Book Public

In the short story collection To Be a Man, Nicole Krauss helps us decipher the puzzle of what it means to be a man—and woman—in various roles and stages of life.

The Lonely Voice: The third in our series celebrating the stories of Gina Berriault, is “Works of the Imagination.”

“Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write” : Claire Messud On Her Life as a Writer and Reader

Mobile Home: A Memoir in Essays by Megan Harlan

In Dennis Mahoney’s novel Ghostlove, protagonist William Rook is a reluctant occultist who falls in love with a ghost named June.

The Lonely Voice: "The Infinite Passion of Expectation" by Gina Berriault

'Tomboy': Lisa Selin Davis Explores the Complex Evolution of Tomboyism and Gender Nonconformity

A review of Marie-Helene Bertino’s novel Parakeet.

"Missionares": Phil Klay's Novel Shows The Far-Reaching Effects Of Modern Wars

“The Lonely Voice” #1 features acclaimed author Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides discussing The Overcoat by Gina Berriault ,

"How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)": Barbara Kingsolver's Passion for Poetry Shines in Latest Collection

Bill Hayes is the author of "How We Live Now: Scenes from the Pandemic."

This week on "Book Public," the mid-pandemic release of the paperback edition of "Maggie Brown & Others" by Peter Orner.

In two of his previous books, Randall Kenan created the town of Tims Creek, North Carolina. His stories of the goings-on of Tims Creek continue in his latest collection "If I Had Two Wings."

In Sue Miller’s latest novel, "Monogamy," Annie is a happy wife. Her husband, Graham, is a man with a magnetic personality and big appetites. One day, he seems preoccupied and distant, but her anxiety dissolves when he presents her with flowers.

Likes is the latest short story collection by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, featuring nine stories.

Joshua Bennett’s latest poetry collection is Owed. That’s O-W-E-D. The book is a series of odes — lyric poetry in the form of an address to a particular subject — but it is also about what is owed to Black Americans during this time of racial reckoning.

Fifteen stories make up the debut collection by Jenny Bhatt, and each story is as different from the next as it can be, featuring diverse settings, characters, and conflicts. Points of view vary as well. Flash fiction pieces are interspersed here among the much longer stories, but you’ll luxuriate for as long in a story that spans a couple of pages and be haunted by its lingering lessons.

When Sarah Menkedick was a new mother, she openly shared the expected details of her life about sleepless nights or day-care waiting lists. The only taboo topic was the fear that consumed her waking life.

The first thing you notice when you pick up this slim volume is the image on the cover featuring a young girl facing one way, standing on a shore by the water’s edge. In the foreground, a man wearing a mask walks in the other direction.

In Callan Wink’s novel, August, we follow the title character, August, from ages 12 to 19. His parents divorce. He observes the many ways their union was illogical. He is quiet and unassuming like his father, but he has a natural curiosity and hunger to learn like his mother. He lives with one parent in Michigan and then the other in Montana. Eventually, a dramatic and violent situation makes him...

The Heart and Other Monsters is a grief memoir, one that also intersects with a murder mystery. The first thing we learn when we read the first page of the book is that Rose Andersen’s sister has been murdered, but Andersen has no proof. She admits this up front before guiding us through a plausible series of events that implicate a number of people in bringing Sarah’s short life to a sad end.

In Matthew Salesses’ Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear, protagonist Matt Kim is battling himself in a world that would rather have his double if it suits their expectations of what makes the model minority Asian American. When Matt Kim discovers his double has vanished, he fears he will be next. He sets off on to find out what happened to the other Matt and discover himself.

This week’s Pop-Up Book! is Gangs of the El Paso-Juárez Borderland: A History by Mike Tapia. The book offers a 100-year history of the subcultures of the El Paso-Juárez Borderland.

When Alice King is murdered in her home in the South Side of Chicago, her daughter, Ruby, despairs at the thought of being left to live with her father in a house that holds a silenced history of dysfunction and abuse. Her goal is to flee and start fresh in new place. But the path will not be an easy one.