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Tash Aw's beautifully written new novel focuses on class issues in contemporary Malaysia, where his compelling protagonist is struggling to lead a quiet life after a long-ago murder conviction.

Nell Zink is a very funny writer, but the comedy never quite works in her new novel, which follows two aging punks and their daughter, from the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the '80s to D.C. today.

This week, the NPR Books Time Machine is rewinding Elizabeth Hand's gritty, punk-inflected Cass Neary mystery series. "Scary Neary" is an aging rocker with addiction issues and a talent for trouble.

The award-winning author is known for her brevity, and Can't And Won't doesn't disappoint. Davis tells NPR's Rachel Martin that the works of Russell Edson inspired her to write super-short stories.

The book is at once a paean to the Deep South, a condemnation of our fat-averse culture, and a beautiful memoir of being black, bookish, and part of a family that's as challenging as it is grounding.

Both books vividly capture the dizzying highs of mania and the shattering lows of depression that mark the disease. Mental's approach is comprehensive, Gorilla and the Bird's more intimate.

Author Hanif Abdurraqib has a seemingly limitless capacity to share what moves him and to invite the reader in: His love for these music-makers is contagious, even when it breaks his heart.

Sarah McColl unstintingly puts her heart on the page as she reflects on caring for her dying mother, with whom she is unimaginably close, as her marriage fails.

Two new books consider the complicated world of bees: Laline Paull's debut novel The Bees imagines humble worker bee's hive adventures, and A Sting in the Tale considers focuses on the bumblebee.

Biologist and Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson has spent his lifetime making scientific discoveries and writing award-winning, best-selling books on science. His new book, inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, gives advice gleaned from his career in science.