Books

German author Jenny Erpenbeck is one of the most acclaimed writers of the last 25 years. Her new novel "Kairos," just out from New Directions, tells the story of a 19-year-old female student in East Berlin who falls in love with a much older male writer in the run-up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The late rapper — who was killed at 25 in 1996 — would have turned 52 this year. Santi Elijah Holley's new book follows the Shakur family tree and their work in the Black Liberation Movement.

Swarns' new book — The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church — expands on that article. It tells the story of the Church's history of enslavement in America, while illustrating the consequences by focusing on generations of one family that had several members among those 272 people sold by the Church in 1838.

Cooper was birdwatching in Central Park in 2020 when a white woman falsely accused him of threatening her. His book chronicles life as a Black birder, gay activist and Marvel comics writer and editor.

Maureen reviewed "Beware The Woman" by Megan Abbott and "My Murder" by Katie Williams.

John Vercher trained in mixed martial arts as a young man. His novel, After the Lights Go Out, centers on a veteran MMA fighter who struggles to remember things. Originally broadcast June 28, 2022.

"I'm not a grown man — I'm a growing man," Alexander says. His new memoir started as a book of love poems, but ended up being a collection of essays and poems about love, divorce and raising children.

The British novelist, who died May 19, was a member of one of England's most famous writing families. His novels included Money, London Fields and The Information. Originally broadcast in 1990.

Urrea is celebrated for his books about the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly his nonfiction work, The Devil's Highway, which was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Good Night, Irene is a departure: drawing on his mother's journals and scrapbooks and the spotty information that's survived about the Clubmobile corps, Urrea has written a female-centric World War II novel.

The title of Irby's new memoir in essays, Quietly Hostile, was inspired by her own public persona, which she describes as a "a constant low-grade frustration with everything" wrapped in "an outer shield of Midwestern politeness and charm."