When you sit down to write a story, sometimes the hardest part can be just getting started. After all, the beginning of a tale ...

Weekly book lists of exciting new releases, bestsellers, classics, and more. The lists are curated by the editors of Kirkus Reviews.

Short fiction is a wordful format. Many writing classes for kids and college students exclusively study short stories because ...

Kurtz offers readers a deeply personal vision of her unique childhood. Thanks to her World War II veteran father, a Protestant minister, she was raised in Maji, a small village in the mountains of ...

An examination of New York’s Central Park and its history, set in the context of global climate change. Any history of Central Park necessarily spotlights Frederick Law Olmsted, who (with Calvert Vaux ...

Three educators at different points in their careers navigate life and work in a small town in Culbertson’s novel. After an entitled parent accosts her in her prep school’s parking lot (“he shoved me ...

Kelly opens by professing that he’s obsessed by the past—and that, being on the autism spectrum, “I develop an almost physical compulsion to know everything there is to know on a subject.” This lively ...

Sisters raised by their abusive father, a governor of a colonial backwater in a world vaguely reminiscent of the late 18th century, Scarlett and Donatella each long for something more. Scarlett, olive ...

Ellie, the hardest-working elevator on 74th Street, spends her days cheerfully ferrying residents from floor to floor. She loves her job and the occupants she provides bespoke service to; she ...

A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s. Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, ...