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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Literary editor Will Schwalbe's new book is a tale about connecting across divides — which is particularly heartening in our polarized culture. -
Patrick Bringley's story — he jumped off the career ladder, deliberately taking a position divorced from ambition in order to find the space for quiet contemplation — is oddly suited to our times. -
This year's selection of visual delights highlights the work of artists and designers who have made an enduring impact, including Lucian Freud, Elsa Schiaparelli and Patti Smith. -
Three new art books feature female subjects of every shape and hue from all over the world, doing the things that women have historically done — and also the things that men have historically done. -
Atypical of inspirational weight-loss books, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom by Rabia Chaudry — an advocate of Serial podcast subject Adnan Syed — is a love letter to the author's native cuisine. -
More than most books four times its size, Foster does several of the things we ask of great literature: It expands our world, diverting our attention outward, and it opens up our hearts and minds. -
Elizabeth McCracken promised her mom she'd never write about her. But this work of fiction strives to conjure her up in order to prevent her from "evanescing." -
Manguso made a name for herself in minutely observed memoirs. Now she uses fiction to write about what it is to feel poor, poorly nurtured, and inadequately loved in a class-conscious town. -
Phyllis Fischer, a 40-year-old wife and mother, is drawn into a liberating relationship with a much younger man. She soon realizes that perhaps she wasn't so content as she thought. -
With her new essay collection, Jamison reverses the arc of The Empathy Exams by moving from the external to the internal, from others' longings and hauntings to her own.
