What the Critics Read This Week

Literary Hub's weekly Book Marks roundup gathers the fiction and nonfiction that drew the most critical attention this week. Leading the fiction is Chang-Rae Lee's "A Tender Age," with ten rave reviews and one mixed. It is followed by Téa Obreht's "Sunrise," with seven raves and one pan, a novel of the Old West that Booklist's critic described as a gripping account of gender, forbidden love, myth, history and the desecration of the wild. Richard Russo's "Under the Falls" met a more divided response, from rave to pan, and follows themes of remorse, reunion and the search for redemption. Two more novels round out the list: Claire Carusillo's "The Responsible Party" and Brinda Charry's "Hocus Pocus," the latter a historical novel set in a Boston barely removed from the American Revolution. In nonfiction, first place goes to Sam Roberts's "Are They Dead Yet?: The Art of the Obit," a book about the craft and the trade of writing obituaries. Virginia Eubanks's "A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving" is a memoir of care, survival and responsibility that drew three raves. Daisy Dixon's "Depraved: The Story of Dangerous Art" takes up morality, censorship, and art that depicts violence or troubling historical figures, arguing that such work should be criticized but not necessarily censored. The section closes with Daniel Lieberman's "Fed Up," on the links between evolution, food and health, and Ashley Kahn's "Days of Miracle and Wonder," on Paul Simon and the album "Graceland." Read more: the full list, with links to the reviews https://lithub.com/what-should-you-read-next-here-are-the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-week-8-13-2026/

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