While real-world catastrophes have arrived with distressing regularity this century, fictional stories set after the seemingly inevitable apocalypse have grown more popular than ever.

There’s surely an element of privilege to this trend, but you can’t fault anyone seeking a bit of escape in post-apocalyptic TV shows, video games or novels. ...Read more

When Emergence magazine asked “Braiding Sweetgrass” author Robin Wall Kimmererto write a story about economics, she was not an obvious choice.

“I think I said, ‘I don’t know anything about economics. I’m a botanist,” said Kimmerer. “But, in conversation, I realized I know a great deal about the economies of nature. And to think ...Read more

In the afterword to his latest novel, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” Haruki Murakami writes that authors spend their careers rearranging a “limited pallet of motifs” to tell a “limited number of stories.”

It’s a provocative claim for a prolific author, but particularly apt for this new work that revisits — and improves upon...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Nikki Giovanni, the legendary poet and leader of the Black Arts Movement, died at 81 on Monday, Dec. 9, in Blacksburg, Virginia, after receiving a third diagnosis of cancer, according to news reports. Her longtime partner, Virginia Fowler, was by her side.

The revolutionary writer who penned verses about Black life, feminism, ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Nov. 30, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2024 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2024, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "The House of ...Read more

Hey, writer-director-producer Ryan Murphy, if you’re looking for subjects for future installments of TV’s “Feud” franchise, look no further: The clash between turn-of-the-last-century birth control activists Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett may be just the ticket.

Not interesting enough, you say? Au contraire, Ryan Murphy. ...Read more

A gay writer in Manhattan wakes up after a steamy night spent with a “gorgeous stranger” to find his hunky trick next to him in bed, dead as a doornail.

Hijinks ensue.

If this setup sounds like your cup of skinny no-foam latté, dive in to Daniel Aleman’s “I Might Be in Trouble.” You’ll find outlandish situations, a few twisty ...Read more

James

By Percival Everett

It was a big year for the writer whose publisher used to be Minnesota-based Graywolf Press. “Erasure,” which Graywolf released before Everett’s move to Doubleday, was adapted for the movie “American Fiction,” winning an Oscar for screenwriter Cord Jefferson. And then came “James,” a spin on “...Read more

When I think back on what I read his year, on what stuck, and stuck, refusing to unstick, the common denominator was my surprise at my own surprise. A fresh take! A subject I’d assumed I knew! An antidote to heard-it-all-before-ism, that cynicism we develop from having access to every story ever told, every opinion ever voiced and every song ...Read more

Percival Everett has won the National Book Award for fiction for his novel “James,” a reimagining of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the point of view of the enslaved character Jim.

With Everett, the evening’s winners included Jason De León, who won the nonfiction prize for his book, “Soldiers and Kings: ...Read more

Hesse Phillips is the author of the debut novel, “Lightborne,” about the final days of Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe.

Raised in Pennsylvania and now living in Spain, they have an undergraduate degree in theater history from Marlboro and a Ph.D. in drama from Tufts. Here, Phillips takes the Q&A and shares the origins of their ...Read more

Where Rivers Part

By Kao Kalia Yang

The St. Paul writer had an astonishingly productive year, publishing four books aimed at various age groups. My favorite was her memoir of her mother, a companion to “The Song Poet” (about her father) that goes back to her mother’s youth to trace her astonishing story of survival — through multiple ...Read more

To use a word that appears often in the novel, “Time of the Child” is a miracle.

Niall Williams’ gorgeous, wry and humane book is set in the fictional Irish hamlet of Faha, where much of his work (which also includes “Four Letters of Love” and “This Is Happiness”) takes place.

It’s 1962 and nearing Christmas, which is important...Read more

A hardboiled mystery set in the American Southwest, “The Arizona Triangle” is the debut novel by Sydney Graves, which is a not-too-hidden pen name for the writer Kate Christensen.

The author’s previous novels include “The Great Man” and “Welcome Home, Stranger.” Here, as Graves, she takes the Book Pages Q&A.

Q. Please tell ...Read more

The Author Clock, created in Chicago several years ago by a local engineer and finally arriving in stores this holiday season, has been forcing me to pause now and then, whenever I look up to see the time. Knowing the time used to be fast for me. But the Author Clock slows one’s relationship to time. I don’t know yet how I feel about it as a...Read more

When the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation” came to its end after seven seasons, it was an emotional day for all of the cast and crew, says Jim O’Heir, who played Jerry Gergich, the kind-hearted bumbler and butt of all jokes in the city of Pawnee’s parks department.

O’Heir was part of a talented ensemble that included Amy Poehler as ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- You can read Minneapolis poet Danez Smith’s work in two new books or, if you happen to be in New York, on subway walls.

Smith’s collection of poems, “Bluff,” was published by Graywolf Press earlier this year. And they curated the just-released “Blues in Stereo,” a collection of the early poems of the great Langston ...Read more