Search results for

Joyce Carol Oates' new Carthage explores the familiar but important territory of family anguish. Oates has written more than 40 novels — critic Alan Cheuse praises her prodigious imagination, and says her latest effort is a "roller coaster, demon-twister" of a ride.

NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with the irrepressible novelist about his latest book — a memoir this time, called Tibetan Peach Pie -- and why he hates being labeled as a counter-culture writer.

It wasn't just the creepy carnival that drew Seth Grahame-Smith to Something Wicked This Way Comes. It was also the book's frank portrayal of parents who don't behave like grown-ups. Do you remember when you realized your parents weren't perfect? Tell us about it in the comments.

In Driven, the sequel to the book that spawned the award-winning film Drive, the mysterious ex-stuntman Driver finds there's one thing he can't outrace: his own violent past. James Sallis' writing is taut and surprisingly philosophical.

Lucas Mann's new memoir pieces together family memories to create a portrait of his heroin-addicted older brother, who died of an overdose. Critic Heller McAlpin calls it difficult but necessary.

The confounding title of the self-referential novel Percival Everett by Virgil Russell signals its method, which seeks to erase lines between author and subject, reality and fiction. For Alan Cheuse, Percival Everett's (or is that Percival Everett's?) postmodern mind games spoil what might have been a fine novel.

Scientist and writer Bill Streever is fascinated by the extremes at both ends of the thermometer. In Cold, he visited some of the chilliest places on Earth. Now, in his latest book, Heat, he travels to the world's very hot spots.

When we had this dessert growing up in San Francisco, we called it wine Jello. Read a recipe.

The economic crisis in Cuba is prompting an exodus by thousands, but also giving rise to a greater free market enterprise to begin taking hold on the Communist island.

Anjanette Delgado has had it with the self-assured smugness of old-school detectives. She recommends three tales celebrating amateur sleuths — a clerk, a captain and an 11-year-old girl — as they fumble through their newfound detective duties.