Juan Vidal

Anti-racist reading lists are making the rounds right now — and they can be useful if people do the work of reading. But critic Juan Vidal suggests you look closer to home, to your own bookshelf.

Mathias Énard's novel — newly translated from French — imagines what would have happened if Michelangelo had accepted an offer from the Ottoman ruler to design a bridge across the Golden Horn.

Marcia Douglas's new book imagines a resurrected Bob Marley, living in a clock tower and conversing with spirits — but Douglas also honors and elevates the voices of the women in Marley's orbit.

The Bible's famous verse and chapter structure is relatively recent — and surprisingly unpopular. And a new version out now aims to make it more approachable by structuring it like any other book.

Ana Simo's brash and unsettling debut novel straddles the line between pulp noir and slapstick; it's the story of a struggling writer who decides that murder is the cure for her decade-long block.

In The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolaño invented the "visceral realists," a group of wild writers who read anywhere and everywhere — causing critic Juan Vidal to ponder the weird places we read.

Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra's new story collection shows off his exacting eye, comic timing and powers of description; critic Juan Vidal says the narratives flow like a glass of cool water.

Critic Juan Vidal says winter is a time for turning inward and warding off the chill with your favorite books, the ones you return to over and over again when the days get shorter and snow closes in.

Several Miami-area chefs are leading tours for Americans to experience the tastes — and farm scene — of the communist island nation. They hope to foster cross-cultural dialogue through food and drink.

Magazines of all stripes are struggling to negotiate the digital age — but writer Juan Vidal finds hope for the future of reading in the pages of his favorite new literary magazines.