Heller McAlpin

Michelle Dean's new compendium of outspoken women is as stimulating and insightful as its roster of guests — ten writers, from Dorothy Parker to Pauline Kael, who pulled no punches on the page.

Sloane Crosley returns to form with her first essay collection in eight years, covering everything from an escalating battle with her neighbor's hip but noisy children to mountain climbing in Ecuador.

Novelist Alan Hollinghurst's latest chronicles changing attitudes towards homosexuality in Britain through the stories of a closeted gay man — and later, his son — in the decades after World War II.

Laurent Binet's new novel starts with the death of French literary critic Roland Barthes and spins out a postmodern mystery packed with philosophical heavy hitters — and one bemused detective.

Tamara Shopsin's quirky, lively memoir of her unconventional Greenwich Village childhood is packed with vivid details about the cast of characters who populated her parents' corner store-turned-diner.

Rachel Khong's first novel is a heartwarming account of family devotion and dementia — which sounds sickly, but her offbeat sensibility and flair for wordplay keep the story from becoming saccharine.

Ashley Shelby's debut novel — set among an appealing mix of nerds and oddballs at Antarctica's Amundsen-Scott research station — is a refreshing diversion from summer's heat.

While the love story in Allegra Goodman's latest novel can seem formulaic, she captures the allure of video gaming and the tension between real-world art and literature and the fantasy worlds online.

Jenny Allen's new essay collection is sarcastic, funny and astute, finding humor in everything from her battle with cancer to the indignities of aging to her many, many linguistic pet peeves.

Katherine Heiny's first novel for adults is a warmhearted and funny — if overly long — portrait of a man who begins to doubt his chaotic, talkative second wife after 12 years of marriage.

There are plenty of story collections out now to start your summer with, but Tessa Hadley tops the pile with Bad Dreams, ten richly complex tales of characters pushing the boundaries of their lives.

Colm Tóibín ventures far afield — in time and place — for this heart-stopping take on the tragedy of Clytemnestra and her family, reanimated with suffering the ancient Greeks never imagined.

The 11 stories in Joshua Ferris' new collection have all been published before, but they provide a fine showcase for his sly wit, proceeding from the ordinary to the uncomfortable and even bizarre.

Fitzgerald wrote most of his best work in his 20s, and the stories in this new collection — all unpublished or uncollected — demonstrate how hard it was for him to deliver what readers wanted.

Elizabeth Strout's new novel-in-stories is a welcome salve for troubled times. A companion volume to last year's My Name is Lucy Barton, Anything is Possible looks at the people Lucy grew up with.

Max Winter's bleak, powerful debut novel is haunted by missing people — and those who feel their absence. It centers around a man trying to piece together his estranged brother's last years.

Jim Harrison lived as he wrote — vividly. One year after his death, a new collection of his essays on food, wine, writing and aging brings him roaring back in all his immoderate brilliance.

Nell Stevens retreated to a remote corner of the Falkland Islands in an attempt to write a novel. She came away with something better: This oddly winning memoir of deprivation, rain and penguins.

Keggie Carew's father was a genuine war hero, but he was on shakier ground close to home. And after he began to suffer from dementia, Carew set out to reconstruct — and demythologize — his life.

Stephen O'Shea's quirky travelogue is packed with facts and history, but it's marred by a few odd choices — for example, why visit the famed skiing town of Val d'Isère at the height of summer?