FICTION
Washington Post critics pick the best books for summer reading
AN ATLAS OF IMPOSSIBLE LONGING , by Anuradha Roy (Free Press; paperback, $14). A single act of pity rattles down generations to break a caste’s rules, test a family’s mettle and throw together two unlikely friends. — Marie Arana
DOC , by Mary Doria Russell (Random House, $26). The Wild West rides back to life in this aggressively researched and wonderfully entertaining story about Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp in the days before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
— Ron Charles
AN EVIL EYE , by Jason Goodwin (Farrar Straus Giroux, $26). The discovery of a Russian corpse in a Christian well in the heart of a Muslim land clarifies the muddle of the decaying Ottoman Empire.
— Steve Donoghue
FIELD GRAY , by Philip Kerr (Putnam, $26.95). The author propels Bernie Gunther all across Europe to give us a panoramic look at life before, during and after history’s most terrible war.
— Patrick Anderson
GONE , by Mo Hayder (Atlantic Monthly, $24). The little girls who vanish throughout this tale turn out to be beribboned and pink-sneakered red herrings in a much more sinister game of retribution. — Maureen Corrigan
MY NEW AMERICAN LIFE , by Francine Prose (Harper, $25.99). This story of a fierce-witted Albanian babysitter shimmers with hilarious, if blistering, satire.
— Helen Simonson
THE PARIS WIFE , by Paula McLain (Ballantine, $25). An imaginative homage to Hadley Richardson Hemingway, who helped her young husband, Ernest, become a writer. — Donna Rifkind
THE POISON TREE , by Erin Kelly (Viking, $26.95). A compelling creeper about a forlorn woman’s friendship with two bohemian British siblings. — M.C.
THE PREACHER , by Camilla Lackberg (Pegasus, $25.95). Those seeking a successor to the late Stieg Larsson as the doyen of Scandinavian crime fiction should look to the Swedish author of this gripping thriller. — Dennis Drabelle
PYM , by Mat Johnson (Spiegel & Grau, $24). An outrageously entertaining reimagination of Edgar Allan Poe’s enigmatic and unsettling novel.
— Michael Dirda
SAINTS AND SINNERS: Stories , by Edna O’Brien (Back Bay; paperback, $13.99). If what you’re looking for is a map of Ireland, the fiction of Edna O’Brien will do just fine. — Jonathan Yardley
SAVE ME , by Lisa Scottoline (St. Martin’s, $27.99). The plot gains sinister force by drawing on today’s preoccupations: school bullying, Facebook pillory and even peanut allergies.
— Katherine A. Powers
THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT , by Louis Bayard (Henry Holt, $25). The search for an ancient letter in a Washington apartment escalates into a trans-Atlantic scramble to uncover much more.
— Kathy Blumenstock
SILVER SPARROW , by Tayari Jones (Algonquin, $19.95). A man has two families in the same town. One knows about the other; the other doesn’t. — Anita Shreve
STATE OF WONDER , by Ann Patchett (Harper, $26.99). Set amid the Amazon’s piranha-infested waters, this is surely the smartest, most exciting novel of the summer. — R.C.
THE TRAGEDY OF ARTHUR , by Arthur Phillips (Random House, $26). An elaborately structured comic novel in the form of a memoir about a Shakespeare-obsessed, dysfunctional family. — M.D.
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Book review: ‘The Fix,’ by Damian Thompson
How addiction is taking over your world, and how you are empowered to stop it.
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Book World: ‘My Life as a Weapon’ explores a superhero’s spare time
In comic series, writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja follow Avengers’ Hawkeye through daily life.
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Book review: Philipp Meyer’s ‘The Son’
The author of ‘American Rust’ is back with a spectacular saga about the settling of Texas and the flow of oil.
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'Apocalypse Cow,' by Michael Logan
In Logan's absurdist first novel, sex-crazed zombie bovines threaten the earth.
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Khaled Hosseini’s exquisite ‘And the Mountains Echoed’
The bestselling author of “The Kite Runner” returns with another powerful story about Afghanistan.
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Two thumbs up! (I hated it)
What do the blurbs on book jackets really mean?
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‘Minotaur,’ by Benjamin Tammuz
A man becomes obsessed with a teenage girl, but does that obsession lead him to murder?
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Adam Mansbach at the Gaithersburg Book Festival
The fourth annual book fair offered 100 authors and a dozen workshops.
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Book review: ‘The Golem and the Jinni,’ by Helene Wecker
Can modest golem and a mercurial jinni find love in Lower Manhattan?
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Book review: ‘Cheat the Clock’
A science writer for The Washington Post, Margaret Webb Pressler decided to unravel the mystery of her husband’s biology.
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Book review: ‘Wash,’ by Margaret Wrinkle
The harrowing story of a black man pressed into sexual slavery after the Revolutionary War.
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Washington Post Bestsellers May 19
The books Washington has been reading.
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Book review: ‘The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter’
Steven Nadler’s fascinating survey of Golden Age Dutch culture, Cartesian philosophy and art connoisseurship.
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Book review: Eleanor Morse’s ‘White Dog Fell from the Sky’
A novel about the unusual friendship between a South African refugee and an American expatriate.
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