Meg Wolitzer

Molly Antopol's short stories are set in many different times and places. But reviewer Meg Wolitzer says each one will make you nostalgic for another era in short fiction, a time when writer like Bernard Malamud, and Issac Bashevis Singer and Grace Paley roamed the earth.

Rebecca Mead was 17 the first time she read Eliot's Middlemarch, and the book has remained a favorite ever since. But critic Meg Wolitzer says you don't have to read (or re-read) Middlemarch to love Mead's new book, My Life in Middlemarch, which is a mash-up of literary criticism, memoir and biography of Eliot.

Jenny Offill's sparse and experimental novel Dept. of Speculation is a reminder that bigger isn't always better. Through short vignettes, Offill builds a narrative about an unnamed husband and wife. It's a sly, profound glimpse into a fragile domestic sphere — and, while the form may be unusual, the book is highly readable.

In 1979, Gary Shteyngart's family moved from Leningrad to Queens. Three decades later, he wrote a memoir about growing up in a Russian immigrant family in New York. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer says the book is full of rich, gratifying writing as well as pride, exuberance and sophisticated humor.

The acrtess' new memoir might not be the kind of thing you'd expect from a longtime A-list actress and daughter of film royalty. Forget the glamour and debauchery of the familiar Hollywood tell-all. As reviewer Meg Wolitzer explains, Huston's story begins before Los Angeles, a story at once relatable and unique.

More than a year after her death, Nora Ephron — beloved reporter, screenwriter, director, and novelist — has been memorialized in a collection of her writings. Meg Wolitzer, who enjoyed a 20-year friendship with Ephron, says The Most of Nora Ephron forms a picture of an ambitious, honest feminist who demanded a lot from life and gave back even more.

The author of The Secret History returns with a novel about art, love and loss that's drawn comparisons to Oliver Twist and the Harry Potter series. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer says The Goldfinch marks a departure from Tartt's previous work, but it's a rich, absorbing read — all 771 pages of it.

Bridget Jones, as you may have heard, is back: 51, widowed and juggling two small children and a much younger boy toy. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer says that while she doesn't mind the subtraction of hunky Mark Darcy, she misses the messy but honest charm of the younger Bridget.

In The Pure Gold Baby, a budding anthropologist raises a developmentally disabled child and confronts the challenges of middle age. This is a surprise comeback for author Margaret Drabble, who swore in 2009 that she'd never publish fiction again.

Elusive and iconic, author Thomas Pynchon may intimidate some readers, but he has a devoted following. Bleeding Edge, his new new novel, is about a spunky, Upper West Side mother and fraud investigator in the era between the dot-com boom and Sept. 11.

In the pages of Marisha Pessl's Night Film, you'll uncover the death of a beautiful woman; her terrifying, filmmaker-father; even a seemingly haunted mansion. But reviewer Meg Wolitzer says that while the book dips into the unsavory and the scary, it stays surprisingly PG.

There is just so much to read! Every year many good books get lost under a tide of prose. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer celebrates five books that might have slipped under the radar.