Robert Macfarlane has climbed to the icy summits of windswept mountains and plunged into the darkened depths of the earth to research his books, and he says that may have given people the impression that he was a bit of a loner.

“There was a time, maybe 15, 20 years ago, when I was reputed as somebody who wrote about being alone — and alone...Read more

If “This Dog Will Change Your Life” were a dog breed, it would be a border collie: sweet, fun to be around, a little hyper.

The book comes from Elias Weiss Friedman, who bills himself as the Dogist on social media, where he has 7.6 million Instagram followers. Friedman photographs dogs he meets and interviews their owners about the dogs’ ...Read more

In her “Meet Me at the Crossroads” Megan Giddings thanks people you’d expect a writer to acknowledge, including readers and University of Minnesota English department colleagues V.V. Ganeshananthan and Julie Schumacher. There’s also at least one you might not expect: an Uber driver.

That driver, who drove the creative writing and ...Read more

Claire Lynch’s debut novel, “A Family Matter,” is built around a dark fact, stated plainly in an author’s note at the end — in the 1980s in the U.K., 90% of lesbian mothers in divorce cases lost custody of their children.

Such a terrible injustice is hard to imagine, which is surely why Lynch has imagined it — to understand how ...Read more

Yiyun Li’s memoir, “Things in Nature Merely Grow,” stuns with its lucidity and with the nightmarish facts that prompted its writing. As Li explains, “My husband and I had two children and lost them both: Vincent in 2017, at sixteen, James in 2024, at nineteen. Both chose suicide, and both died not far from home.”

Recommending Li’s ...Read more

Taylor Jenkins Reid has kept busy since publishing her last novel three years ago. In 2023 alone, she produced the hit streaming series based on her novel “Daisy Jones & the Six” and co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of her “One True Loves.”

While Hollywood remains all in on Reid’s work, with projects based on three of ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, June 7, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "Atmosphere: A ...Read more

The Chicago Tribune once called Richard Bausch a writer’s kind of writer, “the kind passed around and treasured by other writers as models of approach and perception.”

In his expansive career, the 80-year-old Bausch, a writing professor at Chapman University in Orange, has penned 13 novels and 10 short story collections. His work has ...Read more

If all the world’s a stage, it must include the 20 hectares of barren, dusty and drought-stricken Malaysian farmland at the center of Tash Aw’s sensitively drawn novel “The South.”

This failing acreage, with its muddy pond and orchard destined for the chainsaw, seems an unlikely setting for a novel, especially one centered on teen angst...Read more

A deadly white nationalist rally convulsed a Virginia city in 2017. Deborah Baker’s “Charlottesville” comprehensively demonstrates how internet hatemongering and gun ubiquity are endangering pluralism, civic participation and good-faith debate.

Baker, the author of books about Minnesota poet Robert Bly (“Making a Farm”), Britain’s ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- It’s no secret that romance novels are on the rise.

Just ask BookTok. (Or Kansas City romance bookshop Under the Cover, for that matter. It opened in late 2023.)

But for the first time in KC, steamy titles are coming directly to readers. A romance book-mobile called Smitten Booktique is now rolling around the metro.

...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Before George Takei broke out with his role on "Star Trek" and became a cultural icon, his last name was often mispronounced.

Instead of "tuh-kay," some people would say "tuck-eye."

"I told them that's a mispronunciation, but I don't object to it because the word takai in Japanese means 'expensive,'" the actor and advocate says...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, May 31, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "Never Flinch: ...Read more

Louise Hegarty is a prizewinning author of short fiction, including the story “Getting the Electric,” which has been optioned for a screen adaptation.

”Fair Play” is her debut novel, and here she takes the Book Pages Q&A.

Q. Please tell readers about your new book.

My book “Fair Play” begins on New Year’s Eve 2022. A group of ...Read more

Honor Jones’ debut novel, “Sleep,” opens with 10-year-old Margaret hiding under a blackberry bush during a neighborhood game of flashlight tag.

We’ve all been there: crouched in suspense under the low branches, smelling the dirt and the night air, watching the legs of our friends dart past, everything cozy, wild, exciting.

But Margaret...Read more

CHICAGO — I have known many of the people involved in the business of making pizzas and arguing about pizzas and eating pizzas, but until a few weeks ago, I had not met Marc Malnati, who is one of the towering figures of the local pizza scene.

I met him on the 200-some pages of his book titled “Deep Dish: Inside the First 50 Years of Lou ...Read more

We Minnesotans are almost all lucky enough to live near a river. The Mississippi, Minnesota, Red, Pigeon, Cascade, Crow, St. Croix, St. Louis, Whitewater, Zumbro and thousands of other waterways flow through our state.

Rivers have shaped our landscape, economy and history. Through the eons, humans have worshiped them, abused them and sometimes ...Read more

Jordan Thomas’ “When It All Burns” is a tremendous book that deepened my understanding and appreciation not just of the men and women who serve as wildland firefighters but also of the long, tragic history of land mismanagement in the American West. Without concerted efforts to reverse our abuse of the land and a dedicated examination of ...Read more