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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Anne Nelson links "the manpower and media of the Christian right," "finances of Western plutocrats," and "strategy of right-wing Republican political operatives" via the Council for National Policy.
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Mimi Lok's debut story collection — a perceptive look at the connections we make and fail to make — doesn't read like a debut. Lok writes with the self-assuredness of a literary veteran.
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O'Brien's 19th novel is based on the real story of the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by jihadist group Boko Haram in 2014. It's a painful and essential read that ends on a hopeful yet realistic note.
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The singer-songwriter's new book is an unconventional rock memoir that doesn't hew to the genre's norms. And like her entire musical catalog, it's honest and original.
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Stephen Harrigan's sprawling history of the Lone Star state showcases his enthusiasm for Texas; it's an endlessly fascinating look at how the state has evolved over the years.
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Maaza Mengiste's new novel is set just before the second Italo-Ethiopian War, and follows a woman who becomes a guard to a "shadow king," a man impersonating exiled Ethiopian ruler Haile Selassie.
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In Kevin Barry's grim but compassionate new novel, two weary Irish ex-crooks sit waiting in a run-down Spanish ferry terminal, waiting for one man's estranged daughter who may or may not show up.
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Etgar Keret at his best can be brilliant, and some of the stories in his new collection are nearly perfect, but over all it's an uneven read, weighed down by pointless whimsy and unearned pessimism.
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Edwidge Danticat's new story collection explores the ways people deal with death, from a woman whose barely known father is dying to a man facing his last seconds as he falls from a construction site.
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Rion Amilcar Scott's second story collection returns readers to his fictional town of Cross River, Md., site of America's only successful slave uprising, and God is one of the best-known residents.