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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We've seen jealous, possessive friends and housewreckers with no boundaries before, though perhaps not quite so thoroughly, unapologetically unlikeable as in Ore Agbaje-Williams's debut novel. -
Max Porter's compulsively readable primal scream of a novel offers a compassionate portrait of boy jerked around by uncontrollable mood swings that lead to self-sabotaging decisions.
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Literary editor Will Schwalbe's new book is a tale about connecting across divides — which is particularly heartening in our polarized culture.
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Patrick Bringley's story — he jumped off the career ladder, deliberately taking a position divorced from ambition in order to find the space for quiet contemplation — is oddly suited to our times.
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This year's selection of visual delights highlights the work of artists and designers who have made an enduring impact, including Lucian Freud, Elsa Schiaparelli and Patti Smith.
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Three new art books feature female subjects of every shape and hue from all over the world, doing the things that women have historically done — and also the things that men have historically done.
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Atypical of inspirational weight-loss books, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom by Rabia Chaudry — an advocate of Serial podcast subject Adnan Syed — is a love letter to the author's native cuisine.
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More than most books four times its size, Foster does several of the things we ask of great literature: It expands our world, diverting our attention outward, and it opens up our hearts and minds.
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Elizabeth McCracken promised her mom she'd never write about her. But this work of fiction strives to conjure her up in order to prevent her from "evanescing."
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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.
