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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These books, including Roxana Robinson's Leaving, which comes out on Tuesday, all concern older women — some in their 60s, others in their 90s — who fully intend to enjoy all their years. -
All three of these books would make great gifts for gardeners and armchair oglers alike, and may tempt you to book a garden tour — or maybe even plant some bulbs and seeds yourself. -
This group ranges from a fabulous collection by contemporary, neurodiverse artists to Milton Glaser's pop art, and Aino and Alvar Aalto's Finnish modernist designs to a survey of Islamic architecture. -
Talk about a dream, kill a conversation. But not in the case of graphic novelist Roz Chast. Even her subconscious emanations present deliciously skewed takes on life's absurdities and fraught moments. -
The writer W. Somerset Maugham plays a central role Tan Twan Eng's entrancing new novel that encompasses at-the-time risky interracial and homosexual love stories and a scandalous murder trial. -
In her return to short stories, the Interpreter of Maladies author returns to fiction that powerfully conveys her characters' efforts to navigate geography and culture to find a place in the world. -
Lydia Davis' focus has shifted largely from issues of parenting and domestic relationships to aspects of aging — but the results are as penetrating as anything she's written. -
Daniel Mason's gorgeous fifth novel tells of a yellow house deep in the woods of western Massachusetts — and its motley succession of occupants who leave their mark on the property. -
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.
