Maureen Corrigan

Ling Ma's Severance is an unusual apocalyptic novel, says critic Maureen Corrigan. Satiric, playful and scary, it lends assurance that humor will linger even as the world comes to an end.

Critic Maureen Corrigan says Kevin Wilson's funny, raw, beautiful writing reminds her of J. D. Salinger. He starts with a goofy premise and then draws deep emotional truths.

R. O. Kwon's pensive debut novel charts a well-worn path from eager innocence to bruised experience. But it tweaks the conventional campus novel formula in a few crucial ways.

Megan Abbott's new novel centers on a two young women whose high school friendship has morphed into professional rivalry. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls Give Me Your Hand a "spectacular thriller."

A vintage ocean liner stops dead in the water in Kate Christensen's latest. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the voyage is an "entertaining and elegantly written story about social class."

Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation centers on a miserable young woman who believes that if she could only sleep long enough, she'd wake up refreshed and free of existential pain.

Deborah Levy thought her life would slow down at 50, but instead, it became "faster, unstable, unpredictable." Critic Maureen Corrigan says Levy's memoir is a "smart, slim meditation on womanhood."

Critic Maureen Corrigan recommends two books to expand your horizons: One is a cultural history of the great American road trip; the other an early 20th-century classic of Midwestern rural life.

Critic Maureen Corrigan says Tommy Orange's novel, which centers on a cast of native and mixed-race characters whose lives intersect at a powwow, features "a literary authority rare in a debut."

In the relaxed days of summer, critic Maureen Corrigan reflexively reaches for a mystery. This year, she's settling in with The Dime, by Kathleen Kent, and The Death of Mrs. Westaway, by Ruth Ware.

Lauren Groff sets her new story collection in what she calls the "sunniest and strangest of states." Critic Maureen Corrigan says the tales are "brooding, inventive — and often moving."

A divorced couple reconnects after nearly 30 years apart in Stephen McCauley's new novel. Critic Maureen Corrigan says My Ex-Life is a social satire that's "suffused with generosity."

In 1927, author Zora Neale Huston interviewed Cudjo Lewis, the last known living person who could recount the experience of being taken captive in Africa and transported on a slave ship to America.

Kirk Wallace Johnson's new book chronicles the real-life heist of 299 rare bird skins from Britain's Tring Museum in 2009. Maureen Corrigan says The Feather Thief reads like a "classic thriller."

Patricia Hampl's sharp new book argues that daydreaming is a vital part of life. Maureen Corrigan says, after reading it, "you'll understand more of what makes life worth living."

Wolitzer's new novel centers on a legendary feminist and the young woman whose life she transforms. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls The Female Persuasion an absorbing and compelling work.

Jan Morris chronicles the final days of the most powerful warship in the Imperial Japanese Navy in her latest book. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls Battleship Yamato a work of both power and restraint.

Maureen Corrigan recommends two books that grapple with real-life mysteries: Laura Thompson's biography of the sphinxlike Agatha Christie, and I'll Be Gone In The Dark, by the late Michelle McNamara.

In his experimental new memoir, Matt Young conveys the chaos of his three deployments in Iraq. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls Young "a frank, funny and mercilessly self-lacerating narrator."

Smith's massive new essay collection covers a wide assortment of topics, but critic Maureen Corrigan says Feel Free is strongest when it focuses on art and identity.