NPR Book News and Reviews
The following book news and reviews are presented via RSS feed from National Public Radio (NPR) for the benefit of our patrons. The opinions expressed are those of the individual authors, and do not reflect the views of the Wauwatosa Library, its staff, volunteers or associated governing and philanthropic bodies.
- ‘Meat Cake Bible’ Is Packed With Frills, Chills And … Pez?
Graphic artist, fortuneteller, musician and mischief maker Dame Darcy published the comic Meat Cake from 1993 to 2008. This new compilation is packed full of all the things that obsessed her. ... More - ‘You Will Know Me’ Says No, You Won’tMegan Abbott's novel about a talented young gymnast and her mother starts with a mysterious death, but the real mysteries are the characters themselves: You never really know the people close to you. ... More
- Minicomics May Be Small, But They Pack Big ThrillsMinicomics are kind of a relic — few artists now want to go to the trouble of printing and distributing paper comics. But there are still a few out there that are worth the trouble of hunting down. ... More
- Dystopian Novel Challenges Misogyny As ‘The Natural Way Of Things’Charlotte Wood's short, gripping book focuses on 10 women who have been sent to a prison camp after various sex scandals. Critic John Powers calls The Natural Way of Things a ferocious novel. ... More
- ‘Sunlight Pilgrims’ Is More Than Just A Chilling Tale Of Climate ChangeJenni Fagan's latest follows a transgender girl and her mother in a near-future world that's slowly freezing to death. Fagan makes potent but subtle links between climate change and personal change. ... More
- Gay Talese Stays Too Long At ‘The Voyeur’s Motel’Gay Talese conflates the journalist and the voyeur in his new book about a motel owner who spied on his guests. And he makes the readers voyeurs as well: We watch him watching the unwary motel guests. ... More
- ‘Multiple Choice’ Is A) A Novel, B) In Test Form, C) Fascinating, D) All Of The AboveAlejandro Zambra's playful new novel is fashioned in the format of Chile's Academic Aptitude Test, the standardized exam high school students there take — complete with multiple choice questions. ... More
- ‘To The Secretary’ Tries To Unwind The Tangles Of DiplomacyState Department veteran Mary Thompson-Jones sifts through a few choice WikiLeaks cables and parses them for a lay audience in To The Secretary, a fascinating primer on a complex and difficult field. ... More
- ‘The House At The Edge Of Night’ Is A Comforting, Familiar PlaceCatherine Banner's new novel takes familiar tropes — it's a multigenerational family saga set in Sicily, and yes, there's limoncello and dancing in the piazza — and makes them fresh and inviting. ... More
- Steinbeck Is An Influence — And A Character — In ‘Monterey Bay’Lindsay Hatton makes a bold move in her new novel: She lifts a character from John Steinbeck's 1945 classic Cannery Row -- and then the author himself — for a tale of thwarted romance by the sea. ... More
- Complex Stories Snap Together In ‘This Must Be The Place’Maggie O'Farrell's novel jumps between multiple storylines, points of view, times and places to tell the story of an American professor who meets a reclusive French actress on a lonely Irish road. ... More
- ‘Stars’ Is A Sequel That Goes A Bit AskewIn The Stars Askew, Rjurik Davidson returns to the world of Caeli-Amur, now trying to put itself back together after a revolution. But the story bogs down in plural narratives and political minutiae. ... More
- Time Catches Up With Us All In ‘The Heavenly Table’Donald Ray Pollock's surreal, hardscrabble new novel is set in 1917, but it could just as well be 917; his characters are all lost in time and puzzled by the pace at which the future's coming at them. ... More
- ‘The Dream Life Of Astronauts’ Is A Journey To Emotional Deep SpacePatrick Ryan's book of short stories is set around Cape Canaveral, Fla., during the 1960s and '70s. Critic Maureen Corrigan says it's the best new short story collection she's read in light years. ... More
- What Price Happiness? Pretty Expensive, According To ‘The Invoice’Jonas Karlsson's clever parable follows an average guy who's uncommonly content with his lot in life — until he gets an astronomical bill from a sinister entity trying to redistribute happiness. ... More