Doctor Copernicus

John Banville. Vintage Books USA, $14.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-679-73799-5

These unusually fine biographical novels vivify Copernicus, the man who reshaped the medieval world view, and 16th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler, whose science was a means to pursue the nature of God. (Oct.)

Featured Fiction Reviews

Canisia Lubrin

Windham Campbell Prize–winning poet Lubrin (Voodoo Hypothesis) makes her fiction debut with a thrilling and inventive collection centered on Black life in the Caribbean and the Continue reading »

Michel Nieva

Argentine writer Nieva sets his ingenious and outré English-language debut, expanded from an O. Henry Prize–winning short story, in a far-future world radically altered by Continue reading »

Jack Wang

In this exemplary historical, a Chinese Canadian man fights prejudice and falls in love during WWII. Josiah Chang, who’s unable to join the army because of his race, finds work Continue reading »

Gerald Murnane

This spectacular novel from Murnane (Inland), originally published in Australia in 2009, takes the form of an internal dialogue about the images, memories, and obsessions the Continue reading »