Teacher and writer Tom Zoellner has logged tens of thousands of miles zigzagging the continent with, a small tent and backpack, investigating American places and themes — metaphors for our country.Read More
The book is called “Journey of the Freckled Indian.” It tells the story of a young girl called Freckles who gets bullied by her classmates after sharing that she’s Native American. Author Alyssa London says it’s loosely based on her experience growing up in Bothell and sharing her Tlingit heritage in a show and tell.Read More
Robinson's latest Gilead novel centers on prodigal son Jack, newly released from prison and in love with a Black woman — a crime in 1950s Missouri. But it's not a pat tale of love overcoming racism.Read More
Renowned ballerina Misty Copeland's new kids' book Bunheads draws on her own childhood experiences — if your kids love dance, it's just the thing to keep them going until classes come back.Read More
As the central character struggles with grief and shock at her late husband's infidelity, author Sue Miller keeps deftly shifting what readers might anticipate to be the ending of this novel. Read More
Gyasi's debut novel, Homegoing, won a PEN/Hemingway Award. Her follow-up, Transcendent Kingdom, draws on Gyasi's life as the daughter of immigrants from Ghana.Read More
In her first book since the critically acclaimed H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald urges us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world — and fight to preserve it.Read More
Kids' books columnist Juanita Giles says message books are often nutritious and boring — but LeBron James's new I Promise combines beautiful art with real emotional impact that her kids loved.Read More
Alexis Daria's soapy, sizzling new novel follows two telenovela actors who fall for each other while playing bitter exes — and have to figure out how to balance private love and public stardom.Read More
New ‘Twilight’ Book Will Boost Olympic Peninsula Vampire Tourism, If COVID Doesn’t Put A Stake In It
The Twilight phenomenon gets an injection of fresh blood this Tuesday with the release of a new installment in the bestselling vampire saga from author Stephenie Meyer. The series of novels and subsequent hit movies spurred legions of fans to visit the fictional story's real-life setting on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. But a predicted "renaissance" in vampire tourism Read More
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.Read More
In the world of Blue Ticket, girls are issued either blue tickets or white ones on the day of their first periods. Blue tickets grant a career but no children; white tickets mean home and family.Read More
In an interview with NPR, the president's niece says the cruelty of the president's upbringing was eventually mirrored in his own actions, making him unfit for office in her view.Read More
Hana Tooke creates a memorable villain, Matron Gassbeek, who menaces the feisty orphans of The Unadoptables in the grand tradition of awful authority figures like Miss Trunchbull and Viola Swamp. Read More
A young woman tries to free her cousin from a dangerous living situation in a crumbling family mansion in Silvia Moreno-Garcia's new novel. Mexican Gothic injects fresh blood into a classic genre.Read More
Anaya's 1972 classic Bless Me, Ultima — about a young Mexican American boy and his curandera mentor in New Mexico in the 1940s — inspired a generation of Chicano writers.Read More
In A Most Beautiful Thing, Arshay Cooper shares the story of how he, and others from rival gang neighborhoods on Chicago's West Side, found their way to crew — and each other.Read More
What does it mean to be anti-racist, and how should adults talk to kids about race and racism? Children's author Renée Watson and anti-racism scholar Ibram X. Kendi suggest starting with books.Read More
Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir's atmospheric novel, about a young writer and her outcast friends in 1963 Iceland, will transport you to another time and place, though not necessarily a rosier time and place.Read More
Tamani's new young adult novel follows two high school basketball stars who fall in love at first sight — but then have to deal with their own issues and secrets to build a lasting relationship.Read More
Porochista Khakpour's work is strongest when she turns the lens on herself to examine how she, too, is complicit; many essays here are just too tantalizingly brief to allow space for deep analysis.Read More
Curtis Sittenfeld's latest novel imagines a life for Hillary Rodham in which she turns down Bill Clinton's proposals and forges a career for herself, as a law professor and later a politician.Read More
In Amanda Sellet's charming young adult romance, a teenage bookworm transfers to the local public high school and discovers that the literary classics she lives by aren't quite a match for real life.Read More
"Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer announced Monday that she will release "Midnight Sun," the prequel to the popular series, after originally calling off the book's release more than 10 years ago.Read More
Kaouther Adimi's novel tells the real-life story of Edmond Charlot, the Algerian bookseller and publisher who witnessed his country's independence struggle — and famously discovered Albert Camus.Read More
Former NPR journalist Lulu Miller was inspired by a scientist who started again when his life's work was destroyed. Now, she writes about what she can take from his story, even when it's not all good.Read More
The independent book business has been battered in recent decades, as locally owned sellers strained to compete with the online-giant Amazon. But the COVID-19 crisis has forced many to close their doors, depriving both readers and writers the spaces they thrive on.Read More
Christy Lefteri's novel of the Syrian refugee crisis won the third annual award, which doles out $35,000 for fiction that illuminates a pressing social issue.Read More
The horror writer says he understands why fans have said the COVID-19 pandemic feels like living inside one of his novels. King says he doesn't feel panic or terror, but rather, a "gnawing anxiety."Read More
Julia Alvarez returns to adult fiction with Afterlife, which she calls her first novel as an "elder." It's about a newly retired woman whose comfortable life is upended when her husband dies.Read More
Pretty Bitches, a new essay collection edited by Lizzie Skurnick, explores how words that sound complimentary can actually be loaded with sexism. "These words are code," Skurnick says.Read More
Our kids' books columnist Juanita Giles reports that, stuck at home with her family, she's turned to a series by Brad Meltzer and Christopher Eliopoulos, for stories about relatable heroes.Read More
"Dolly hopes this series of stories will provide comfort and reassurance to coping kids and families during the shelter-in-place mandates," the Imagination Library said.Read More
The new Netflix series was inspired by Deborah Feldman's best-selling memoir about ending her arranged marriage. In the TV adaptation, the young woman leaves her home in Brooklyn and moves to Berlin.Read More
In Samantha Mabry's new novel, three prickly sisters are haunted, maybe literally, by their fourth, who's died in an accident. She has a message for them, but they may be too sunk in grief to hear it.Read More
Parents have been circulating ideas for how to keep kids happy — or at least occupied — during this time of social isolation due to COVID-19. Our Arts Desk has some heart-felt suggestions to offer.Read More
Victoria James loves wine; she became a sommelier at 21 — but she discovered that the world of wine was an old boys' club that didn't welcome women. Her new memoir chronicles her fight to fit in.Read More
In her first novel since the hit pandemic tale Station Eleven, Mandel introduces a troubled brother and sister who get involved with a crooked hotel magnate, changing their lives in unexpected ways.Read More
Poet Natalie Diaz returns, interrogating the lasting effects of colonization asking: If a colonizer's influence can't be eradicated from a culture, how can you push back against violence and erasure?Read More
Roman Dial hoped his son would be his outdoor partner for life. But that dream ended when his son disappeared in a Central American wilderness. Dial's new book is The Adventurer's Son.Read More
The Washington Post's Philip Kennicott suffered his mother's harsh words and actions throughout childhood. His book is partly a need to acknowledge her "sadness and anger and unaccountable rages."Read More
Barnes & Noble suspended its campaign to reissue classic books with covers depicting protagonists as people of color after many authors, including McKinney, criticized the initiative.Read More
Patrons at several southeastern Washington and north central Idaho libraries will no longer have to pay fines for overdue books. Lewiston High School is joining libraries in Lapwai and Orofino, Idaho and Clarkston and Asotin, Washington in abolishing fines.Read More
Sarah Gailey's new novella is set in a dystopian future where the United States resembles the Old West, and bands of women on horseback distribute government-approved media to distant villages.Read More
Rita Woods' ambitious novel spans 200 years and multiple storylines — it's a complex story of loss and survival that doesn't always work. But Woods creates memorable characters readers can relate to.Read More
Stevenson built a museum and monument in Alabama dedicated to slavery and its legacy. "We need to create institutions in this country that motivate more people to say 'Never again,' " he says.Read More
NPR's Steve Inskeep, discussing his book Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Fremont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity and Helped Cause the Civil War, touches on parallels to U.S. politics in 2020.Read More
"The books on this list have transcended generations and, much like the Library itself, are as relevant today as they were when they first arrived," said the library's president.Read More
Stafford is often remembered as wife No. 1 in the many biographies and studies of poet Robert Lowell. But a new Library of America edition of her three novels showcases her masterful writing.Read More
Our kids' books columnist, Juanita Giles, gave her daughter Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story for Christmas; she says the book's depiction of food and history mirrors her family's experiences.Read More
