In 1992, a Baptist pastor named Gary Chapman published a book titled “The 5 Love Languages,” about how to categorize different ways we express and receive love. You might know or have heard of Chapman’s theory of the five languages, because they’ve become a kind of cultural touchstone in the subsequent years since the book came out: ...Read more

“You’re a woman, obviously.” This dialogue appears on page 99 of “Porthole” and it’s quite helpful because, in the previous 98 pages, I literally kept flipping back and forth, trying to figure out the gender of our narrator.

This is interesting in a few ways. For one thing, Joanna Howard’s novel is a reminder not to make any ...Read more

Jennifer Givhan, a Mexican American and Indigenous poet and novelist, grew up in Southern California’s Imperial Valley. She holds a Master’s degree from California State University, Fullerton, and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Warren Wilson College, and she’s been the recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the ...Read more

It was a cold early morning, Jan. 8, 1993, and it was shattered by six words blasting from a police radio: “Five in the cooler at Brown’s.”

Quickly, the details emerged, the horror spread and things got worse. There were seven people dead, the owners of a Palatine restaurant and five of their employees, fatally shot with a .38-caliber ...Read more

If it seems like books and movies get longer each fall, it’s not just your imagination.

Publishers and Hollywood execs figure we spend more time indoors as the temperatures start to dip and that we have more bandwidth to immerse ourselves in books and movies that require (or think they require) a little extra space to unveil their stories. ...Read more

Mars, our reddish-hued neighbor in the solar system, oh how you have captivated us earthlings, fueling an obsession at the turn of the last century that David Baron documents in his oh-my-goodness-they believed-what? romp “The Martians.”

Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and never more so than in recounting the endeavors of yesteryear’s ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Aug. 23, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "Quicksilver (...Read more

Gregory Galloway wasn’t sure he could write anything after the death of his father.

“He lived to be 94, so if you can have that, he had the sort of demise that he wanted,” says Galloway, recalling that he and his two siblings had gathered to be with their father at the hospital.

“We sort of knew it was the last day, and the nurse came ...Read more

Elaine Hsieh Chou’s clever and beguiling short story collection “Where Are You Really From” explores issues of identity and belonging with a speculative twist.

In six stories and one novella, Chou takes on Western-centered notions of beauty, mail-order brides, massage parlors, generational trauma and artistic license. She flips ...Read more

Walking in nature for as little as 15 to 20 minutes can improve your attention span — even if you don't always enjoy it.

In his new 324-page book, "Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being" (Simon & Schuster), environmental neuroscientist Marc G. Berman lays out how our natural ...Read more

In structure, tone and theme, “Ruth” owes a debt to Evan S. Connell’s wonderful 1959 novel, “Mrs. Bridge” — a debt author Kate Riley freely acknowledges.

Like “Mrs. Bridge,” “Ruth” is written in close third person and structured in short, flat chunks of anecdote and description. The story follows a slightly baffled but ...Read more

As Americans quarrel in public squares, real and online, writers are looking back at our history to make sense of it all. Caleb Gayle rises to the challenge in his eloquent, if discursive, “Black Moses,” chronicling activist Edward McCabe’s struggles against post-Civil War racism.

Raised free in the Northeast, McCabe (1850-1920) came of ...Read more

Like the main character of his novel “I Become Her,” Joe Hart is married. Unlike her, he has not murdered anyone. Or, at least, he jokes, “None that they’ve caught me for.”

That’s not all Hart is cagey about. He lives in northern Minnesota, but prefers not to specify where, and he doesn’t want to name his wife or two children, a ...Read more

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Peter Ames Carlin first heard Bruce Springsteen’s single “Born to Run” in 1975 when the future music biographer was a 12-year-old kid in a car headed home from a hike with his Boy Scout troop.

He was, he admits, less than impressed.

“I remember the disc jockey saying, ‘Well, this guy is supposedly the savior of ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Aug. 16, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "For Richer ...Read more

Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.’s “The El” follows several members of a Chicago street gang as they traverse the city via the elevated train system that gives the novel its name. But while the story is loosely inspired by 1979’s “The Warriors,” a cult classic film set in New York City, this novel and the man who wrote it are distinctively �...Read more

Sometimes, being a dog — free to roam and sniff and run as you please — is easier than being a girl, always being monitored, with expectations of domesticity and meekness heavy on your shoulders.

Xenobe Purvis’ eerie “The Hounding” is the story of the five Mansfield sisters, whom the villagers of Little Nettlebed have pegged as ...Read more

The title of Jason Mott’s oddly riveting “People Like Us” refers to several groups: Black people (like its three narrators), Europeans, writers, Southerners, Americans, those who feel left out.

“I wonder what it feels like to be somewhere in this world and not feel like an outsider,” says a guy named Dylan in a poignant exchange late ...Read more