Heller McAlpin
Heller McAlpin is a New York-based critic who reviews books regularly for NPR.org, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.
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Elizabeth Strout's latest is a chronicle of a plague year — and also of the main character's growing insights into herself, her family, and their changing relationships during this period.
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In this expansive novel, which ranks among McEwan's best work, a man assesses his life's trajectory from childhood to old age, focusing especially on what he considers wrong turns and disappointments.
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Barnes' 25th novel is about the power of influence and obsessions, wrong turns, and the difficulty of pinning down another's life, whether someone you knew or someone who predated you by centuries.
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Nell Stevens' debut novel is a curious mashup of historical fiction, a ghost story, and a queer love story. It combines elements of her prior books, both memoirs with nods to 19th century literature.
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Happy-Go-Lucky is more somber than David Sedaris' usual fare, but there are some fresh, funny bits wedged between the weighty boulders.
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Emma Straub's new novel is a charmer that unleashes the magic of time travel to sweeten its exploration of some heavy themes like mortality, the march of time, and how small choices can alter a life.
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Novelist Ann Hood, whose Fly Girl paints a picture of her time as a flight attendant, was a beneficiary of the fight by the women profiled in Nell McShane Wulfhart's book to be treated professionally.
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By exploring binaries such as imagination versus reality and surface versus depth — with their often blurred boundaries — Ali Smith's latest challenges readers to embrace the indeterminate.
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Manguso made a name for herself in minutely observed memoirs. Now she uses fiction to write about what it is to feel poor, poorly nurtured, and inadequately loved in a class-conscious town.
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Phyllis Fischer, a 40-year-old wife and mother, is drawn into a liberating relationship with a much younger man. She soon realizes that perhaps she wasn't so content as she thought.
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Brit Bennett's triumphant new novel follows two light-skinned black sisters whose lives take very different paths; you'll keep turning pages not to find out what happens, but who these women are.
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Now's the time for cheerful reads, so we've picked three — including Emma Straub's latest and two lively culinary memoirs — that'll help transport you to a happier place for a few hours.