crimes,' Toobin Presents A Summation For The Jury In The Case Against Trump

True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump, by Jeffrey Toobin Doubleday hide caption

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Doubleday

In 'True Crimes,' Toobin Presents A Summation For The Jury In The Case Against Trump

July 31, 2020 • There is a lot of detail amassed in the CNN analyst's book that even Trump investigation junkies won't have seen, much having to do with behind-the-scenes strategizing and negotiating by lawyers.

True Crime Stories And The Obsession With Them Form 'Unspeakable Acts'

Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession, edited by Sarah Weinman Ecco hide caption

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Ecco

True Crime Stories And The Obsession With Them Form 'Unspeakable Acts'

July 30, 2020 • The search for answers in this nonfiction anthology edited by Sarah Weinman is one of many cohesive elements that make the collection land among the best true crime books of the year.

HarperCollins

A Mean Ghost Story And A Souped-Up Crime Novel Will Wise You Up Fast

Fresh Air

July 30, 2020 • The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die, by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay, centers on an Indian family haunted by a jealous ghost. And S. A. Cosby's Blacktop Wasteland is a noir thriller — with muscle cars.

A Mean Ghost Story And A Souped-Up Crime Novel Will Wise You Up Fast

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In 'Intimations,' Zadie Smith Reflects Back To Us The Early Days Of Now

Intimations: Six Essays, by Zadie Smith Penguin Books hide caption

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Penguin Books

In 'Intimations,' Zadie Smith Reflects Back To Us The Early Days Of Now

July 29, 2020 • Drafted soon after "the global humbling" of COVID began and completed in the days after George Floyd's murder, these personal essays capture the author's reflections during a time outside of time.

William Morrow

'Empire Of Wild' Tells A Small Story — But Not A Slight One

July 29, 2020 • Cherie Dimaline's new novel seems small in scope — it's about a woman who loses her husband and is determined to bring him back, nothing more than that — but it's rich, tightly written and powerful.

A Daughter Unearths And Remembers Trauma In 'Memorial Drive'

Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir, by Natasha Trethewey Ecco hide caption

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Ecco

A Daughter Unearths And Remembers Trauma In 'Memorial Drive'

July 27, 2020 • Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natasha Trethewey explores the relationship between trauma, agency, and voice as she excavates the lingering effects of her mother's murder upon her life.

Cartoonist Adrian Tomine's Self-Deprecating, Self-Aware Humor Shines In Memoir

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, by Adrian Tomine Drawn and Quarterly hide caption

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Drawn and Quarterly

Cartoonist Adrian Tomine's Self-Deprecating, Self-Aware Humor Shines In Memoir

July 25, 2020 • In framing Tomine's life trajectory via professional and personal setbacks and moments of mortification, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist becomes mesmerizing, funny, and deeply honest.

Tor Books

Think Fantasy Is Kid Stuff? Try 'Trouble The Saints'

July 23, 2020 • Alaya Dawn Johnson's new novel is set in New York on the eve of World War II, in a world where a few lucky (well, not that lucky) people are gifted with "saints' hands," that give them strange skills.

Exhausting Effect Of FOIA Requests Evident In 'Baseless'

Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act, by Nicholson Baker Penguin Press hide caption

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Penguin Press

Exhausting Effect Of FOIA Requests Evident In 'Baseless'

July 22, 2020 • Nicholson Baker's book misses the mark in an aim to take readers on a quest to discover if the U.S. used biological weapons developed in the '50s — and to examine the failings of public records law.

Combining Indictment With Insight, A Historian Offers Context For The Age Of Trump

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum Doubleday hide caption

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Doubleday

Combining Indictment With Insight, A Historian Offers Context For The Age Of Trump

July 22, 2020 • Anne Applebaum writes in Twilight of Democracy that heir to fears and hatreds, even advanced societies are straining under repeated blows: protracted war, economic disruptions, migration, a pandemic.

Knopf

The Real 'Hamnet' Died Centuries Ago, But This Novel Is Timeless

July 21, 2020 • Maggie O'Farrell's new novel confronts a parent's worst nightmare: The loss of a child. In this case, it's Hamnet, the real-life son of William Shakespeare, whose death may have inspired Hamlet.

In 'The Answer Is ...' Jeopardy! Host Alex Trebek Carefully Curates His Responses

Alex Trebek on the set of Jeopardy! on Dec. 19, 2019. Eric McCandless/ABC via Getty Images hide caption

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Eric McCandless/ABC via Getty Images

Fresh Air

July 20, 2020 • Set in a Dublin maternity ward in 1918, the novel captures a city devastated by a pandemic. By diving into the terrors of the past, Emma Donoghue presciently anticipates the miseries of our present.

1918 Flu Inspired Donoghue's 'Pull Of The Stars' — A Disquieting Pandemic Novel

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