Author Eyal Press calls them "jobs of last resort" — slaughtering animals, working in prisons, engaging in remote drone combat. Society needs them but doesn't want to talk about them.

Many of this year's mystery and suspense novels explore literary appropriation — characters in positions of privilege laying their sticky mitts on stories that don't belong to them.

The book covers King's Grand Slam and Wimbledon championships, the "Battle of the Sexes," her activism for women's and LGBTQ rights, as well as some joyous and painful chapters in her personal life.

Although personal anecdotes are included throughout, Rafia Zakaria's aim is not to explore her own pain but to retrace the history of how white feminism has caused unending trauma through centuries.

This year's Summer Poll is all about the past decade in science fiction and fantasy, so we asked critic Jason Sheehan to come up with his own list of the new sci-fi that's blowing his mind.

Jaime Cortez's debut collection, Gordo, is set in and around the same dusty California town that inspired John Steinbeck. It's a lovely portrait of a time and place that still manages to be universal.

Words can seem infinite — but language has limits. In his new poetry collection, Pilgrim Bell, Kaveh Akbar shapes language into prayer, into body, into patchwork — but only into what can be known.

Winfred Rembert's autobiography features images of fishing in the culvert and dancing in the juke joint — but also of picking cotton, escaping a lynching and working on the chain gang.

Though Susan Williams' book is framed far too expansively, it overflows with fascinating information, research and bold ideas — especially regarding Congo's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba.

Call it fate or an unfortunate coincidence that Dr. Seuss' eco-parable marks its 50th anniversary just as the United Nations releases a report on the dire consequences of human-induced climate change.

Perhaps most interesting in Tim Higgins' book are the hints at what might have been: Tesla could have built a plug-in hybrid, or sold itself to Google, or become a battery supplier.

If you, like many people, are getting through the dragging months of the pandemic by being Very Online, you'll find poet Leigh Stein's new book is a perfect encapsulation of that experience.

You don't have to be Catholic to connect with Claire Luchette's vivid story of a lonely young woman yearning for community — and also for everything she gave up to be part of that community.

In the pages of a DC Comics anthology series, Tim Drake — the third young man to assume the role of Batman's sidekick, Robin, has a "lightbulb moment" realization — but his journey is only beginning.

No fewer than five assassins are on the high speed train at the center of Kotaro Isaka outlandish and virtuoso novel — and within pages, they're going after each other.