The novelist talks cosmetics ladies, male leads, and thinly veiled fiction.
The Golden Hour: A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood
By Matthew Specktor
All that glitters is gold for a Tinseltown writer.
When the World Explodes: Essays
By Amy Lee Scott
Personal history and natural disasters intertwine in these reflections on trauma.
Out of the Darkness
By Frank Trentmann
How does a nation overcome its barbaric past?
The Translator’s Daughter
By Grace Loh Prasad
A Taiwanese American woman struggles to reclaim her voice.
The Watermark: A Novel
By Sam Mills
A remarkably ambitious, remarkably uneven tale.
You’ve got your marching orders, word nerds!
The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World’s Oldest Writing
By Joshua Hammer
An overabundance of detail hobbles what could’ve been an absorbing saga.
Look what’s happening at the 2025 Washington Writers Conference!
Hot Air: A Novel
By Marcy Dermansky
Despite its sex-filled plot, this tawdry domestic drama ultimately deflates.
The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution
By Joyce E. Chaplin
This excellent history covers far more than the Founder’s forays into home heating.
