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NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with the irrepressible novelist about his latest book — a memoir this time, called Tibetan Peach Pie -- and why he hates being labeled as a counter-culture writer.

Author Emma Donoghue's new novel, Frog Music, imagines a new solution to the 1876 murder of a San Francisco frog-catcher — and fits in a lot of raw and raunchy popular songs along the way.

Deborah Harkness combines serious academic research with occult romance in her novels, the latest of which is Shadow of Night.

Not long after Chilean novelist Roberto Bolano died in 2003, his heirs found an unpublished manuscript written more than 20 years ago. The Third Reich chronicles a month in the life of Udo Berger, a young German war game prodigy — and explores the origins of the brutality that lurks within us all.

Swedish writer Karin Tidbeck's debut story collection, Jagannath, is suffused with the myths of her homeland — and the American oddities she picked up as a student here. Reviewer Alan Cheuse says the stories are weird — but it's a good kind of weird.

Vaddey Ratner's In the Shadow of the Banyan draws on her childhood experiences under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. It follows Raami, a young polio survivor, from her idyllic home to the depths of totalitarian exploitation.

In The Great Tamasha journalist James Astill notes the parallels between India's control of the cricketing world and its dramatic economic rise. NPR's Krishnadev Calamur says Astill provides a glimpse into how India functions.

Livia Llewellyn's new story collection is beautiful and hideous in the same breath, steeped in the traditions of H.P. Lovecraft. Critic Jason Heller calls it "bursting with blood and shadow and dust."

John Brown, the man who led the 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, Va., may be among the most polarizing figures in American history. To some, he's a traitor and terrorist; to others, he's a hero. Tony Horwitz discusses his book Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War.

As a teenager, author T.C. Boyle's love of all things subversive led him to Franz Kafka. He found the stories "triumphantly perverse," and he's been hooked ever since. Do you have a favorite book with dark themes? Tell us in the comments.