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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Jeff Bartsch's new novel is about a brainy couple who, after meeting at a 1960s spelling bee, conduct their troubled love affair through secret clues in the crosswords they compose for newspapers.
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Patricia Marx's comic memoir chronicles her four-month attempt to boost her brainpower. Critic Heller McAlpin says anyone clever enough to have written this book shouldn't worry about her brain.
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Professional Scrabble fan John D. Williams' new memoir is chock full of interesting tidbits (like lists of important words with Q, X and J) but gets bogged down in tedious biographical detail.
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In The Stranger, Albert Camus' antihero Meursault famously killed a nameless Arab; Algerian writer Kamel Daoud's new novel reworks Camus from the point of view of the murdered man's brother.
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The aging characters in Kate Walbert's new novel are learning to go with the flow as waters rise and life takes strange turns. Critic Heller McAlpin praises Walbert's ability to capture women's lives.
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Fredrik Sjöberg's wry memoir celebrates the beauty of limitations, tiny wonders and intense focus; in Sjöberg's case, a focus on the hoverflies he studies on his home island of Runmarö in Sweden.
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Lucas Mann's new memoir pieces together family memories to create a portrait of his heroin-addicted older brother, who died of an overdose. Critic Heller McAlpin calls it difficult but necessary.
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Eliza Kennedy's snappy new novel follows Lily Wilder, a high-powered litigator conflicted about her upcoming wedding because she's having too much fun with sex, booze and work to settle down.
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Readers eager to catch up with the Iowa farming family Jane Smiley introduced in Some Luck will enjoy the latest installment, which follows the five children off the farm and into the postwar era.
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New Yorker copy editor Mary Norris' new book is part life story, part grammar guide. Reviewer Heller McAlpin says the book is delightful, and Norris is a "stickler who can't resist schtick."