Search results for

More and more writers are setting their novels and short stories in worlds, not unlike our own, where the Earth's systems are noticeably off-kilter. The genre has come to be called climate fiction — "cli-fi," for short.

Jean Thompson's The Humanity Project follows the fortunes of a number of hard-luck people — and looks at the bizarre, sad and funny ways we fail to help others.

How do creative geniuses do what they do? Daily Rituals, which assembles the working regimens of 161 artists and thinkers into a lean, engaging volume, makes one thing clear: There's no such thing as the way to create good work, but all the greats have their way — and some are spectacularly weird.

Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang's new book, Boxers & Saints, has been nominated for a National Book Award. It's the tale of a young Chinese boy and girl whose lives are upended by the Boxer Rebellion. Yang tells NPR's Petra Mayer that he was inspired by the controversial canonization of several Chinese saints in 2000.

Ann Leckie's debut novel, Ancillary Justice, is the tale of former starship AI Breq. Now an autonomous human, Breq is out to kill the devious dictator who rules her corner of the galaxy. Reviewer Genevieve Valentine says Ancillary Justice is "a space opera that skillfully handles both choruses and arias."

In his new book, Average Is Over, Tyler Cowen predicts that America will become a new, more creative meritocracy. Though he believes a rise in income inequality is inevitable, he hopes that "happiness inequality isn't going up in the same way."

California parolee Charles Manson arrived in San Francisco in 1967, when the city was full of young waifs looking for a guru. In Manson, Jeff Guinn argues that if the cult leader had instead been paroled in a place like Nebraska, he likely would not have been so successful.

Jesmyn Ward's new memoir Men We Reaped follows the lives and tragically early deaths of several young black men — Ward's brother among them. Reviewer Richard Torres says Ward is "talented enough to turn ... prose into poetry," but that she doesn't sugarcoat her terrible experiences.

Bob Odenkirk and David Cross created and starred in the short-lived sketch comedy program Mr. Show. Fifteen years after their show went off the air, they have a new book of old scripts that were rejected by Hollywood.

A chance encounter with a little girl in an ice cream store inspired R.J. Palacio to write a novel about a boy born with distorted facial features. She says it got her thinking about what it's like to "have to face a world every day that doesn't know how to face you back."