Maureen Corrigan

Laila Lalami's new novel is called The Other Americans and it's likely to jump start some timely book group discussions about the American experiment; specifically, about how different types of people feel less visible in this country because of their ethnicity, class, race or citizenship status.

One of the most joyous, true life, "on-the-road" adventures in literary history took place in the summer of 1927. It began in Mobile, Ala., when a young Langston Hughes, who was traveling in the South, stepped off the train from New Orleans and ran smack into Zora Neale Hurston.

What place in America could accomodate monsters, the Marx Brothers, and the artist who immortalized melting clocks? The answer, of course, is Hollywood and our book critic MAUREEN CORRIGAN has a review of two new books about forgotten stories from Hollywood's past.

It was a cold December night in 1972 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A 38-year old widowed mother of 10 named Jean McConville was with her children in their apartment in the Divis Flats, a labyrinthine public housing project that one critic described a "slum in the sky."

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews a new novel about the fate of undocumented migrant children by Valeria Luiselli who was a volunteer court translator for undocumented children in New York.

Before I talk about individual essays in Emily Bernard's new book, Black Is the Body, I want to pay it an all-inclusive tribute. Even the best essay collections routinely contain some filler, but of the 12 essays here, there's not one that even comes close to being forgettable.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the debut novel by Dana Chapnick who spent most of her career on the editorial side of professional sports, including ESPN The Magazine. Maureen says Chapnick's deep knowledge of sports served her well in writing this novel.

Book critic MAUREEN CORRIGAN reviews the book which was on several prominent lists of "best books" of 2018 in Great Britian.

My taste doesn't naturally gravitate toward feminist dystopian fiction, but such stories are ubiquitous these days. Their influence seeps far beyond the classic novel and Hulu series of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, as well as the literary fiction it's inspired like Naomi Alderman's The Power and Leni Zumas' Red Clocks.

Many of the best of this year's books were graced with humor and distinguished by deep dives into American identity. It was also a very good year for deceased authors whose posthumously published books were so much more than mere postscripts to their careers. Rebecca Makkai's The Great Believers -- a sweeping story about the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and its long aftermath — is my pick for novel of the year.