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‘Just Like You,’ the new Nick Hornby novel, tackles romance, race, and politics

The novel is a charming, funny, touching, and relevant comedy.

Marilynne Robinson continues her ‘Gilead’ series and gives Jack his say

“Jack” is suffused with the virtues that make Robinson one of our greatest thinkers on matters of spirituality, love, and family.

Eula Biss on building a library, move after move

The “Having and Being Had” author talked with Amy Sutherland about her books, her reading life, and her library.

The past is a ticking bomb in ‘The End of the Day’

Bill Clegg's second novel is not a tale of grief, but a poignant story about an earnest attempt to correct the misunderstandings of the past by the end of the day.

Historian Jill Lepore tracks the rise of data science in US politics
“If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future” has been longlisted for the National Book Award in nonfiction.

Poetry by Marge Piercy, an anthology about life during the pandemic, and New England authors whose work has been longlisted for the National Book Awards.
Literary news of note from around the region.

Latest Headlines in Books

Local bestsellers for the week ending September 20

The New England Indie Bestseller List based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the New England Independent Booksellers Association and IndieBound.

Virtual author readings from September 27 - October 3

All these events take place online; visit the venue website for more information

Authors show their love for libraries with prizes for the BPL’s online auction

A Roz Chast original, a Zoom call with Lois Lowry, and a signed copy of the first "Downton Abbey" script are among the items up for bid to benefit the BPL's special collections.

BOOKS

On the rights of women 25 years after the Beijing Declaration on Women

Looking inside "The Right to Be Elected," "Launching While Female," "She Proclaims," "No Stopping Us Now," and more.

BOOKS

Claudia Rankine on race, reading, and conversation

Given the mass demonstrations over police violence against Black people plus a president bent on widening the country’s deep racial divide, the author’s new book, “Just Us: An American Conversation,” could not be timelier.

BOOKS

‘Conditional Citizens’ looks at what it means to belong here

Laila Lalami’s new book is an argument for active, equal United States citizenship. Drawing on her considerable talents and abundant intelligence, Lalami attempts to account for the ways that powerful American forces use class status, religion, border policing, national origin, non-whiteness, and gender to diminish and deactivate full citizenship.

‘JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century’ dives deep on the 35th president

Harvard historian Fredrik Logevall situates the rise of a president within the rise of a nation.

BOOKS

Music history, in a minor key, in ‘Adrianne Geffel’

David Hajdu knows music. It makes sense, therefore, that the biographer of Billy Strayhorn (“Lush Life”) and chronicler of both pop (“Love for Sale”) and folk music scenes (“Positively 4th Street”) would set his first work of fiction in this artistic milieu.