On today's episode, Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino. A young woman who may be from another planet helps us see our own home more clearly.

Maris Kreizman’s new book, I Want to Burn this Place Down, is a collection of essays that comments on contemporary culture.

A contemporary woman discovers that an aunt she never knew was part of a group of Black girls that went missing in the 1960s.

We discuss a gripping novel that traces the effects of a death in the family on the generations to follow.

A propulsive novel from the point of view of a man convinced of his own cleverness and appeal.

A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting is part memoir and part scientific exploration of nutrition and weight-lifting for women.

In 1972, a group of young people from Clearwater, Florida, traveled to western North Carolina on their way to a Rolling Stones concert. When they were settled in their campsite for the night, the local sheriffs showed up with weapons, killing one young man and assaulting several others. Historian Timothy Silver thoroughly investigated the case and wrote a riveting book about it called Death in Briar Bottom.Buy the book!Buy the ebook!

Emma Pattee is an accomplished climate journalist who’s written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and more. Now we hear from her about her debut novel, Tilt.

In Sally Wen Mao’s collection, NINETAILS, she reimagines the nine-tailed fox spirit from Asian folklore in a series of short stories interwoven with a novella.

In the literary thriller The Red Grove, a community of women live among redwoods, until a death changes everything.