Mark Twain once said “truth is stranger than fiction” and here's a shining example. Patricia Hearst, heiress to the Randolph W. Hearst fortune, was kidnapped by the ragtag terrorist group the Symbionese Liberation Army and then seemingly became a…
The new suspense novel from Noah Hawley (showrunner for TV's Fargo) opens with a plane taking off from Martha’s Vineyard on a foggy evening, but it crashes soon after lift-off. On the plane are a cable news mogul and his family, their bodyguard, a…
Cameroonian writer Mbue’s debut is a poignant tale of one couple’s pursuit of the American dream. In the months preceding the 2007 financial crisis Jende Jonga, an immigrant from Cameroon, lands a job as chauffeur to Wall Street exec Clark Edwards.…
Widowed 69-year-old Arthur Pepper follows the same routine every day after losing his wife Miriam a year ago. After he happens upon a charm bracelet which belonged to Miriam, Arthur begins an international adventure to unravel the story behind each…
Please do not let the hubbub turn you away from Emma Cline’s debut novel. This book reads like an unholy alliance between Judy Blume and Helter Skelter and should not be missed. Evie Boyd is a messed-up fourteen-year-old kid whose parents are going…
Set in Jamaica, Dennis-Benn’s debut is beautiful and heartbreaking. Margot works at a resort but barters sex on the side to eke out a living and help her younger sister Thandi pay for school. Her bitter mother Delores sells souvenirs to tourists.…
Louise Erdrich’s powerful latest is set in a place familiar to her readers: an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. Landreaux Iron is hunting a deer when he accidently kills his neighbor and friend Peter Ravich’s five-year-old son. The tragedy sets…
Jane, the youngest daughter of a farmer in rural Mississippi, is born in the Depression years with an inoperable birth defect that limits her life choices in challenging ways. After a youthful romance, she struggles to find her place in the world,…
This book on Chinese philosophy might seem an arcane subject but Harvard professor Puett does a great job making it relevant to life in this day and age. Some of the ancient Chinese authors discussed here were contemporaries of Socrates, Plato and…
Fans of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time should be warned that Haddon's story collection is more atmospheric and foreboding than charming or hopeful, but this diverse collection of stories is impressive and often darkly comic. It…
The Booker Prize-nominated novelist tells the true story of his family's relationship with their troubled homeland, Libya. Matar's father was a leading dissident who stood against the Qaddafi regime, and so the family went into exile in Egypt. Not…
The female computers of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory made guided missiles of WWII possible, along with the moonshots. As machines began to take over calculations, these women pioneered computer programming and are still a valuable asset for…
Johnson encourages us nature lovers to forget about our idealized parks and preserves for a little while and to appreciate the life dwelling all around us in our cities. We humans have a bad habit of forgetting that we're part of nature, and so are…
Oyeyemi continues to demonstrate her gift of storytelling. Her imaginative sentences and whimsical writing employ various aesthetics that transform the mundane into the extraordinary. The same thing is true of her witty titles: "'Sorry' Doesn't…
