In Curtis Sittenfeld's wonderful second short-story collection, we meet imperfect characters, often fortysomething women, in moments...

Six Great Bossy Literary Fiction Reads I read so many read literary fiction books last year, I'll need another best-of-the-year list. But...

Time of the Child feels like poetry in prose form, and Williams richly shapes a small-town Irish community's everyday and extraordinary...

This slim, debut novel about a small-town community in northern Maine introduces various faulted, interconnected characters making their...

Much of The Safekeep feels claustrophobic, quiet, and hopeless, but unexpected shifts late in the story turn accepted histories on their...

Robinson's gentle novel Gilead spans generations of fathers and sons and explores a reverend's complicated relationship with his troubled...

Our Evenings explores a young, often cruel, existence at a British boys' boarding school; later fits and starts of exploring sexuality...

Kennedy writes poignantly about the Irish Troubles through the point of view of Cushla, a young adult stretching her wings despite her...

Intermezzo is one of my favorite Rooney novels yet, exploring complicated families, grief, unconventional relationships, forgiveness, and...

Annis is a young Southern woman enslaved, sold, and abused in the years before the Civil War. In Let Us Descend , she leans on the...

I love Peter Heller's books, and Burn offers a wonderfully complicated friendship, meaningful connections to nature, momentous secrets,...

Percival Everett's James is a fascinating retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of enslaved Black character...

The author of Disappearing Earth offers a story of bleak prospects, poverty and illness, a sister bond with fault lines ready to crack...

David Nicholls's characters, some of whom are strangers to each other, meander through the English countryside on a days-long jaunt--and...

Alice Winn's account of the unrelenting slog of World War I and the beautiful young men set against each other in the trenches serves as...

Flawed main characters Jack and Elizabeth try to find their way back to an emotional connection in this literary fiction work. Wellness...

The Other Valley is literary fiction with a captivating setup: three adjacent valleys, each of which is a different timeline of the same...

Elif Shafak's The Island of Missing Trees explores past Turkish-Greek conflicts in a small island community while illustrating the...

Emily Habeck's debut novel offers an unusual premise in which one member of a newlywed couple begins transforming into a great white...