Nothing’s less romantic than a dish of lentils amped up with ramps and garlic turning you into a wind instrument sprawled across the couch in torment. Nothing’s more humorous than an aunt embarrassed,…

Julie Langsdorf, Kwame Alexander, Louis Bayard and other writers reveal the books they'll be wading into this season. Plus, four big book events to check out.

Plus, five more authors giving their best advice on travel, music, and books inspired by their transportive new novels.

Hot dumpling soup, mandu gook—glossy broth, white ovals of chewy rice cakes, a single feathered egg, green onion sliced on an angle, and homemade meat dumplings floating on broth—might be when my…

Are we writing for other disabled people, for the nondisabled, or for everyone? The work of these poets speaks for itself.

Kristen Arnett, Tope Folarin, Jean Kwok and De’Shawn Charles Winslow talk about their new books.

It was a man who made the discovery. The mothers could’ve put up a fight but didn’t. Whatever is best for the baby, they said, because they believed it, because they knew they should. My baby is…

On the assumption that John Updike was correct when he asserted, in a 1978 letter to Joyce Carol Oates, that "Nobody can read like a writer," Why I Like This Story presents brief essays by forty-eight…

What I want to know in the furling of summer is how many flags are too many flags? Stars, however brightly they shine—polyester— overwhelmed by the bloody bars. Someone cracks a smile; another cracks…

“Morgan Parker’s latest collection, Magical Negro, is a riveting testimony to everyday blackness. . . . It is wry and atmospheric, an epic work of aural pleasures and personifications that demands to…

How does language speak truth to power? More specifically, how can language be used to rebel against power? The protagonists of Katherine Dunn’s three novels — 1969’s Attic, 1971’s Truck, and 1989’…

I traded a McDonald’s two-cheeseburger extra-value meal for a tattoo over a decade ago. A friend permanently inked my parents’ house key against my spine, in between my soft shoulder blades, as I…

Wordplay Author Speed Networking Time noon–1 p.m.Location Open Book: Room 303 Reading Group Choices is happy to partner with Wordplay for a literary extravaganza to celebrate our readers. In our fast…

We go to buy juice-box wine and Cheetos made of fire. Their dust is glitter-light against our skin. I love how we laugh down the aisles, wear beautiful shoes. Our calves deserve to be kissed by…

The Gersons were a fairly unexceptional family. The maid had idly observed them upon their arrival at the Hotel Neversink as she vacuumed the length of the third-floor hallway. The father seemed like…

In Michele Filgate’s courageous anthology, What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About (Simon & Schuster, April 20, 2019), 15 esteemed writers examine the unsaid in their adult relationships wi…

Updated Japanese folklore, an unexpected love triangle, meditations on family and addiction, and more.

—Southern Pines, NC Tell me what it’s like to live without curiosity, without awe. To sail on clear water, rolling your eyes at the kelp reefs swaying beneath you, ignoring the flicker of mermaid…

It was a peculiar fruit. The orange-red tawny skin, its flesh dense and velvety and luxurious. It was shaped roughly like an egg, with a tiny yellow pit, sold packed into crates lined with its deeply…

Here are the 20 Indie Next Great Reads and 12 Now in Paperback titles featured on the June 2019 Indie Next List flier, which is on its way to stores in the IndieBound movement.

I learned my mother’s white tongue, her white words in white books impressed on crisp white pages, stories set in white countries under soft, white snow. I’d never seen snow, but knew enough to desire…

Wayward women and Instagram-famous novels.