Heller McAlpin
Heller McAlpin is a New York-based critic who reviews books regularly for NPR.org, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.
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Emma Straub's new novel is a charmer that unleashes the magic of time travel to sweeten its exploration of some heavy themes like mortality, the march of time, and how small choices can alter a life. -
By exploring binaries such as imagination versus reality and surface versus depth — with their often blurred boundaries — Ali Smith's latest challenges readers to embrace the indeterminate. -
Manguso made a name for herself in minutely observed memoirs. Now she uses fiction to write about what it is to feel poor, poorly nurtured, and inadequately loved in a class-conscious town. -
Phyllis Fischer, a 40-year-old wife and mother, is drawn into a liberating relationship with a much younger man. She soon realizes that perhaps she wasn't so content as she thought. -
Most readers spend a lot of time happily immersed in words. But for a change of pace, these gorgeous art books provide hours of blissful visual diversion. -
Lily King's first story collection demonstrates her range, pulling you in and making you wonder where she's going, whether it's a brutal encounter between former roommates or a sudden act of kindness. -
Powers climbs down from the treetops of The Overstory in his latest novel, to tell the story of a widowed father and his troubled son who head into the wilderness to try to figure out their lives. -
Brit Bennett's triumphant new novel follows two light-skinned black sisters whose lives take very different paths; you'll keep turning pages not to find out what happens, but who these women are.
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Now's the time for cheerful reads, so we've picked three — including Emma Straub's latest and two lively culinary memoirs — that'll help transport you to a happier place for a few hours.
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Anne Tyler's latest novel — about a man who discovers that his calm, routine life may not be the one he really wants — is a balm for jangled nerves.
