Books & Literature

John Powers says Mick Herron's novels "boast an irresistible premise. They follow the adventures of a group of maladroit MI5 agents who've somehow blown it — you know, left a disk marked "Top Secret" on the Underground, or slept with an ambassador's spouse."

What sets Ellen McGarrahan's just-published true crime book, Two Truths and a Lie, above so many others I've read is the moral gravity of her presence on the page and the hollow-voiced lyricism of her writing style.

O'Brien reflects on writing, mortality and his experiences in Vietnam in the new documentary, The War and Peace of Tim O'Brien.

Maureen Corrigan says Vendela Vida's novel 'We Run the Tides' "is a tough and exquisite sliver of a short novel whose world I want to remain lost in — and at the same time am relieved to have outgrown."

Holbrook, who died Jan. 23, won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Twain on Broadway. He also played Deep Throat in the film, All the President's Men. Originally broadcast in 2009.

Critic Justin Chang recommends two films, both dramatic thrillers that demonstrate the power and persistence of love. They are "Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time" and "Two Of Us."

John Powers says The Copenhagen Trilogy is a story about escape — escape from menial work, escape from traditional female roles, escape from boredom, escape from reality, and escape from the heavy weight of a self that was shaped in her childhood, a time, she writes, that's "long and narrow like a coffin."

Historian Russell Shorto, delved into his own family and his grandfather who was a mob boss in the industrial town of Johnstown, Pa. Shorto says his grandfather's involvement with the Johnstown mob initially began as an offshoot of Prohibition, which opened doors for Italian Americans facing employment discrimination.

My Year Abroad is Chang-rae Lee's new exuberant novel that takes readers on an excursion out of the New Jersey suburbs and across the Pacific into some of the more luxurious reaches of Asian megacities.

New Yorker writer John Colapinto says the development of vocal structures may have been the key to humans' becoming the dominant species on the planet. His new book is This is the Voice.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan says Nadia Owusu's memoir is a classic "search for identity" story, one that's complicated by the fact that the ground beneath Owusu's feet is so unstable. Maureen says it's a well-wrought and powerful book.

Eley Williams tells the story of two word-mad characters who work for the same dictionary publisher 120 years apart. This novel is perfect for anyone who loves puns, crosswords and witty writing.

Lopez, who died Dec. 25, won the 1986 National Book Award for Arctic Dreams, an account of his travels in the far north over a period of four years. Originally broadcast in 1989 and 2013.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan describes Anna North's new novel, Outlawed, as The Handmaid's Tale meets Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. She says that's a glib tagline, but there's some justification for it.

Smith's 1948 follow-up to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a forgotten novel that deserves to be exhumed. The things that made it an awkward response to its predecessor make it more intriguing now.

Maureen Corrigan tells us about the books that helped her get through the year of 2020.

Anthony Horowitz's novels about a reluctant teen spy have been adapted into a TV series for IMDB TV. Horowitz is also the author of Moonflower Murders, a mystery for adults.

Imagine a room in war-ravaged Syria lined with bookshelves and filled with patrons reading books in Arabic and English, everything from poetry to American pop psychology. Now picture that, outside that library, city streets are reduced to rubble and bombs are a constant threat. That's the real-life scene journalist Delphine Minoui chronicles in her new book called "The Book Collectors."