47 Things to See, Hear, and Do This Fall

It's always entertaining to watch a good girl play a bad boy. Twenty-four years passed between Robinson's first novel, Housekeeping, and her second, Gilead, which won the Pulitzer in 2005. Now she is back with Home, which is set in the same Iowa town as Gilead and shares characters with the earlier book, including Gilead's hero, John Ames. Home centers on the Boughton family. The father, Robert, a priest and Ames's closest friend, has entered old age, and his unmarried daughter Glory returns home to live with him. She is followed shortly after by the prodigal Jack, Robert's brilliant, shiftless, alcoholic son, with whom they all have to find a way to make peace.

— Lev Grossman