Maureen Corrigan

Maureen Corrigan reviews I Have Some Questions for You which she says "is both a thickly-plotted, character-driven mystery and a stylishly self-aware novel of ideas."

"On Writing And Failure" is the title of a new pamphlet-length book by Canadian novelist and essayist Stephen Marche. Book critic Maureen Corrigan says that while failure may be no laughing matter, Marche's little book is a witty delight to read.

Mallon's Up With the Sun is a novel about showbiz strivers and a certain slice of gay life in mid-to-late 20th-century America.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan says Jordan Harper's new suspense novel is L-A noir at its sleazy, suspensful best.

Paul Harding's stunning new novel, This Other Eden, is inspired by the real-life consequences of eugenics on Malaga Island, Maine, which, from roughly the Civil War era to 1912, was home to an interracial fishing community.

Allegra Goodman says that her new novel, called "Sam," was inspired by her daughter, who, when she was little, was constantly in motion. Goodman wondered what happens to that reckless energy in girls as they grow up. Our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, has a review of "Sam."

Jane Smiley's latest novel, A Dangerous Business, is a mash-up of a Western, a serial killer mystery and a feminist erotic romp. Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures, stars a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus.

Some years, my best books list falls into a pattern: like a year that's dominated by dystopian fiction or stand-out memoirs. But, as perhaps befits this hectic year, the best books I read in 2022 sprawl all over the place in subject and form. Here are 10 superb titles from 2022:

Keegan is a writer who revels in the suspense of the unspoken, the held breath. Her new novella centers on a nameless young girl whose parents leave her in the care of relatives for the summer.

The Revolutionary is not merely a dutiful exhumation of a poorly remembered Founding Father, it's a thrilling, timely account of how the American Revolution happened.