Maureen Corrigan
Stories
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A dying woman chooses friends over her husband in 'Some Bright Nowhere'
A woman with a terminal diagnosis asks her husband to leave the house in Ann Packer's new novel. Some Bright Nowhere is an absorbing book about end-of-life care and what the living owe the dying.
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Patti Smith's 'Bread of Angels' serves as both a sequel and a prequel to 'Just Kids'
Smith revisits her childhood and offers insights into her marriage in a new memoir. Bread of Angels offers an intimate, if imperfect, view of the visionary punk poet.
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Lily King's new novel constructs an erotically charged love triangle
Heart the Lover is both a prequel and a sequel to King's 2020 novel Lovers & Writers. It's a story about screwing up, wising up, finding yourself and realizing what you may have lost in the process.
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'The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny' is a terrific, tangled love story
This is an epic novel to be savored. At nearly 700 pages, this multi-character, multi-stranded story explores exile and displacement — not only from one's home, but also from one's own sense of self.
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4 lives are upended by an impulsive kiss in the epic novel 'Buckeye'
Patrick Ryan's novel focuses on two married couples and stretches from pre-WWII to the close of the 20th century, capturing both the sweep of history and the mundane particularity of everyday life.
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Two genre novels offer entertainment -- and plenty of wry social commentary
Dan Fesperman's spy caper Pariah follows a disgraced comic-politician who's recruited by the CIA. The Dancing Face, by Mike Phillips, is a crime caper that confronts the spoils of colonialism.
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These 'Blondes' are turning 100, and they're still a lot of fun
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is about two flappers on the prowl for sugar daddies. First published in 1925, Anita Loos' cheeky comic novel has now been reissued in paperback.
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By land and by sea, these new nonfiction books will carry you away
Helen Whybrow's memoir, The Salt Stones, is a closely-observed account of her life as a shepherd. In A Marriage at Sea, Sophie Elmhirst tells the true story of a couple adrift on a rubber raft.
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Looking for summertime suspense? Turn up the heat with these 4 mystery novels
Maureen Corrigan recommends four great reads: El Dorado Drive, by Megan Abbott; The House on Buzzards Bay, by Dwyer Murphy; King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby; and Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman.
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Thomas Mallon's NYC diaries get to the 'Very Heart' of the AIDS crisis
Mallon has been keeping diaries for most of his life. The Very Heart of It collects entries from the years 1983 to 1994, when he had recently come out as gay and moved to New York City.