James

Worth the wait. By that I mean both the time since I first read a preview copy of this novel (nine months or so ago) and the time since Ed Park last published one (fifteen years). A prolific magazine... (James)

I meant to read this when it came out last year in hardcover, I swear. It had great reviews and an even better premise—marine biologists of the near future discover that a deep-water octopus species h... (James)

This is my favorite kind of non-fiction book—a failure. Which is to say that it isn't a biography of the influential mid-century poet Frank O'Hara, although it's full of biographical detail and wise a... (James)

In 2019, Sandra Newman published a novel, The Heavens, that landed on my year's best list, a book that "asks profound questions about what kind of world we want to live in and what lengths we'll go to... (James)

Those of you (and there are many) who've encountered the previous volumes of the Barrøy Chronicles, The Unseen or White Shadow, will not need me to say anything about this new book other than It's her... (James)

Annabelle and her son Benny have a lot to deal with, emotionally and otherwise. Her hold on her job is tenuous while her accumulating piles of stuff have a choking grip on their household; he's suffer... (James)

The blurb for this describes it as "a plumber's Mrs. Dalloway," which I think is just about right. It's a beautifully handled interior monologue of a fictional tradesman's day, and the narrative intim... (James)

Cat and Mouse live in the same house, and things are good, with a few exceptions. Mouse wants to eat gingersnaps, and Cat wants to eat Mouse. Mouse wants to lie in the sun, and so does Cat. After eati... (James)

When it comes to books about Seattle and its surroundings, there's one must-read writer as far as I'm concerned, and that's David B. Williams. I've long been telling recent arrivals and lifetime resid... (James)

Over a year ago I read one of those reviews that makes you want to drop everything you're doing and rush to the bookstore, even if what you're doing is running a bookstore. Tantalizingly, I couldn't t... (James)

Anne Youngson became an instant Madison Books favorite with the release of her 2018 debut novel Meet Me at the Museum, and we've been eagerly anticipating a follow-up ever since. She's at last obliged... (James)

Jess Walter's fiction has covered comedy, history, crime, character study, and more, but I don't think he's ever put so much into one book before. His most recent novel centers on two brothers, Rye an... (James)

It seems impossible that this short novel of family life on a remote Norwegian island hasn't been handed down for generations. It feels as much like a document for the ages as it does a piece of conte... (James)

In a drought-stricken California town, a teenage girl grows up in thrall to her troubled single mother and a pastor with a cultish power over his flock, struggling to assert autonomy over her mind, so... (James)

Yes, I know that Station Eleven is one of the most brilliant and entertaining books about a pandemic ever written, but I swear, it's a coincidence that I'm recommending another book by Emily St. John... (James)

If you're looking for a book that has something useful to say about the current situation that isn't too, you know, on point, look no further. In previous books (The Big Short, Flash Boys, etc.) Lewis... (James)

Rebecca Solnit is one of the best sociopolitical writers we have (she's the coiner of the term "mansplaining") but I like to imagine a better world in which she doesn't feel obligated to take on tyran... (James)

A 42-year-old writer looks at his young sons, considers the recent death of his 84-year-old father, and tries to make sense of it all in the only natural way: by undertaking a round-the-world quest to... (James)

Many books are bad (I can admit that), some books are good, and a few books are great. Even fewer are great at being more than one kind of book at the same time. Oregon's Emily Winfield Martin has lon... (James)

The hit new TV series Watchmen, adapted from Alan Moore's comic of the same name, opened its first season with dramatic scenes of widespread white-on-black violence in 1920s Tulsa, Oklahoma, that were... (James)

The Gift first appeared in 1983 to immediate acclaim and lasting popularity. Despite the praise, I avoided it for years because I thought it was a long-winded version of those insipid inspirational po... (James)

I should perhaps be focusing on Coats's newest book, the middle-grade fantasy The Green Children of Woolpit, but it's just come out and well, I haven't read it yet. But I really want to, based on how... (James)

No getting around it, this sounds like a tough sell: 1000 pages of unbroken thought, not a stream of consciousness but a torrential river scouring a mental landscape. But that's how you produce someth... (James)

A family of three (mom, dad, and small son) resides in an English hamlet, a site with historic roots that's now a commuter suburb of London. All the mod cons, but with room for a creative kid to roam... (James)

The ferocious energy of Marlon James's prose, the first sign of the literary genius that the Booker judges later recognized in A Brief History of Seven Killings, is immediately evident in this debut n... (James)

For whatever reason (having nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that publishing is dominated by intellectually aspirant professionals who live in Manhattan and Brooklyn), the New York novel is a fi... (James)

This is a tough one to describe, because as soon as I start I'm afraid I'll scare some of you off. Avian demigods? Fertility goddesses? An epic journey to the Isle of the Dead to recover a lost love?... (James)

Ray Eccles is leading a modest, unassuming existence when he's abruptly struck on the head by a falling bird and finds his whole life changing course. Read Harriet Paige's new novel and you may find y... (James)

The Prix Goncourt is France's highest award for fiction, and the most recent recipient was Éric Vuillard for The Order of the Day. It's an interesting choice for at least three reasons. First, it's re... (James)