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Claire Messud's new novel, The Woman Upstairs, delves into the inner life of the quiet, friendly — and secretly furious — woman upstairs, a frustrated artist named Nora who becomes obsessed with a glamorous immigrant family.

Maggie Shipstead mocks the pretensions of New England WASPs, while Jessica Lott executes unexpected riffs on the student-professor relationship plot. Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two stellar fiction newcomers.

Charlie Huston's new thriller is a fast-paced and action-packed tale of a retired assassin who rejoins the game to protect a roboticist as she tracks a computer virus. But reviewer Alan Cheuse says "the action comes bracketed with a load of rhetoric," which ultimately put him to sleep.

Thanhha Lai's novel for young people, Inside Out & Back Again, conveys the wonders of being rescued in 1975 during an operation led by the USS Kirk. Last year, NPR shared other tales of that operation from refugees and U.S. sailors.

Adam Begley says Updike created an everyman in his Rabbit book series, and inhabited him fully, "allowing that everyman's senses to be totally open to the American experience."

Police in Belgium on Tuesday shot dead a suspected Tunisian extremist accused of killing two Swedish soccer fans in a brazen shooting on a Brussels street before disappearing into the night.

Rescue efforts continue in earthquake-damaged villages in the Himalayan foothills. Philip Reeves provides an eyewitness account of a helicopter relief-and-rescue mission -- to take food in and bring the injured out.

The lack of a U.S. ambassador in Israel hobbles the Biden administration's ability to pursue its goals. The U.S. also lacks ambassadors in Egypt and other countries in the region.

Pakistan says U.S.-led forces crossed into its territory and launched an attack that killed at least 15 people. The target of the attack was a village in South Waziristan, which is a tribal area used as a base by the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Decades ago, Pakistan International Airlines was a trendy airline whose flight attendants wore Pierre Cardin uniforms. These days the national carrier is $3 billion in debt and fighting privatization.

Aftab Bahadur had been jailed for more than two decades before he was put to death. Pakistan has executed more than 150 people since lifting a moratorium on the death penalty last December.

British authorities detained the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald's for nearly nine hours at Heathrow Airport on Monday. Greenwald, who works for The Guardian, published many of Edward Snowden's revelations about the National Security Agency's large-scale monitoring of telephone and email traffic. Key members of parliament and human rights activists are demanding to know why Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, was held.

To Pakistan, the Afghan elections and the withdrawal of most U.S. troops seems reminiscent of the Soviet departure decades ago — leaving Afghanistan in Pakistan's lap, for better or worse.

President Obama's troop increase in Afghanistan is being closely watched by many Americans, though pollsters have detected a strong isolationist sentiment, with nearly half of all Americans saying the United States should "mind its own business."

President Obama's troop increase in Afghanistan is being closely watched by many Americans, though pollsters have detected a strong isolationist sentiment, with nearly half of all Americans saying the United States should "mind its own business."

Alec Baldwin once again is staring down a felony involuntary manslaughter charge after a grand jury indicted the actor in connection with the fatal 2021 shooting of a cinematographer.

The tanker carried Russian-produced naphtha, a flammable oil, drawing Moscow further into a conflict that so far it had blamed on the U.S.

Senate Republicans unveiled a draft of their health care bill on Thursday. Party leaders are hoping for a vote on the legislation next week.

Ready for a Halloween scare? Reviewer Etelka Lehoczky says these graphic novels and compilations — packed with creepy cults, alien monsters, gravediggers and ghosts — are just the ticket.

Author Craig Nova recommends three books that take a fresh approach to the age-old bildungsroman. The experience of growing up is both universal and unique — and, in these books, timeless.