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New novel ‘Devil House’ looks at our true crime obsessions

If true crime is an addiction, “Devil House” is a writer’s cure. It’s a multilayered, fictional story of some horrific murders, their victims and perpetrators, and the man who sets out to tell their tales. Author John Darnielle (of the band the Mountain Goats) has hit bestseller lists with his two previous novels; all three are haunted by darkness.

Jabari Asim: an ‘eclectic, voracious’ reader

Jabari Asim sets his new novel, “Yonder,” on a 19th-century plantation where the people he calls the Stolen manage to find joy, friendship, and love, which they will risk for freedom. This is his third work of fiction for adults. Asim, who directs the creative writing program at Emerson College, talked with us about his own reading list.

Science, fiction, and fantasy blend in ‘A Snake Falls to Earth’

Darcie Little Badger’s young-adult novel draws on her fascination with storytelling and language as a member of the Lipan Apache tribe.

Getting into character with a new history of Method acting

Acting’s stark split from external expression toward the new soul-searching process is the subject of Isaac Butler’s thoroughly engrossing “The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act.” Butler, the co-author (with Dan Kois) of “The World Only Spins Forward,” an oral history of “Angels in America,” handles his material deftly, like a biographer.

A powerful story collection on life as a young man of color; authors receive creative writing grants

News of a bookish bent from around the region.

Author readings around Boston Jan. 23-29

All author appearances are virtual unless otherwise noted.

Latest Headlines in Books

BOOKS

Local bestsellers for the week ending Jan. 16

Based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the New England Independent Booksellers Association and IndieBound.

BOOKS
Kerri Maher's "The Paris Bookseller" focuses on Paris in the 1920s and the bookstore that attracted Hemingway and Company

Weston author Kerri Maher captures 1920s Paris and its famed literary expats in ‘The Paris Bookseller’

Just in time for the 100th anniversary of “Ulysses,” comes an ode to its publisher.

BOOK REVIEW
Anne Frank.

Who betrayed Anne Frank? A new book tracks history’s most famous cold case.

Was it the thieving warehouse manager? A suspicious neighbor? A notorious informant? The answer, according to Rosemary Sullivan’s intermittently gripping “The Betrayal of Anne Frank,” is none of the above.

A history of addiction in ‘The Urge’

“The Urge” is one of those hybrid history/memoirs that illuminates an important subject through personal experience. Carl Erik Fisher digs deep into the history of addiction. He uses sociology, literature, criminology, and, yes, psychology, to explore how societal attitudes have fluctuated through the centuries, from condemning addicts as deadbeats to treating addiction as a disease.

BOOKS
The headquarters of Insys Therapeutics, in Chandler, Ariz., in 2014.

‘The Hard Sell’ is a vivid tale of opioid firm showcased at Boston trial

Author Evan Hughes presents a tightly focused and insightful account of how Insys Therapeutics, a company that went public in the most successful IPO of 2013, ended up a poster child for corporate greed and chicanery.

Lisa Gardner.

Lisa Gardner: She reads for story, not genre

Inspired by her own hiking obsession, best-selling writer Lisa Gardner set her newest, “One Step Too Far,” in the wilds of Wyoming where her anti-heroine Frankie Elkin goes searching for a missing young man. This is the second in Gardner’s newest series about Elkin, a recovering alcoholic obsessed with cracking cold cases. She talked with us about her own reading habits.

After a loss, learning to live

"Tides," Sara Freeman's debut novel, ponders grief and memory.

BOOKS
Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine Evaristo manifests ‘Manifesto’

The Booker Prize-winning novelist gets personal with a new memoir about creativity, ambition, and love.