​“The Alternatives” by award-winning Irish author Caoilinn Hughes reflects our collective yearning to make sense of our lives.

Every generation has its own crisis, the linguist and podcaster Amanda Montell writes. In the 1960s and ’70s, young Americans organized against “physical tyrannies” such as voter suppression and workplace discrimination. But times have changed.

Tommy Orange’s second novel is partly a sequel to his acclaimed 2018 debut, “There There” — its second half centers on members of the Red Feather family after the events of the first book. But Orange moves the story back as well as forward. He rewinds to 1864’s Sand Creek Massacre, in which Natives were killed or displaced by the U.S. army.

Xochitl Gonzalez is a cultural critic, producer, screenwriter, and the New York Times bestselling author of “Olga Dies Dreaming.”

Li Yiyun’s “The Book of Goose” is a story of childhood friendship between narrator Agnès, a one-time prodigy from rural France credited with publishing a book at the age of 14, and Fabienne, who pushed Agnès along the path to fame.

​In Paul Lynch’s 2023 Booker Prize winner “Prophet Song,” the world ends slowly and then all at once in Ireland.

Author James Baquet recommend some brilliant works such as “Encyclopedia Britannica” from the great intellectual hero Mortimer Jerome Adler in this article.

Danish author Hans Christian Andersen wrote the fairy tale “The Little Mermaid” in 1837. Several films have been made based on the story; the latest, a live-action musical version, was released just last year. But this is the original.