What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week

Caroline Fraser’s Murderland, Jess Walter’s So Far Gone, and Geoff Dyer’s Homework all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.

Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews.

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Fiction

1. So Far Gone by Jess Walter
(Harper)

8 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an interview with Jess Walter here

“Searing and sublime … Walter is a slyly adept social critic, and has clearly invested his protagonist with all of the outrage and heartbreak he himself feels about the dark course our world has taken. He’s also invested his protagonist with a self-deprecating sense of humor that keeps his pessimism from veering into maudlin territory. If there’s hope to be found within this harsh landscape, it’s in our connection with one another.”

–Leigh Haber (The Los Angeles Times)

2. Great Black Hope by Rob Franklin
(S&S/Summit Books)

4 Rave • 2 Mixed

“A novel stuffed with witty, keen observations about the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality, imbued with a sharp wit that places Franklin in the company of such astute social observers as Edith Wharton and Henry James, and a must for readers of contemporary literary fiction.”

–Nanette Donohue (Library Journal)

3. King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby
(Pine & Cedar)

3 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed

“Propulsive and powerful … A gripping roller coaster ride of escalating danger in cars and crematories, punctuated by pulpy moments of dark glamour in the bedroom and the club, interspersed with elegiac meditations on the art of war. The story overflows with immersive velocity and crackling sensory details.”

–Chanelle Benz (The New York Times Book Review)

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Nonfiction

1. Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser
(Penguin Press)

6 Rave • 3 Positive • 2 Mixed
Read an excerpt from Murderland here

“Extremely disturbing … Intellectual framework underpins but never impedes the momentum of Fraser’s compelling, beautifully written text … This propulsive narrative is buttressed by extensive research documented in voluminous footnotes. With facts at her fingertips, she disdains to pretend objectivity … This is a cautionary tale, not a triumphal one, and Fraser closes with a passionate, angry passage whose biblical cadences ring with righteous fury.”

–Wendy Smith (The Washington Post)

2. Homework: A Memoir by Geoff Dyer
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

1 Rave • 6 Positive • 2 Mixed

“A good memoir needs to be both particular and universal, which Dyer achieves by applying his idiosyncratic world view to experiences many of us will recognise … I was more or less constantly giggling for pages at a time … Extraordinarily moving … If you’ve read Dyer before then you’ll need no persuasion to read this book. If you haven’t, it’s the perfect place to start.”

–John Self (The Times)

3. Cooler Than Cool: The Life and Work of Elmore Leonard by C.M. Kushins
(Mariner)

4 Rave • 1 Positive

“Kushins isn’t the first to give Leonard the biographical treatment—see, for example, Paul Challen’s Get Dutch!(2000)—but he may be the first to really get inside the author’s mind, to show us not just who Elmore Leonard was but how he got that way. For Leonard’s legion of fans, the book is a must-read, but you don’t need to be a Leonard fan to enjoy this beautifully crafted life story.”

–David Pitt (Booklist)