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Shakespeare lived in a time of great transformation for Western Europe. New advances in science were overturning ancient ideas about astronomy and physics. The discovery of the Americas had transformed the European conception of the world....

The poet, playwright, teacher, lecturer, editor, and translator Gillian Clarke was born in Cardiff in 1937. She is considered an integral figure in contemporary Welsh poetry, leading her to become the third National Poet of Wales in 2008 and the...

The secret to the enduring popularity of what is perhaps James Thurber’s most famous short story, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"—published first in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939 and then reprinted in Thurber's 1942 collection My World - and...

Published mainly in the 1830s and 1840s, the stories of Edgar Allan Poe have come to represent the height of 19th-century tales of the macabre. One of the American Romantics, Poe showed an interest in the power of emotions and often sought to...

The Most is a contemporary novel by American author Jessica Anthony. Published by Little, Brown & Company in 2024, the novel explores a marriage on the brink of collapse. Set in 1957 in Newark, Delaware, Kathleen Beckett is a former tennis...

Martyr! is a novel by Iranian American poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar. It was published in 2014 by Knopf Publishing Group. In his debut novel, Akbar incorporates his poetry prowess and takes a crack at literary fiction. A New York Times bestseller,...

Ghostroots is a collection of short stories by Nigerian writer 'Pemi Aguda. It was published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2024. In her debut collection, Aguda reimagines the city of Lagos, full of chaos and the supernatural, in twelve gripping...

The Lives of Lee Miller is a biographical memoir by British photographer Antony Penrose, the son of Lee Miller. It was published in 1985 and later in 1995 by Thames & Hudson. Elizabeth "Lee Miller" Penrose was born in 1907 in New York. At...

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is a historical book by Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari. It was published in Hebrew in 2011 by Dvir Publishing House. The book was later translated into English in 2014 and released by Random House and...

Impossible Creatures is a fantasy fiction novel written by Katherine Rundell, a multi-award-winning British author known for her children’s fiction. It was published on September 14, 2023. Rundell has been celebrated for her previous works like ...

Most likely written between 750 and 650 B.C., The Odyssey is an epic poem about the wanderings of the Greek hero Odysseus following his victory in the Trojan War (which, if it did indeed take place, occurred in the 12th-century B.C. in Mycenaean...

In this book from award winner Rita Bullwinkle, written in 2024, eight young girls who dream of becoming world-class boxers stories' are told. To tell their story, Bullwinkle utilizes flashbacks, going back and forth between past and present....

Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional, which was published in late 2023, tells the story of a young woman who lives in the city and is unhappy with her life. In an attempt to reconnect with her roots and rediscover who she truly is, she decides...

Hirsham Matar's My Friends was published in 2023 and tells the story of a young man named Khaled, who grew up in the unstable streets of Benghazi, Libya. There, Khaled learns the story of a man who gets eaten by a cat. After learning more about...

Yael van der Wouden's The Safekeep was published by Simon and Schuster in mid-2024. The novel is set in the Netherlands, and is set in 1961, years after the end of World War II. The destruction caused by the war, including building damage and bomb...

Samantha Harvey's Orbital was published in late 2023 by Atlantic Monthly Press. Harvey's novel follows six men and women who are travelling across space and time. Although these astronauts at the center of the novel come from vastly different...

Sarah Perry's Enlightenment was published in June 2024 by Mariner Books. The novel, which is set in a small town in England, follows Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay, who have never met but have a strange connection. Growing up in a Baptist...

Richard Powers' Playground was published by W.W. Norton & Company in September 2024. Powers' novel follows four seemingly separate characters, who deal with the earth and its intricacies in different ways. The first character, Evie Beaulieu,...

Almost immediately after its publication in May 2024, Claire Messud's This Strange Eventful History received buzz as a potential award winner. Messud's novel is set over the course of seventy years, from 1940 to 2010. It follows the pieds-noirs...

Oregon-born author Rachel Kushner has written some of the most widely-loved novels of the twenty-first century. Creation Lake, which was published in 2024 and earned rave critical reviews, is set to be as wildly successful as her previous work....

Anne Michael's award-nominated novel Held, which was published in early 2024, is set over the course of four generations and examines how one generation's actions can have long-lasting repercussions. The novel begins in 1917, at the tail end of...

At its center, Colin Barrett's debut novel Wild Houses, which was published in 2024, is about the lengths people will go to when they are desperate. Barrett's novel follows a young man named Dev Hendrick, whose life in Ireland up until the start...

Richard III generated a great deal of interest both during and after Shakespeare's lifetime. It was published in quarto at least five times after being performed in 1592. Richard Burbage first played Richard the Third and made the "poisonous...