Michael Schaub
Michael Schaub is a writer, book critic and regular contributor to NPR Books. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Portland Mercury and The Austin Chronicle, among other publications. He lives in Austin, Texas.
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Author Thomas Healy chronicles how, in 1969, Floyd McKissick went about building a city from scratch, only to have his dreams dashed by a combination of prejudice and bureaucracy.
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Bryan Washington's eagerly awaited first novel is set in Houston — just like his short stories — and follows two young gay men whose relationship is tested when one man's mother comes to visit.
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Jonathan Alter tells Carter's life story beautifully and with admirable fairness — while it's evident that he admires Carter, he treats the former president as a real person, as flawed as anyone else.
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Authors Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch prove gifted at providing essential context, including deftly painting a picture of 19th-century America and the prevailing attitudes toward race and politics.
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Anna Burns gained fame in 2018 when her third novel, Milkman, won the Man Booker Prize. Little Constructions is her second novel, about a woman's vendetta against her violent, abusive brother-in-law.
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Stephen Wright's new novel is a darkly funny satire of American consumer culture, set in a Day-Glo alternate reality that's unsettlingly close to our own. It's an exhausting but unforgettable read.
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A new book by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn is an agonizing account of how apathy and cruelty have turned America into a nightmare for many less fortunate citizens. But it is not without hope.
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Scarlett Thomas' novel, set among wealthy girls at a British boarding school, is an audacious examination of disordered eating and social competition that turns dark when one of the girls drowns.
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Crissy Van Meter's debut novel is so assured, it's hard to believe it's a debut. It's the story of a young woman dealing with her mother and her difficult family history on the eve of her wedding.
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It's easy to make fun of disgruntled teenagers, but in his funny new Nietzsche and the Burbs, author Lars Iyer depicts them accurately and with real sensitivity, never mocking or condescending.