Laurie Muchnick

2 weeks ago | kirkusreviews.com | Laurie Muchnick

Every book lover has an ideal summer reading set-up: Maybe you like to read on the beach, with the sun beating down and the waves breaking at your feet, or on an airplane with no Wi-Fi, anticipating your vacation. My fantasy reading experience would take place in a hammock, with a warm breeze blowing and a glass of lemonade in easy reach. Wherever you find yourself reading this summer, here’s a selection of books you’ll want to dive into.

1 month ago | kirkusreviews.com | Laurie Muchnick

There’s so much great fiction coming out in May that it’s hard to know where to begin. If only this column could take a hint from Florence Knapp’s debut novel, The Names (Pamela Dorman/Viking, May 6), and go down three different paths. I’ve always been a fan of novels that explore alternate lives for their characters resulting from a single decision, such as Carol Anshaw’s Aquamarine (1992), which follows an Olympic swimmer through three possible lives after losing the gold medal.

1 month ago | kirkusreviews.com | Laurie Muchnick

Almost inadvertently, I’ve spent the last few months immersed in the world of Jane Austen. My husband decided to listen to an audiobook of Persuasion, so I joined him, and I didn’t stop till I’d listened to all six novels.

2 months ago | kirkusreviews.com | Laurie Muchnick

The 21st century started with a bang, fiction-wise, with The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000), a historical novel about two comic-book artists in which Michael Chabon explores so many 20th-century themes—from the immigrant experience to the growth of pop culture—that it serves as the perfect bridge to more recent hits like Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (2022).

2 months ago | kirkusreviews.com | Laurie Muchnick

Now more than ever, it’s good to be reminded that the U.S. is part of an international community, and there’s no better reminder than reading a novel or story collection from another country. Some of these recent books are explicitly political, while others delve into neighborhoods or private lives; all will transport you far away.