Drawing on real historical documents but infused with the intensity of imagination, sly humor, and intellectual fire for which award-winning author Rivka Galchen’s writing is known, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch is a tale for our time—the story of how a community becomes implicated in collective aggression and hysterical fear.The year is 1619, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years War has begun, and fear and susp...

A New York Times Notable Book of the YearA Salon.com Top Ten Book of the YearA Plain Dealer (Cleveland) Best Book of the YearA Slate Best Book of the YearRivka Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances is a "witty, tender, and conceptually dazzling" ( Booklist) novel about the mysterious nature of human relationships.When Dr. Leo Liebenstein's wife disappea...

‘Riveting’ Margaret Atwood ‘I loved this book intensely’ Lauren Groff GuardianThe plague is spreading. The hundred year war is beginning. Katharina Kepler is believed to be a witch.Known for her herbal remedies and successful children – among them Johannes, Imperial Mathematician and author of the laws of planetary motion – Katharina’s life is changed by an accusation of witchcraft. Facing financial ruin, torture and even execution, she tells her side of the story....

"It’s both transfixing and destabilizing. It’s the best thing I listened to all winter." —Alexis Gunderson, PASTE MagazineThe startling, witty, highly anticipated second novel from Rivka Galchen, the critically acclaimed author of Atmospheric Disturbances.The story begins in 1618, in the German duchy of Württemberg. Plague is spreading. The Thirty Years' War has begun, and fear and suspicion are in the air throughout the Holy Roman...

A BRILLIANT NEW COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES FROM THE "CONSPICUOUSLY TALENTED" ( TIME) RIVKA GALCHENWinner of the Danuta Gleed Literary AwardA New York Times Book Review Notable BookChosen as one of fifteen remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write in the 21st century by the book critics of The New York TimesIn one of the intensely imaginative stories in Rivka's Galchen's

One of our most brilliant, acclaimed novelists turns to nonfiction with a mind-expanding, slyly humorous personal exploration of the scientific imagination.In Lives of the Scientists: or, How to Predict the End of the World, Rivka Galchen offers a profound and playful exploration of the lives of scientists, the persistence of error, and the quixotic faith required to make sense of a turbulent reality. She finds both hope and warning—and many startling stor...

From the New Yorker “20 Under 40” author of Atmospheric Disturbances comes a brain-twisting adventure story of a girl named Fred on a quest through a world of fantastical creatures, strange logic, and a powerful prejudice against growing up.Fred and her math-teacher mom are always on the move, and Fred is getting sick of it. She’s about to have yet another birthday in a new place without friends. On the eve of turning thirteen, Fred sees something...

‘Riveting’ Margaret Atwood ‘I loved this book intensely’ Lauren Groff GuardianThe plague is spreading. The hundred year war is beginning. Katharina Kepler is believed to be a witch.Known for her herbal remedies and successful children – among them Johannes, Imperial Mathematician and author of the laws of planetary motion – Katharina’s life is changed by an accusation of witchcraft. Facing financial ruin, torture and even execution, she tells her side of the story....

One of our most brilliant, acclaimed novelists turns to nonfiction with a mind-expanding, slyly humorous personal exploration of the scientific imagination.In Lives of the Scientists: or, How to Predict the End of the World, Rivka Galchen offers a profound and playful exploration of the lives of scientists, the persistence of error, and the quixotic faith required to make sense of a turbulent reality. She finds both hope and warning—and many startling stor...

AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEARA droll and dazzling compendium of observations, stories, lists, and brief essays about babies.‘Beguiling … A wunderkabinett of baby-related curios … A peculiar book, and astonishing in its effect.’ Boston GlobeOne August day, a baby was born, or as it seemed to Rivka Galchen, a puma moved into her apartment. Her arrival felt supernatural, she seemed to come from another world. And suddenly, the world seemed ludicrously, ...

“Rivka Galchen delivers joy and cleverness reminiscent of The Phantom Tollbooth, Alice in Wonderland, and Hayao Miyazaki movies” (NPR, Best Books of 2019) in Rat Rule 79, a brain-twisting adventure story about friendship, growing up, and peanut-butter-pickle sandwiches.Fred and her math-teacher mom are always on the move, and Fred is getting sick of it. She’s about to have yet another birthday in a new place without friends. On the eve of...

The stories here collected under the title Five Women combine two different volumes. All together, these stories, each of which (as the reader will guess) has a woman at the apparent centre of its gaze, has the feel of a series study, or of a natural history, though one performed in a strange and not entirely rational laboratory, or field. The intensity in these stories derives in part from looking at humans under the very ordinary extremities of love and desire. Neither love, nor feminini...