Oh, the world is an interesting place—so much to see, to learn about, to take pleasure in. But, consider for a moment how a place earns its status as a tourist destination. Why did ABC historic village get listed in the travel books... Read More

A quietly luminous narrative follows five displaced children and reimagines the notion of family. In Gaute Heivoll’s "Across the China Sea", a son returns to his childhood home in rural Norway, prepared to clean out the house following... Read More

A misanthropic lead makes this humorous, character-driven novel impossible to forget. Marie-Sabine Roger, author of Soft in the Head and Afternoons with Margueritte, continues with character-driven narratives in her third novel, "Get... Read More

"The Han Agent" is a surefire genre hit, fast-paced and full of elements of mystery and adventure. In the gripping thriller "The Han Agent" by Amy Rogers, World War II-era history, ultranationalism, and biological genocide intertwine.... Read More

Though draped in the mythic, the novel’s blood and bones are thoroughly and relatably human. The otherworldly and the mundane collide in Shawn Smucker’s "The Day the Angels Fell", a humanizing tale of cosmic proportions. When death... Read More

Every event is like a tabloid headline in this engrossing memoir, written by a former spy. Who killed John F. Kennedy? If you elect to believe Marita Lorenz—who survived Bergen-Belsen, abandonment in the Amazon, and torrid affairs with... Read More

"A Murder in Music City" imparts a great sense of 1960s Nashville as it unfolds an old crime in the present day. Eighteen-year-old college student Paula Herring was shot dead at her mother’s Nashville home in 1964, with her young... Read More

Hitchins’s mix of raw emotion and salty hilarity works beautifully. It takes a special kind of person to write a play-by-play description of masturbation that is simultaneously hilarious, repulsive, and sweet. That person is Shawn... Read More