About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Nnedi Okorafor
Positive Publishers Weekly Impressive ... While this is less vibrant and more devastating than its predecessor, readers will be just as enthralled.
Kliph Nesteroff
Mixed Publishers Weekly Extensive if somewhat one-note ... While the point is well taken, the argument never progresses much beyond its origins; readers are bombarded with endless historical examples that, while often fascinating, generally fail to elicit more far-reaching analysis. Still, readers seeking evidence to rebut criticism of today’s \'snowflakes\' will have plenty to choose from here.
Kliph Nesteroff
Positive Kirkus The parts are better than the whole, but the message is clear: Loosen up and enjoy the show.
Melissa Rivero
Positive Publishers Weekly Heart-rending ... It all hangs together nicely, setting the stage for a surprisingly moving conclusion. This is a treat.
Melissa Rivero
Mixed Kirkus recarity—of identity, money, shelter, relationships, health—is the central tension for both women: How do we muster the strength and hope to move forward despite life’s fragility and disappointments? It’s a question rich enough to stand on its own; unfortunately, it’s crowded by side characters and minor plots. Still, Flores and Paula are so vibrant and endearing that they minimize these narrative frustrations. An abundance of heart makes up for underdeveloped side plots in this story of life after loss.
Christine Platt
Positive Kirkus At its best when having savvy fun with stereotypes and the sub rosa operations of female social networks.
Christine Platt
Positive Publishers Weekly Incisive ... The authors carefully demonstrate how each of the protagonists is hampered by preconceived notions of the other, and the social satire smoothly evolves into a propulsive page-turner.
Nita Prose
Positive Publishers Weekly Underwhelming ... Along the way, Prose packs in precious few surprises. Molly is still a well-drawn heroine, but this falls short of its predecessor.
Christian Wiman
Rave Publishers Weekly [A] dazzling, multivocal examination of and refusal to accept existential despair ... It’s a gorgeous ode to the power of poetry to grapple with life’s most anguished moments.
Kate Christensen
Positive Publishers Weekly Penetrating ... The character Lucie, an immature, thwarted tyrant, is particularly well drawn. Readers in search of an engrossing family drama will find much to like.
Kate Christensen
Mixed Kirkus Throughout this jumpy novel, Rachel has been lost in Dante’s figurative dark wood of midlife, but in its long finale she finds herself wandering around a literal dark wood complete with bears, until a path forward reveals itself. Underbaked novel about how you can go home again and, if it’s coastal Maine, probably should.
Blake Butler
Positive Publishers Weekly Shattering ... The result is a brutal yet beautiful look at the ravages of mental illness and the complexities of grief.
Blake Butler
Mixed Kirkus Anguished, complex ... Not for everyone, but it could mean the world to those facing similar shocks and losses.
Judith Tick
Rave Kirkus Comprehensive and fascinating ... As masterful and wonderful as its subject.
Judith Tick
Rave Publishers Weekly Magisterial ... The result is an excellent addition to the shelf on America’s jazz legends.
Anthony Veasna So
Rave Publishers Weekly Magnificent ... So’s distinctive voice blends mordant cultural criticism with a striking combination of humor, compassion, and insight. This is a bittersweet testament to an astounding talent.
Anthony Veasna So
Rave Kirkus It seems impossible to read these excerpts without wishing for more—from these characters, from this narrative, for this author. Another posthumous publication from a writer who was only just discovering his brilliance.
Delphine de Vigan, trans. by Alison Anderson
Rave Kirkus An intelligent and affecting look at the void that lurks inside our social media fantasies of domestic bliss.
Michael Gross
Rave Publishers Weekly Immersive and nuanced ... Striking an expert balance between the big picture and intimate thumbnails, this is an enlightening study of American culture.
Michael Gross
Positive Kirkus A book of pop history and sociology that runs wide but not terribly deep, though readable and engaging all the same.
Matthew Longo
Rave Kirkus Extensively documented, well written, and thoughtful in its consideration of what freedom means, this book is an informative and engaging history of the event, its origins, and the aftermath. A much-needed reminder of the inexhaustibility of the human quest for personal and collective freedom.
Sam Wasson
Rave Kirkus Vivid ... A memorable portrait of an artist who has changed the cinematic landscape and whose work will endure.
Sam Wasson
Rave Publishers Weekly Enthralling ... A complex portrait of an artist whose unwillingness to compromise cost him dearly. Movie buffs won’t want to miss this.
Dan Sinykin
Positive Publishers Weekly Rich ... Book lovers curious about how the proverbial sausage gets made will want to check this out.
Lauren Grodstein
Rave Kirkus Delicate, warm account of a brutal, cold time, grounded in humanity, small details, and unwavering clarity.
Lauren Grodstein
Positive Publishers Weekly Eloquent ... The story doesn’t shy away from the period’s horror, however; there are wrenching scenes of Nazis beating and killing men, women, and children on the streets. This will stay with readers.
Mathias Énard, trans. by Frank Wynne
Positive Publishers Weekly Unruly ... Énard’s writing on history and culture is often moving and beautiful, but it can also be exhausting—he goes on at great length about the various eras previously inhabited by the characters. It’s a relief when the novel returns to David’s own microcosmic adventure, as Énard tactfully and charmingly describes the hapless and patronizing city boy’s conversion into someone capable of empathy. From this baggy monster emerges a satisfying portrait of one man’s contradictions.
Mathias Énard, trans. by Frank Wynne
Positive Kirkus Pleasing .... Good fun, and blissfully inconclusive, as befits a shaggy-dog story of unending reincarnations.
Paul Lynch
Rave Kirkus \"An exceptionally gifted writer, Lynch brings a compelling lyricism to her fears and despair while he marshals the details marking the collapse of democracy and the norms of daily life. His tonal control, psychological acuity, empathy, and bleakness recall Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006). And Eilish, his strong, resourceful, complete heroine, recalls the title character of Lynch’s excellent Irish-famine novel, Grace (2017). Captivating, frightening, and a singular achievement.\
Elizabeth Varon
Positive Kirkus Varon...tells Longstreet’s story with authority and insight, and she portrays a man with complicated motives. Some of Longstreet’s postwar stances can be traced to political ambition, fostered by his West Point friendship with Ulysses S. Grant, but for the most part, he was considered a friend to Black citizens and leaders until his death at 82. Varon never quite defines what gave him the perspective to think independently, but she reclaims his reputation and does him justice. Her style is accessible, and her scholarship buttresses the narrative. Readers interested in the Civil War and the horrors of Reconstruction should not miss this book. Comprehensive, readable, and accessible.
Val McDermid
Rave Publishers Weekly Riveting ... This page-turner grips from the outset and doesn’t let go.
Val McDermid
Positive Kirkus Ingenious, humane, and all too telling as a reminder of the costs of the pandemic even on its survivors.
Tim Schwab
Positive Publishers Weekly Heated ... Schwab’s critique hits home when he details how Gates Foundation initiatives have misfired with little benefit from billions spent. Gates’s detractors will find useful ammunition here.
Tim Schwab
Positive Kirkus An eye-opening look at the use of tax-subsidized money by private philanthropy.
Robert Gluck
Mixed Kirkus It’s as tedious to experience Ed’s dreams at length as anybody’s, and though Glück plainly strives to be affirming and loving, the prose is more often exhausting. A sui generis but wearying examination of grief.
Robert Gluck
Rave Publishers Weekly Masterly ... Glück’s novel is as philosophical and theory-leaning as one would expect from a writer of the New Narrative movement, while still offering carnivalesque carnality, piercing humor, keen social observation, and a humane, earthy sensibility. This is a revelation.
Christopher de Hamel
Rave Kirkus Fascinating and multilayered ... Vivid ... An impressive immersion in the storied precincts of art connoisseurship.
Daniel Schulman
Rave Publishers Weekly Ambitious and captivating ... Full of vivid personalities and intriguing tales of alliances and rivalries, this is a sensitive and compassionate portrait of the families that built Wall Street.
Daniel Schulman
Rave Kirkus Spirited ... A welcome, highly readable contribution to American financial and social history.
Celina Baljeet Basra
Rave Publishers Weekly Formally inventive ... Happy’s singular voice echoes long after the close to this striking story.
Claire Keegan
Rave Kirkus In all three stories, however, Keegan precisely observes the subtle dynamics between men and women, be they strangers or romantic partners, and how those dynamics can shift and curdle with little warning. Compact but deep explorations of human vulnerability from a master of the form.
Anna Pitoniak
Positive Publishers Weekly Ambitious ... Though the narrative stumbles in the middle sections—some elements, particularly a subplot on meme stocks, feel forced and overcomplicated—the startling finale saves the day. Pitoniak continues to show strong instincts for the art of cloak-and-dagger.
Anna Pitoniak
Positive Kirkus These excellent female spy characters deserve a series.
Zahra Hankir
Positive Kirkus Hankir provides an engaging, colorful study while relating her own cross-cultural story.
Zahra Hankir
Rave Publishers Weekly Creative ... Hankir maintains an appealing sense of intimacy as she recounts her own experience of expressing her Lebanese and Egyptian heritage by perfecting the eyeliner essential to her style. This captivating account reveals the complex significance of a seemingly simple adornment.
Garrett M. Graff
Rave Publishers Weekly Probing ... The UFO history is loads of fun, and Graff’s agnosticism has the potential to appeal to skeptics and believers alike. It’s a fascinating dive down the rabbit hole.
Garrett M. Graff
Positive Kirkus Graff admires the open-mindedness and imagination of these researchers, although he concludes that their work has yet to produce substantial returns. He avoids taking a firm stand on the existence of UFOs but acknowledges that it is a big universe and there are plenty of inexplicable phenomena. An entertaining tour through the world of flying saucers, aliens, and weird science.
Benjamin Taylor
Rave Kirkus A remarkably revealing account of the life and creative output of Willa Cather ... Taylor may have profitably elaborated on his insights regarding Cather’s complex sexual and gender identity and its relevance to her fictive worlds, her fascination with forms of self-violence, or her relationships with literary contemporaries. Nevertheless, the author presents a rewarding and perceptive portrait, providing a valuable assessment of Cather’s intriguing character and the enduring importance of her oeuvre. Keen, insightful commentary on a literary master.
Benjamin Taylor
Positive Publishers Weekly Taylor examines in this solid critical biography the ideas and passions that animated the life and work of novelist Willa Cather ... It’s a strong overview of Cather’s bibliography that’s as concise as her best novels.
Lexi Freiman
Rave Publishers Weekly Acerbic and affecting ... There’s also depth to Anne, who wants to be a serious writer. Freiman’s portrait of a hapless artist is provocative and surprisingly moving.
Lexi Freiman
Positive Kirkus Filled with gleeful and often politically incorrect humor ... Lively, sexy, and funny, with an actual quest for meaning at its core.
Rebecca Renner
Rave Publishers Weekly Mixing stranger-than-fiction true crime with regional history and flashes of memoir, this fascinating debut from science journalist and Florida native Renner follows two men on opposite sides of the law ... Beautifully evoking the \'sawgrass plains and wild strands of jungle\' of its author’s home state, this tale of power, politics, and tradition is a triumph.
Rebecca Renner
Rave Kirkus Renner’s passion for her home state, compassion for those less fortunate, and gift of storytelling make this book difficult to put down. Enlightening and full of suspense.
Rebecca Renner
Positive Library Journal \"Readers of this book are in for an adventure. It reads like a true-crime caper...Audiences of all types will appreciate this easy-to-read narrative as well as Renner’s knowledge of the area, her academic ability, her candor, and her insights into human nature.\
Gabriel Bump
Rave Publishers Weekly Wry and astonishing ... Brisk dialogue and flashes of mordant humor pay off, and Bump cannily grapples with such issues as gentrification, microaggressions, and environmental racism. This is a scalding study in human nature.
Gabriel Bump
Positive Kirkus Bump doesn’t speak over his characters, letting their own struggles and ambiguous destinies speak to the depth of the challenge. An affecting, experimental tale of race and reinvention.
Lauren Elkin
Rave Publishers Weekly Dense and probing ... Expertly blending astute critical analysis with intellectual curiosity, Elkin resists easy answers about questions of femininity, physicality, and art, leading the text into rich and unexpected directions. Even those well acquainted with feminist art will be enlightened.
Michael Cunningham
Rave Publishers Weekly [An] intimate portrait ... This stands out from the growing shelf of pandemic novels by managing to feel timeless.
Michael Cunningham
Rave Kirkus Writing with empathy, insight, keen observation, and elegant subtlety, Cunningham reveals something not only about the characters whose lives he limns in these pages, but also about the crises and traumas, awakenings and opportunities for growth the world writ large experienced during a particularly challenging era—and about the way people found a way to connect with one another and themselves as individuals in a time heightened by love and loss. This subtle, sensitively written family story proves poignant and quietly powerful.
Ben Austen
Positive Kirkus Despite a few clunky passages, Austen argues persuasively that improving the carceral system must involve shifting emphasis from \'vengeance and permanent punishment\' to genuine rehabilitation and the chance for the incarcerated to lead productive lives after serving their time. A cleareyed, compassionate, urgent appeal for prison reform.
Robert Darnton
Positive Publishers Weekly Sweeping ... Darnton’s panoramic vision is rendered in lucid and vigorous prose, with a consistent focus on the day-to-day communications and emotions of regular people. It’s an enthralling exploration of the psychology of political change.
Robert Darnton
Rave Kirkus A page-turner ... The run-up to the French Revolution in expert hands.
Jonathan Evison
Positive Publishers Weekly A touching fantastical tale ... Though the ending feels unresolved, Evison evokes genuine emotions from the connection between cheery Angel and sour Eugene, and he keeps readers wondering whether Eugene is a misunderstood hero or an unreliable narrator. This touches the heart.
Jonathan Evison
Mixed Kirkus Eugene’s efforts to slay his past demons is affecting. But that plotline is subsumed by some cloying prose. Emotionally robust but structurally cumbersome.
Kelly Weinersmith
Positive Kirkus Entertaining ... This book is, to put it simply, a romp ... Though the authors strike a humorous tone, they don’t neglect serious topics, and they do believe that one day space will be colonized. However, the timeline is centuries rather than decades, and there must be more focus on the practical realities than on visionary hyperbole. One way or another, this book has a lot to offer. A fun, informative read that puts the pop into popular science.
Kelly Weinersmith
Rave Publishers Weekly Wickedly irreverent ... The cheeky tone is loads of fun, and Zach’s humorous illustrations of, for instance, contraptions proposed to facilitate zero-gravity sex, entertain. It adds up to a boisterous takedown of techno-utopianism.
Lindsay Hunter
Rave Kirkus Hunter’s lyrical writing performs the miracles here; while Jackie herself is hard to sympathize with, Hunter captures her complex humanity in stirring and gorgeous prose ... Tragic to the core—and yet, there is beauty in the telling.
Lindsay Hunter
Rave Publishers Weekly Thrilling and addictive ... It’s a remarkable character portrayal, earning the reader’s sympathy even while establishing Jackie’s culpability for Theresa’s murder. Hunter’s masterwork hits all the right notes.
E. J. Koh
Rave Publishers Weekly Moving and lyrical ... Koh has fully harnessed her potential in this assured outing.
E. J. Koh
Rave Kirkus Koh’s poetic prose delights with surprising metaphors and a cast of skillfully rendered characters. A mesmerizing, delicately crafted novel about survival in the wake of civil war and transpacific imperialism.
Paul Caruana Galizia
Rave Publishers Weekly Blistering ... The result is an instant classic of political true crime that will make readers’ blood boil.
Paul Caruana Galizia
Rave Kirkus Moving ... A memorable book of a courageous crusade for justice.
Salar Abdoh
Positive Publishers Weekly Moving and nuanced ... An artful rendering of hope amid despair.
Salar Abdoh
Positive Kirkus An emotionally complex narrative anchored by a protagonist who’s deeper than he seems.
Max Marshall
Pan Kirkus The author refers to most of his anonymous sources by their fraternity or sorority affiliation, as if that is someone’s most distinguishing trait, and he seems overly enamored of his subjects’ connections, wealth, and hard-partying lifestyles. While he does expose a dark side of campus life, he misses an opportunity to offer a deeper, more interesting story with appeal beyond the Tucker Max demographic. A flashy disappointment, leaning more on drug dealer fantasy and frat-boy excess than real crime drama.
Stephanie Land
Rave Publishers Weekly Frank and captivating ... It’s another stirring personal history from one of the foremost chroniclers of 21st-century economic anxiety.
Naomi Alderman
Positive Publishers Weekly Kinetic ... While Alderman’s erratic chronological jumps can be hard to follow, the narrative is eminently quotable ... The endless intrigue and surprising twists keep the pages turning.
Naomi Alderman
Rave Kirkus A smart, engrossing fable about digital technology and human community.
Tracy K. Smith
Positive Kirkus Powerful ... A lyrical memoir conveys an urgent message.
Paul Auster
Rave Publishers Weekly A profound character study of a man whose advancing years are shaped by mourning and memory ... The effect builds to a beautiful approximation of memory’s fluidity and allure. This is one to savor.
Paul Auster
Positive Kirkus Baumgartner’s mind is full of late-life insights and angst, while his capacity for love provides a rich emotional seam. Auster packs a lot into this slim novel, including, alas, prose so prone to cliché that the mind winces. An always intriguing writer mostly playing to his strengths.
Carlo Rovelli
Positive Publishers Weekly \"Rovelli does a solid job of making the underlying science accessible, even if some of the finer points may go over general readers’ heads, such as his explanation of why \'you can only enter a black hole, and you can only exit a white hole.\' Still, those with a background in physics will be sucked in.\
Carlo Rovelli
Mixed Kirkus \"Rovelli works hard, sometimes successfully, to explain matters, but he is dealing with phenomena so complex that he often gives readers permission to skip ahead. Heavy-duty popular science not for the faint of heart.\
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Positive Publishers Weekly Though some of the profanity feels pro forma to a contemporary reader, Parks ably captures the lyricism ... Pasolini’s fans will find this eye-opening.
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Positive Kirkus Colorful, episodic ... Pasolini spends little ink on female characters, the chief ones here being mocking prostitutes and angry mothers. Parks does a fine job with what seems to have been a challenging translation, while also providing a helpful introduction and footnotes. A gritty read from one of 20th-century Italy’s leading cultural lights.
Fuchsia Dunlop
Positive Kirkus Dunlop delves into a complex, subtle cuisine with an insider’s expertise.
Elaine Feeney
Rave Publishers Weekly Touching ... The author has a beautiful, crystal-clear prose style that penetrates to the emotional core of her three main characters, whose hurts and desires are achingly rendered on the way to a quietly triumphant ending. Readers will not soon forget Jamie and his quest to make sense of a confusing world.
Elaine Feeney
Positive Kirkus Feeney has insights into boyhood and, more importantly, has written a great boy to help her tell them.
Ed Park
Rave Publishers Weekly An ingenious postmodern epic of colonial and postcolonial Korea framed in a satire of America’s publishing and tech industries ... This tribute to the fractured peninsula’s citizens, diaspora, and allies is one for the ages.
Ed Park
Rave Kirkus Beguiling, deliberately knotty ... A brash, rangy, sui generis feat of speculative fiction.
E. Lily Yu
Positive Publishers Weekly Yu displays her considerable skill as a prose stylist in this collection of 22 speculative shorts ... The result is well worth reading for any fan of speculative fiction.
E. Lily Yu
Rave Kirkus A trove of fantastical treasures.
Caster Semenya
Rave Publishers Weekly Affecting ... This chronicle of supreme resilience will resonate even with non–sports fans.
Caster Semenya
Positive Kirkus Moving, inspiring testimony by a woman facing hardship merely \'because of a biological condition I was born with.\'
Walter Mosley
Rave Kirkus The novel is complicated in compelling ways by the racial dynamics and overt gestures toward a pandemic, as Tor Waxman spreads feverish death via unseen contagion to nearly 5,000 souls. Fast-moving action and jaw-dropping twists move this slim volume along at a dizzying rate.
Walter Mosley
Rave Locus Magazine Mosley is one of the best-known crime writers out there. However, he’s a great storyteller whose skills aren’t tied to a single genre. In Touched, Mosley writes speculative fiction with the same aplomb he shows when delivering crime narratives. A strange tale of good versus evil with plenty of action, some big ideas, and Mosley’s ever-present commentary on race, Touched is a fast, fascinating addition to the authors already fantastic oeuvre.
Jennet Conant
Rave Publishers Weekly Engrossing ... Propulsive and high-spirited, this is a riveting depiction of a larger-than-life trailblazer.
Jennet Conant
Positive Kirkus A brisk, richly detailed biography ... An admiring, cleareyed portrait of an ambitious, successful woman.
A. K. Blakemore
Rave Publishers Weekly Savory ... Atmospherically charged and written in eloquent and compassionate prose, this is a lusty feast.
A. K. Blakemore
Positive Kirkus In Blakemore’s skilled hands, Tarare becomes complex and fully human rather than an abject horror and historical footnote. Visceral and haunting.
Scott Eyman
Rave Publishers Weekly Riveting ... Eyman gives the history a sense of urgency by highlighting the danger that government interference poses to artistic speech, and his account of how \'Chaplin’s forced exile destroyed him as an artist\' is affecting. Readers will be rapt.
Scott Eyman
Rave Kirkus A beautifully composed and unique look at how Chaplin was characterized as an immoral sexual deviant and Soviet-sympathizing subversive. The author vividly documents the federal government\'s relentless pursuit of Chaplin ... A brilliant must-read about the epic and turbulent life and times of a cinematic titan.
Henry Winkler
Positive Kirkus Warm-hearted ... Well-crafted ... This charming autobiography of personal struggles during times of career success and challenge deserves a big thumbs-up.
Sigrid Nunez
Positive Publishers Weekly Funny and thoughtful ... Once again, Nunez manages to make a story of mortality go down easy.
Sigrid Nunez
Rave Kirkus Despite the grimness of the setting—the novel itself is strangely, sweetly hopeful; there is, it seems, a reason to go on. Sharp—and surprisingly tender.
Amanda Peters
Rave Publishers Weekly Enthralling ... Peters traces their experiences over several decades, and their reunion, when it finally comes, is powerfully rendered. The result is a cogent and heartfelt look at the ineffable pull of family ties.
Amanda Peters
Rave Kirkus Peters beautifully explores loss, grief, hope, and the invisible tether that keeps families intact even when they are ripped apart. A quiet and poignant debut from a writer to watch.
Tananarive Due
Rave Kirkus A novel that reminds its readers that racism forges its own lasting, unbearable nightmares.
Tananarive Due
Rave Publishers Weekly Due takes an unflinching look at American racism in this masterful work of historical horror ... This harrowing, supernaturally inflected depiction of racism’s unbridled cruelty and the generational trauma it can inflict is sure to stick in readers’ minds.
Alice McDermott
Positive Publishers Weekly Evocative ... In McDermott’s powerful story, the quest for absolution falls just beyond her characters’ grasp.
Alice McDermott
Rave Kirkus An exquisitely conceived and executed novel that explores her signature topic, moral obligation, against the backdrop of the fraught time preceding the Vietnam War. It would be a shame to reveal the structure of the novel (don’t even read the jacket description!), but it opens with a scene packed like a perfect suitcase with every important theme ... This transporting, piercing, profound novel is McDermott’s masterpiece.
Ralph Watson McElvenny
Positive Publishers Weekly The authors skillfully weave this profile of a recalcitrant heir together with a chronicle of computing in the 20th century. It’s an informative and entertaining study.
Ralph Watson McElvenny
Positive Kirkus Comprehensive ... In a swift-moving narrative, the authors make clear that Watson was a man of parts, one of the prime shapers of the modern technological world. A readable and revealing work of business and tech history.
Ralph Watson McElvenny
Mixed The Wall Street Journal Although the lead author is Watson’s grandson, the authors do not shy away from unflattering details about their subject’s personality and private life. But neither do they offer much insight into his character, or go beyond psychology and business-management clichés in describing the lessons he learned from his personal struggles ... Perhaps Watson fails to emerge as a full-fledged character because he did not have much of a character.
Ghassan Zeineddine
Rave Kirkus Stories full of humor and warmth about an Arab American community ... Zeineddine toes the impossibly delicate line between pathos and humor with the grace and finesse of a tightrope walker ... Masterful ... A fantastic collection heralding the voice of a major new writer.
Ghassan Zeineddine
Rave Publishers Weekly Striking ... This genuine offering speaks as much to the heart as the head.
Sarah Lohman
Positive Kirkus A tasty sojourn through the landscape of America’s endangered foods, served with a scoop of energy and a dash of hope.
John Stamos
Rave Publishers Weekly Charming ... Readers will be enchanted.
John Stamos
Positive Kirkus Earnest ... A heartfelt, sincere memoir filled with useful wisdom.
Philip Norman
Pan Publishers Weekly Uneven and exhausting ... This bloated biography is nonessential for all but the most devoted Beatles fans.
Philip Norman
Positive Kirkus A well-informed, serviceably written biography of an enigmatic musician.
Joanna Robinson
Rave Publishers Weekly Superb ... This definitive account of the Hollywood juggernaut thrills.
Shannon Sanders
Rave Publishers Weekly Masterly ... This is a winner.
Shannon Sanders
Rave Kirkus Subtly crafted and sometimes ending equivocally, the stories gradually reveal motivations and perspectives that aren’t obvious at first. The difficult aspects of negotiating family relationships are gently examined but, more interestingly, respected in their recounting. The complicated circuitry behind family alliances and breakdowns is artfully revealed.
John Guy
Positive Kirkus Sympathetic ... The authors offer more nuance than the traditional view of Anne as a scheming temptress who would not sleep with Henry until he arranged the divorce from Catherine of Aragon ... A tragic historical tale delineated with admirable elucidation.
David Leonhardt
Positive Publishers Weekly Sweeping ... The result is a searching diagnosis of America’s socioeconomic malaise that skewers elites of every stripe.
David Leonhardt
Rave Kirkus Well-researched, thoughtful ... Excellent, accessible overview of socioeconomic trends over the last decades and what they bode for the future.
K-Ming Chang
Rave Publishers Weekly Bizarro and magnificent ... Exhibiting her surreal bona fides, Chang proves herself a worthy heir to Leonora Carrington and Unica Zürn.
Dwight Garner
Positive Publishers Weekly An amusing mix of memoir, criticism, and cultural history. The loose-limbed text is arranged into sections that contemplate the three daily meals ... Garner dishes up a plethora of tasty morsels for literary foodies to nosh on.
Dwight Garner
Rave Kirkus Featuring plenty of literary insight ... A wonderful mix of culinary memoir, literary reference, how-to in indulgence. Grab some snacks and dig in.
Matt Singer
Positive Kirkus The author’s fulsome praise aside, there’s no questioning that Siskel and Ebert were a cultural phenomenon, and while it’s debatable that they \'invented an entirely new kind of film criticism,\' they certainly had an impact. Since both critics were dead at the writing of this book, Singer relies on copious previously published accounts—and YouTube–archived episodes of their shows—for their voices. Interviews with both men’s widows and with former production staff help flesh out the history. Readers who recall Siskel and Ebert will be delighted by this opportunity to reminisce.
Thurston Moore
Mixed Publishers Weekly Fascinating if occasionally lumbering ... Gossipy bits about meeting Madonna, Basquiat, and Keith Haring before they became famous are also fascinating, and Moore conjures the grit and atmosphere of 1980s New York with ease, but the pace—particularly in the book’s midsection—can drag. Still, there’s plenty here to entertain Sonic Youth fans and readers drawn to New York’s downtown milieu.
Thurston Moore
Rave Kirkus Literate, absorbing ... A self-aware, charmingly rough-and-tumble tale of the rock ’n’ roll life.
Staci Robinson
Positive Publishers Weekly Riveting ... Enriched by invaluable excerpts from the rapper’s notebooks and sketch pads, this will have hip-hop devotees enthralled.
Staci Robinson
Positive Kirkus This authorized biography of Shakur is intimate and personal, but it could use more gravitas.
Gary J. Bass
Rave Publishers Weekly Impressive ... Bass astounds with his ability to tie so many complex narratives together. This is a clear-eyed look at a pivotal period in world history.
Gary J. Bass
Rave Kirkus Authoritative ... Bass consistently demonstrates how the trial reflected the tenor of the postwar geopolitical theater, from the imminent victory of communists in China, to the entrenchment of Cold War thinking. A towering work of research resurrects a pivotal moment in history.
Sandra Newman
Rave Kirkus Adding a major plot twist, a nice shot of (somewhat cynical) hope, and more graphic sex should win over even purists.
Sandra Newman
Positive Publishers Weekly Provocative ... Julia’s narrative voice is refreshingly fearless as she navigates her way around the Party’s nefarious thought policing, and a wicked plot twist spins the original narrative on its ear. Newman adds a fresh coat of menacing gray to Orwell’s gloomy world.
Mary Beard
Positive Kirkus Bookshelves groan under the weight of accounts of Roman emperors, but when Beard decides to add another, readers should perk up ... eard focuses on the details of how emperors lived, governed, traveled, dined, and amused themselves, and the result is a mixed bag. Chapters on imperial dining rooms and imperial palaces reveal the impressive skill of archaeologists in resurrecting crumbling ruins, but they also contain more architectural minutiae than casual readers will want ... Sometimes-delightful.
Tim O'Brien
Rave Kirkus A satirical romp ... O’Brien is less focused here, favoring scattershot barbs and humor over cohesion. Yet it’s one of those books where you can sense the author enjoying himself and it’s fun to be along for the ride. A broadly engaging and entertaining work.
Tim O'Brien
Rave Publishers Weekly Amusing and alarming ... O’Brien keeps everything afloat on a cloud of pure gonzo bliss. If this is indeed the author’s valedictory novel, he’s bowing out with a star-spangled bang.
McKay Coppins
Positive Publishers Weekly Probing ... The result is a penetrating analysis of the ongoing Republican civil war through the eyes of one of its last embattled centrists.
McKay Coppins
Positive Kirkus The writing is solid, and the author provides a useful study of a man who, witnessing the disintegration of his party into demagoguery and lies, decided to stand for the truth. A vigorous, highly readable account of politics—and ethics—in action.
Jeanette Winterson
Positive Publishers Weekly Memorable ... These supernatural tales are satisfyingly disconcerting.
Jeanette Winterson
Pan Kirkus Even if we assume that most readers are here for the stories, this collection has very little to offer anyone familiar with the last 200 years of ghost stories written in English. Winterson adds flourishes like virtual reality gear, and in one story, she suggests that we might live on as digital avatars. Even as she’s riffing on a long tradition of spooky tales, she writes as if she doesn’t understand how they work and why they endure. For one thing, most of these stories seem to lack purpose.
Adam Sisman
Positive Publishers Weekly Sisman uncovers a previously hidden and discomfiting dimension of le Carré, and remains remarkably unflinching when addressing the implications ... Future accounts of le Carré’s life will have to wrestle with the bombshells dropped here.
Adam Sisman
Rave Kirkus A one-of-a-kind revisiting of a wondrously productive life lived at the expense of two wives and many lovers.
Patricia Evangelista
Rave Publishers Weekly Shattering ... The result is an astonishing and frightening exposé that won’t soon be forgotten.
Patricia Evangelista
Positive Kirkus Powerful ... Heartbreaking personal stories underscore the consequences of a government-incited extrajudicial rampage.
Hilary Mantel
Rave Publishers Weekly Dazzling ... Mantel’s idiosyncratic and magisterial voice comes through on every page, carrying readers across an astonishing array of subject matter with ease. This is a treasure.
Hilary Mantel
Positive Kirkus Shrewd, humane, and deeply engaging pieces.
Naoise Dolan
Positive Kirkus Quietly introspective and dryly funny ... A quiet novel that questions and upends the traditional marriage plot.
Stuart A. Reid
Rave Publishers Weekly Intricate and colorful ... Sweeping ... This riveting study makes of Lumumba a Shakespearean figure undone by tragic flaws.
Stuart A. Reid
Rave Kirkus Powerful ... An evenhanded work of deep scholarship that clearly elucidates a largely hidden piece of U.S. foreign policy.
Rachel Maddow
Rave Kirkus America beat fascism once. Maddow’s timely study of enemies on the homefront urges that we can do so again.
Elena Kostyuchenko
Rave Publishers Weekly Sharp-edged ... Free-flowing style ... Kostyuchenko’s journalistic integrity is unquestionable and the dangers she faces are very real. It’s a vivid and poignant account.
Elena Kostyuchenko
Positive Kirkus For English readers, the translation may appear uneven and choppy and occasionally ungrammatical, but the author’s stories are important. A deeply felt, fractured collection reveals a fractured, benumbed society.
Kelsey Norris
Positive Kirkus A debut collection of imaginative, dark, and haunting stories tied loosely to themes of community, violence, and belonging ... Magnetic ... Moments of striking prose, sudden humor, and sharp analysis of social groups shine in this uneven collection.
Kelsey Norris
Positive Publishers Weekly Skillful ... Though the reader will usually sense where Norris is headed, the details are spot on. This bears the mark of an assured writer.
Florian Illies, trans. by Simon Pares
Positive Kirkus Kaleidoscopic ... A dramatic, richly detailed cultural history.
Chloe Aridjis
Rave Publishers Weekly Strange...dazzling ... Readers will eagerly turn the page to see where Aridjis takes them next.
Chloe Aridjis
Positive Kirkus While some of the stories fall flat, the nonfiction pieces, including the portraits of famous and ordinary people, are treasures. Here, Aridjis’ curiosity feels vast, her intelligence finely tuned to discover hidden connections, her playful, searching style capable of enlivening anything. Heady, marvelous work about the familiar and obscure.
Olga Ravn, trans. by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
Rave Publishers Weekly A remarkable experimental narrative that probes the dark side of pregnancy, childhood, and new motherhood ... This brilliant and unflinching work deserves to be a classic.
Olga Ravn, trans. by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
Rave Kirkus Intimate ... A stunning book that speaks aloud thoughts the reader believed had been theirs alone in long nursery hours of the night.
Sarah Davis-Goff
Positive Publishers Weekly Eloquent...innovative ... Emotionally resonant characterization. Horror fans looking for more than jump-scares will find it here.
Sarah Davis-Goff
Positive Kirkus Chilling ... Orpen’s candid first-person narration lets the reader learn about her new world as she does, an isolated place without electricity or cars, factories or guns, and dwindling levels of literacy. The plot is fast-paced and suspenseful, and the banshees satisfyingly heroic. A girl comes of age as a warrior in a ruined world in this headlong thriller.
Sarah Davis-Goff
Positive Irish Times (IRE) Small but perfectly formed ... Persuasive ... Davis-Goff is one of the leading pioneers of an Irish genre that is slowly but surely declaring itself a force to be reckoned with.
Adam Nicolson
Rave Kirkus Nicolson acknowledges the brutal side of Greek life, and he doesn’t shy away from the ugly realities of slave life, from endless, backbreaking manual labor to forced prostitution. Much deeper than a self-help book, this work returns to the past and shows how the ancients’ struggles were in many respects our own. A must-read for anyone interested in philosophy, history, travel, art and the quest of human beings to comprehend themselves.
Roger Moorhouse
Rave Publishers Weekly Immersive ... The result is a captivating narrative of heroism and an illuminating account of the international diplomatic response to the Holocaust.
Roger Moorhouse
Positive Kirkus A capable investigation of a little-known aspect of World War II history.
Adam Thirlwell
Mixed Publishers Weekly Enigmatic ... The almost sterile tone, combined with the characters’ repeated musings about what, exactly, the point is, may have readers echoing such sentiments. Thirlwell offers moments of insight, particularly when touching on the persistence of misogyny throughout history and the intersections of gender and language, but these are obscured by a narrative that feels both aimless and almost deliberately opaque. This strange outing provokes and frustrates in equal measure.
Adam Thirlwell
Mixed Kirkus The enigmatic ending is likely to frustrate anyone who hasn’t already been frustrated by a text that seems to go out of its way to be disorienting and alienating. Some interesting ideas in search of a coherent fictional framework.
Gregg Hecimovich
Rave Publishers Weekly Captivating ... Hecimovich sheds light on key aspects of Bond’s life, including her friendships with other women who escaped from slavery and whose experiences she worked into her novel. Part literary detective story, part suspenseful escape narrative, this impressive account ties together its many disparate threads into a riveting whole. It’s a must-read.
Gregg Hecimovich
Positive Kirkus An absorbing work of historical and literary excavation.
Tan Twan Eng
Positive Kirkus For a story so suffused with matters of sex, violence, and long-running resentment, the novel operates at a surprisingly low boil and is mannered almost to a fault. Some of that effect is a tactic, Eng evoking Maugham’s subdued style in understated revelations of secret lives, and the writing is graceful and well-researched. Still, the novel at times labors to capture the passions that consume its characters’ lives. A restrained look at a society working to keep up appearances.
Sly Stone
Positive Kirkus tone’s voice isn’t sufficiently compelling to compensate for the shift to largely non-musical material, too much of it finger-pointing at those he blames for his troubles. Questlove provides the foreword, and the book includes a discography. An inside look at an important band and its music, but it loses interest when the music is no longer central.
John Grisham
Pan Publishers Weekly Disappointing ... Grisham conjures some suspense, but nothing here deepens or complicates his original characterizations—it often feels like a somewhat loopy standard-issue legal thriller has been papered over with characters from The Firm. It’s a letdown.
John Grisham
Mixed Kirkus Mitch and Abby come across as sympathetic and credible, while other characters are no deeper than they need to be. The story moves at a fast pace, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. A tense legal thriller with nary a courtroom scene.
Ken Follett
Rave Kirkus
Roz Chast
Positive Booklist Sure to appeal to nonfiction comics readers and dream-theory enthusiasts alike.
Roz Chast
Positive Kirkus A sharp compendium of dreamy visions that could only have come from the iconic cartoonist’s sleeping mind.
Roz Chast
Rave Publishers Weekly Delightful ... Chast perfectly captures the weird joy of dreaming—an act that is both universal and deeply personal.
Molly McGhee
Positive Publishers Weekly [A] darkly comical fantastical debut ... McGhee anchors the zany narrative with biting depictions of financial instability.
Molly McGhee
Positive Kirkus cGhee’s wry humor, tenderness, and razor-sharp writing keeps it from veering into nihilism and infuses it with a real, if melancholy, kind of hope. Upton Sinclair meets modern workplace satire—with a lot of heart.
Marie Ndiaye, trans. by Jordan Stump
Positive Booklist In this gripping psychological thriller, NDiaye’s beautiful prose captivates.
Marie Ndiaye, trans. by Jordan Stump
Positive Publishers Weekly Magnetic and intense ... The author is equally adept at both small-scale psychological character insight and virtuosic structural shifts—the highlight of the novel is a harrowing, unforgettable 10-page monologue that Marlyne delivers from behind bars. Ndiaye turns in another ferocious tale.
Marie Ndiaye, trans. by Jordan Stump
Positive Kirkus A twisty and unsettling psychological puzzle.
Sarah Ogilvie
Rave Kirkus A fresh, vibrant, entertaining history.
Sarah Ogilvie
Rave Publishers Weekly Charming ... The whimsical narrative is also educational, providing extensive insight into the process used to trace the origins of words. Readers will be enthralled.
Athena Dixon
Positive Kirkus Candid ... Presents a series of braided essays that explore the loneliness that pervades a world that seems more globalized and interconnected than ever before. Throughout the book, the author cultivates a palpable sense of community with her readers, diving into the dark side of late-stage capitalist society ... An honest and captivating investigation into human connection within an increasingly digital world.
Fergus M. Bordewich
Rave Kirkus Drawing on abundant archival sources, renowned American historian Bordewich offers a penetrating examination of the rise of the KKK ... A critically important revisionist history.
Paul Yoon
Positive Kirkus Stories that echo with the loss, regret, and hope of migrants and nomads.
Paul Yoon
Positive Publishers Weekly A lean collection of stories featuring restless, complex characters driven by their need for connection and forgiveness ... This is an elegant exploration of life’s brutal and beautiful moments.
Laurence Leamer
Positive Kirkus Breezy, juicy and eminently readable ... Leamer excels at dissecting Hitchcock’s filmic genius and odd proclivities.
Laurence Leamer
Positive Publishers Weekly Breezy and gossip-filled ... The brisk biographical snapshots offer sometimes troubling insight into what it was like to work with Hitchcock, though Leamer falters in his dismissive coverage of Tippi Hedren’s sexual harassment allegations against the director. Still, film buffs will come away from this page-turner with a better understanding of Hitchcock and the stars that populate his films.
Benjamin Moser
Rave Kirkus A luminous, splendidly illustrated melding of art history and memoir ... A graceful meditation on art.
Jean Kwok
Positive Publishers Weekly Propulsive ... Kwok ratchets up the tension between Rebecca and Lucy, making for an engrossing and suspenseful plot. This is worth a look.
Jean Kwok
Positive Kirkus A highly entertaining page-turner that has a propensity for melodrama and cliché.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Positive Kirkus His references to his achievements can seem boastful (a problem that plagued his memoir), although he makes a point of thanking his mentors, Hollywood colleagues, friends, and even his ex-wife, and his accomplishments are hard to deny. Some readers, however, might argue with his view that success is a matter of positive thinking while ignoring structural impediments. In any case, the text is a solid read, and Schwarzenegger does not shy away from using colorful language to get his point across. It might not have all the answers for social recovery, but it is not a bad place to start. Schwarzenegger unpacks the tools for success with a wry sense of humor and broad view of the world.
Julia Fox
Mixed Kirkus The epiphany in the final pages doesn’t quite mesh with the rest of the memoir, which, while breathless and exhilarating, reads more like a druggy, often rushed novel that could have used tighter editing. A chatty, meandering, splashy self-portrait that may appeal to fans.
Hannah Kaner
Rave Publishers Weekly Enthralling ... This marks Kaner as a writer to watch.
Hannah Kaner
Rave Kirkus An un-put-down-able start to an engrossing low-fantasy trilogy bordering on grimdark.
Elsa Morante, trans. by Jenny McPhee
Rave Publishers Weekly A thrilling saga of love and madness in a southern Italian city ... Maintaining an ironic distance, Morante’s lengthy but propulsive narrative describes in detail the characters’ desires, fears, and superstitions, as well as the stultifying class divisions, religiosity, and financial troubles that define their lives. It’s a tremendous accomplishment.
Elsa Morante, trans. by Jenny McPhee
Rave Kirkus An epic tale of passion and obsession ... Morante’s vast, sprawling epic of passion and delusion, obsession and madness, certainly contains multitudes ... Morante’s novel is a masterpiece, and to have it finally translated into English in unabridged form is a great gift. A masterpiece by one of Italy’s foremost modern writers.
Banana Yoshimoto, trans. by Asa Yoneda
Rave Publishers Weekly Brisk ... An adroit translation ... Yoshimoto builds a satisfying narrative of a young girl figuring out who she is, and how her family may be more than she realized. While much of the plot hinges on Yayoi’s preternatural intuitions, each step is carefully plotted to slowly unearth the secrets of the past. No word is misspent in Yoshimoto’s taut tale.
Banana Yoshimoto, trans. by Asa Yoneda
Positive Kirkus Worth the 35-year wait for Yoshimoto’s Anglophone fans.
Ainslie Hogarth
Pan Publishers Weekly Snarky ... Paper-thin characters coupled with a slow start and an abrupt denouement further diminish the book’s impact. Hogarth’s fans will be disappointed.
Ainslie Hogarth
Mixed Kirkus Hogarth’s novel opens strong with creeping suspense, laugh-out-loud humor, and smart critiques of the ways gendered expectations wear on people’s self-worth, enjoyment of life, and relationships. But the book is not for everyone ... A conversation starter about gender roles and sex work, but a lackluster mystery and limited critique.
Werner Herzog, Trans. by Michael Hofmann
Rave Kirkus Herzog in all his extravagant, perspicacious glory ... Herzog is witty and captivating as he recollects all kinds of odd, curious, and outlandish events ... Fans and neophytes alike will relish the opportunity to delve deeply into Herzog’s fascinating mind.
Werner Herzog, Trans. by Michael Hofmann
Positive Booklist \"Like his films, Herzog’s memoir is a decidedly nontraditional piece of storytelling ... The book is written in a literary voice that is outspoken and conversational ... (The translation by Hofmann, who has also translated books by Wim Wenders and Franz Kafka, is delightful.) A fascinating portrait of an inventive and idiosyncratic filmmaker.\
Justin Torres
Rave Kirkus The novel shines and surprises, though, in sections where the characters interweave cultural and historical artifacts, as well as memory and literary references, to reconstruct and revise queer history. Here, the novel’s central question about where storytelling ends and history begins comes to the fore, albeit with no clear resolution. It\'s up to the reader, the narrator concludes, to decide where truth and fiction converge. An inventive novel that displays the scope of its author’s ambitions.
Justin Torres
Positive Publishers Weekly Ambitious ... At its best, this captures the spirit of Torres’s pangs of inspiration.
Jo Nesbo, trans. by Neil Smith
Mixed Publishers Weekly \"Nesbø shows a sure hand at crafting moments of terror, but only his most devoted readers won’t cock an eyebrow at the bait-and-switch plotting. Despite some memorable individual scares, horror aficionados are likely to grow frustrated with this.\
Jo Nesbo, trans. by Neil Smith
Positive Kirkus \"Scary fun that won’t cause nightmares—or will it?\
Margo Steines
Rave Kirkus Steines tackles complex, nuanced truths about power and violence through clear writing and an unflinching gaze ... The author’s skillful prose expresses pain clearly and can be challenging to read, but this discomfort is tempered by her clearheaded insights and retroactive self-empathy ... A passionate and lyrical memoir and meditation on what might drive someone to seek violence.
Cat Bohannon
Rave Publishers Weekly Ambitious ... It’s an illuminating and fresh take on how human evolution unfolded.
Cat Bohannon
Rave Kirkus Capacious ... Engaging ... Combing scientific literature, the author finds no difference between the brains of men and women. Many species inhabit Bohannon’s fascinating chronicle, as she compares human evolution and life cycle to that of other creatures, great and small. Prodigious research informs a spirited history of humanity.
Jhumpa Lahiri, trans. by Todd Portnowitz
Rave Publishers Weekly Dazzling ... Lahiri’s luminous prose captures a side of Rome often ignored ... These unembroidered yet potent stories shine.
Jhumpa Lahiri, trans. by Todd Portnowitz
Rave Kirkus Brilliant ... Filled with intelligence and sorrow, these sharply drawn glimpses of Roman lives create an impressively unified effect.
Mary Gabriel
Rave Kirkus Thoughtful ... Spares few details ... Fans and neophytes alike will come away with greater respect for an uncompromising artist.
Mary Gabriel
Positive Publishers Weekly Drawing on extensive research, Gabriel paints a satisfyingly nuanced portrait of a trailblazing musician who never shied from controversy ... The singer’s myriad admirers won’t be disappointed.
Mary Gabriel
Positive The Atlantic Reverent ... The volume of evidence that Gabriel amasses reveals something even greater: not just a cultural phenomenon, or even a postmodern artist transforming herself into the ultimate commodity, but a woman who intuits and manifests social change so far ahead of everyone else that she makes people profoundly uncomfortable ... Gabriel’s biography is astonishingly granular in its attention to biographical detail, and also to historical context ... Sometimes feels excessively boosterish, noting and then brushing over criticism of Madonna’s more questionable acts over the years.
Bryan Washington
Rave Kirkus Intimate ... Washington luxuriates in descriptions of smells, tastes, and textures without letting the narrative get bogged down ... Washington brilliantly commits to his style and preoccupations in a novel about the often winding journey to family.
Bryan Washington
Rave Publishers Weekly Tender, melancholic ... Powerful prose ... Readers will be deeply moved.
Vauhini Vara
Rave Kirkus \"Although many of the stories dwell in the realm of alienation, they generally end on a note of redemption, however small. The reader emerges from these stories contemplative but not pessimistic. A poignant collection of stories that glimpse the salvation of human connection in the midst of modern alienation.\
Vauhini Vara
Rave Publishers Weekly \"Vara invigorates with emotional insights, whimsy, and a precision with language. It’s a remarkable achievement.\
Kate Briggs
Positive Publishers Weekly Charming yet formidable ... Briggs has composed a capacious, if diffuse, narrative that makes a very serious game of domesticity, treating both Helen and Rose—in sections written from her perspective—with respect, and successfully reimagining the relationship between reader and writer. Though exacting, this is an appealing consideration of motherhood.
Kate Briggs
Rave Kirkus This don\'t-miss debut captures the details of early parenthood while engaging with ideas about time and caregiving.
Jesmyn Ward
Rave Kirkus Every time you think this novel is taking you places you’ve been before, Ward startles you with an image, a metaphor, a rhetorical surge that makes both Annis and her travails worth your attention. And admiration. Ward may not tell you anything new about slavery, but her language is saturated with terror and enchantment.
Jesmyn Ward
Rave Publishers Weekly Wrenching and beautifully told ... Readers won’t be able to turn away.
Teju Cole
Rave Publishers Weekly Remarkable and experimental ... Everything hangs together brilliantly, due to Cole’s subtle provocations and his passion for art and music. It’s a splendid feast for the senses.
Teju Cole
Rave Kirkus A provocative and profound meditation on art and life in a world of terror.
Teju Cole
Mixed The Observer (UK) Both lifelike and speckled with intimate details; the chapters are all treatises in learning to see and think ... The deliberate absence of narrative impetus becomes oppressive before long ... Even in the midst of unprecedented grief, you occasionally crave light entertainment. There are days when you’d prefer to be just distracted enough to pass the time.
Lydia Davis
Rave Kirkus \"...an overflowing treasure chest of jewel-like stories ... A collection that you\'ll want to keep on your bedside table by one of America’s most original short story writers.\
Lydia Davis
Rave Publishers Weekly \"[A] lovely collection ... Throughout, Davis revels in the glory of well-wrought details. These spot-on depictions of life’s low-key moments are best savored in small bursts.\
McKenzie Funk
Positive Kirkus Readers concerned with the modern dismantling of personal privacy and rampant data-gathering will be riveted by this meticulous report. A deeply unsettling exposé of an exploitative tech genius.
Anne Eekhout, trans. by Laura Watkinson
Positive Publishers Weekly An atmospheric story ... Eekhout pulls off a convincing gothic sensibility in this well-crafted portrait of Shelley’s interior life.
Anne Eekhout, trans. by Laura Watkinson
Positive Kirkus Moody and evocative ... Creative confirmation of Shelley’s position as the mother of all goth girls.
Vincent Bevins
Positive Publishers Weekly Elegiac ... The result is an illuminating postmortem on a decade of false dawns.
Vincent Bevins
Positive Kirkus Questions remain, but this insightful study should prove valuable to future activists across the globe.
Will Hermes
Rave Kirkus An engrossing, fully dimensional portrait of an influential yet elusive performer.
Elizabeth Hand
Positive Publishers Weekly Riveting ... Hand eerily, if sometimes unevenly, updates and riffs on Shirley Jackson’s classic ghost story ... Lush atmospheric details and sharply observed characterization abound, but occasionally overload the plot to the point that certain elements end up feeling extraneous or underutilized. Still, this chillingly mesmerizing narrative is a worthy addition to the haunted house canon.
Elizabeth Hand
Positive Kirkus A timeless, gothic ode that serves up the stuff of nightmares.
Roxane Gay
Positive Kirkus Planted firmly on the left, Gay\'s thoughts on Trump, #metoo, and Black Lives Matter are predictable, but they are engaging in their ferocity all the same ... Fierce and informed riffs on current events and enduring challenges.
Jordan Peele
Rave Publishers Weekly Electrifying ... These tales are all both gruesomely imaginative and firmly rooted in the realities of anti-Black racism and brutality—and there isn’t a weak one in the bunch. This is essential reading for any horror fan.
Martin Baron
Rave Kirkus Making an engrossing debut, Baron recounts in candid detail his more than eight-year tenure as executive editor of the Washington Post ... An impassioned argument for objective journalism.
Kenneth Miller
Positive Kirkus Though the narrative is occasionally sluggish, the author provides an interesting examination of an issue that affects us all. Miller shows us how a good night’s sleep came to be recognized as critical for health and development.
Kenneth Miller
Rave Publishers Weekly Eye-opening ... The biographical background humanizes the scientific history, and Miller excels at drawing out the real-world implications of the research, as when he discusses how Mary Carskadon’s discovery in the 1980s that teenagers need more sleep than younger kids led high schools across the U.S. to delay their start times. Readers will have no problem staying alert through this fascinating scientific history.
Taylor Lorenz
Positive Publishers Weekly Astute ... It’s a powerful assessment of how logging on has changed the world.
Taylor Lorenz
Pan Kirkus The most surprising aspect of the book: It seems dated and dull. The author’s online followers might like it, but other people will probably be unimpressed ... If only the text reflected the gravitas of that disruption. A capable piece of historical research that breaks little new ground.
Taylor Lorenz
Positive Booklist Readers will learn valuable lessons about the math and science behind what goes viral and are sure to be blown away when they see the dollar amounts moving through the industry. This socioeconomics docudrama is both fun and terrifying . . . just like the internet.
Daniel Clowes
Rave Publishers Weekly Eloquent ... Episodic and fantastical ... Lucky new initiates to Clowes will want to dive into his backlist after this unnerving introduction to his oeuvre; for fans, it’s a must-have.
Daniel Clowes
Rave Kirkus Clowes strikes an irresistible balance of cultural criticism, philosophy, and pulp. The pacing and interconnection of the stories tease the reader along as narration and dialogue pop with insight and humor. Clowes’ art retains a classic comics aesthetic while delivering a thoroughly modern vibe. A timeless nugget of polished pulp.
Nathan Thrall
Rave Publishers Weekly A unique window onto the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in this captivating profile of Abed Salama ... He also dives into the past, recounting Salama’s and the rescuers’ life stories and the history of the construction of the barrier wall. It’s a heart-wrenching portrait of an unequal society.
Nathan Thrall
Positive Kirkus A powerful study ... A moving, often maddening portrait of the dire life straits of Palestinians in Israel.
Nathan Thrall
Rave Library Journal Riveting ... An eye-opening and empathetic analysis of a profoundly personal tragedy. This deeply researched book is insightful as the author reveals the complex issues faced by Palestinians.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Positive Kirkus Kaleidoscopic ... Readers seeking the anchor of narrative will be frustrated, but Nguyen indisputably captures the workings of a quicksilver and penetrating mind. The author includes a selection of black-and-white photos. A fragmentary reflection on the refugee experience, at once lyrical and biting, by one of our leading writers.
Safiya Sinclair
Rave Kirkus A tale of reckoning and revelation ... More than catharsis; this is memoir as liberation.
Safiya Sinclair
Rave Publishers Weekly Bruising ... Readers will be drawn to Sinclair’s strength and swept away by her tale of triumph over oppression. This is a tour de force.
Melissa Broder
Rave Publishers Weekly Infectious and dreamy ... Readers ought not to miss this magical tale of survival.
Melissa Broder
Rave Kirkus his is not a subtle book—the protagonist is very literally walking in the valley of the shadow of death—but it’s as wise in its way as any spiritualism about vision quests or finding enlightenment. A 100 percent Broder take on grief and empathy: embodied but cerebral, hilarious but heart-wrenching.
Jonathan Lethem
Mixed Publishers Weekly Textured if scattershot ... Vivid vignettes ... It’s a bit too meandering, but fans will be pleased to find Lethem still knows his way around a New York City street scene.
Jonathan Lethem
Mixed Kirkus A puzzling return to the scene of an earlier novel ... Maybe, with its dizzying array of local color, it’s a memoir gone rogue, as is a lot of fiction ... An entertaining, challenging read that may appeal mainly to Lethem fans and scholars.
Ian Johnson
Positive Kirkus A brave book about inspiring people, underlining the value of freedom, independence, and courage.
Dylan C. Penningroth
Positive Kirkus Broad-ranging ... In a fluent narrative, Penningroth shows how these rights were negotiated and developed in sometimes unlikely contexts, all foregrounding the advances of the 1950s and beyond. A closely argued addition to our understanding of the origins of the Civil Rights Movement.
Dylan C. Penningroth
Positive Publishers Weekly Meticulous ... This revelatory account of Black self-determination opens up a neglected aspect of African American history.
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, trans. by Lara Vergnaud
Rave Publishers Weekly Brilliantly executed ... The author never sacrifices story for cleverness, though, delivering a rich narrative about art as a lasting marker of ephemeral individual existence. Literary mystery fans will be captivated.
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, trans. by Lara Vergnaud
Positive Kirkus Despite its self-fascination, a novel of undoubtable prowess.
Azam Ahmed
Rave Publishers Weekly Riveting ... Painstakingly reported and propulsively written, this is nearly impossible to put down.
Azam Ahmed
Rave Kirkus Harrowing ... A dispiriting yet necessary study of how a criminal enterprise can swallow a nation whole.
Lisa M. Hamilton
Rave Kirkus A sensitive and carefully written story that sympathetically depicts the hard lives of refugees in a strange land.
Adam Nagourney
Positive Publishers Weekly A fly-on-the-wall history ... Drawing on extensive research and original interviews, Nagourney provides astute insight into leadership under crisis as well as a window onto recent decades of polarizing politics. The result is both a valuable case study of an industry in flux and a unique angle on American history.
Adam Nagourney
Rave Kirkus A deep-dive history ... An exemplary work of journalism about journalism, of surpassing interest to any serious consumer of the news.
Donna Leon
Mixed Kirkus Brief, chatty ... Her tone throughout, lacking both the delicacy and the gravitas of her detective stories, is so cheerfully self-deprecating that it seems especially odd that she takes time out twice to assure the readers she invites into her world—but rarely into her mind—that she’s never used drugs. Delightfully approachable but disappointingly unrevealing.
Ron Rash
Rave Publishers Weekly Potent and rewarding ... The lyrically nuanced prose faithfully evokes the Appalachian landscape, and Rash again showcases an ability to dig beneath the surface of his characters to expose their base desires and intentions. This is exactly the kind of humanitarian storytelling that fans have come to expect and savor from him.
Ron Rash
Rave Kirkus A nimbly plotted, suspenseful romance with a twist ... Among his best.
Ayana Mathis
Rave Publishers Weekly Simmering ... Mathis ratchets up the tension all the way to a stunning reveal, which reunites the family members for a reckoning with the truth. Readers won’t want to miss Mathis’s accomplished return.
Heather Cox Richardson
Pan Publishers Weekly [A] muddled survey ... She never convincingly justifies the use of the term \'authoritarianism\' to refer to, for example, political opponents of civil rights for African Americans. Readers will be perplexed.
Heather Cox Richardson
Rave Kirkus Fresh ... It’s an unusual but effective structure, allowing Richardson to do what she does best: show her readers how history and the present are in constant conversation.
Isle McElroy
Positive Publishers Weekly Engrossing ... It’s an impressive twist on the familiar trope of marital ennui.
Isle McElroy
Positive Kirkus Occasionally, the novel seems like it falters—plot points and characters feel somewhat random, and high-tension moments are interrupted before reaching catharsis—but McElroy always manages to throw a new, exciting wrench into the puzzle before the pacing has had time to slow down too much. A creative, well-written exploration of marriage, gender, and desire.
Tom Holland
Positive Kirkus It’s a tale with no shortage of bloodshed, but it was largely confined to the frontiers except for the stubborn Judean uprising. The author includes a helpful timeline and a 10-page dramatis personae. A capably rendered history of Rome’s more-or-less golden age.
Yascha Mounk
Positive Kirkus Hardcore proponents and detractors alike may not be won over, but there is a vast middle that can be reached through open debate and plain common sense. This book is a solid launching point for further constructive debate. A thoughtful deconstruction of identity politics well worth discussing.
Yascha Mounk
Pan Publishers Weekly Poorly argued ... Readers will not be convinced.
Eliza Clark
Pan Kirkus Great investigative nonfiction authors write novelistic prose, while Clark’s is clunky by comparison. The structure of her novel is similarly uninspiring, moving from one long interview to the next with little analysis. This book is not believable as a work of investigative nonfiction, which renders its conceit annoying rather than provocative. An ambitious sophomore attempt bites off more than it can chew.
Homer, trans. by Emily Wilson
Rave Kirkus A bloody tale of ancient war and grief comes to vibrant life in modern-day English ... Wilson has again presented a Homer that sings, in sprightly iambic pentameter and pellucid language that avoids ponderosities ... A masterful, highly readable rendering of the Greek classic.
L R Lam
Rave Publishers Weekly \"...[a] sumptuous epic fantasy ... Lam crafts a dynamic world of mystery and magic populated by diverse characters with well-shaded backstories and conflicting motivations that add a layer of depth to this sophisticated fantasy. Readers will be eager for more.\
Benjamin Labatut
Rave Publishers Weekly A sensational epic ... Succeeds at showing how acts of genius might break the world forever. Readers won’t be able to turn away.
Benjamin Labatut
Positive Kirkus Sharply written fiction ably capturing primitive emotions and boundary-breaking research.
Rachel Connolly
Mixed Kirkus Erin is a compelling narrator whose few, well-earned moments of self-discovery and exuberance bring life to the narrative. But the emphasis on quotidian details—drinks consumed, drugs taken, routines followed—coupled with an over-reliance on Erin’s often underdeveloped introspection means that the novel never quite reaches its emotional potential, and Erin’s thorny relationships with her mother, Mikey, Matt, and herself often lack satisfyingly deep interrogation. Excels in its measured and realistic portrait of grief but struggles to develop into a propulsive narrative.
Rachel Connolly
Positive Publishers Weekly Perceptive ... While the story is slow-moving and a bit unresolved, Connolly draws the reader along by making each well-honed scene reverberate with emotion. This thoughtful character portrait is worth a look.
Brian Merchant
Positive Publishers Weekly Stirring ... This is a significant contribution to the history of the Industrial Revolution and a strong warning against complacency in the face of technological change.
Brian Merchant
Positive Kirkus A well-argued linkage of early industrial and postindustrial struggles for workers’ rights.
Cameron McWhirter
Rave Kirkus Superb ... A riveting exploration of the cost of the nation’s fascination with an iconic weapon.
Cameron McWhirter
Positive Publishers Weekly A captivating tale ... Deeply researched ... The result is a fascinating genealogy of a weapon that has become the flash point of the contemporary gun control debate.
Caitlin Moran
Mixed Kirkus In the right hands, this book is reassuring, enlightening, and inspiring; in others, it’s OK to skim.
Johanna Hedman, trans. Kira Josefsson
Mixed Kirkus The language is often pleasantly surprising ... But as Hugo and Thora continue to falter on the question of who they are... the tension behind their listlessness falters. Hedman\'s descriptions delight, but interest wanes as her characters perform the same poses again and again.
Fredrik DeBoer
Positive Kirkus Deliberately provocative, with much for left-inclined activists to ponder.
Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe
Positive Kirkus A brisk, entertaining history ... A spirited saga of glitz and greed.
Jillian Tamaki, Mariko Tamaki
Rave CBC (CAN) Moody, atmospheric, and teeming with life, the magic of this comics duo leaks through the pages with lush and exquisite pen work.
Jillian Tamaki, Mariko Tamaki
Positive Kirkus A visually and narratively appealing work of coming-of-age fiction.
Jillian Tamaki, Mariko Tamaki
Rave Publishers Weekly A shrewd and wistful coming-of-age story ... Playful yet plaintive, this is an elegant study of young women caught between the comforts of the past and the promise of what comes next.
Cliff Sloan
Positive Kirkus A wide-ranging legal history that shows that the Supreme Court is never truly divorced from the politics of the day.
Cliff Sloan
Positive Publishers Weekly An astute look at the Supreme Court during WWII ... An accessible narrative that highlights how the forces of history, politics, and personality influenced one of America’s most important institutions at a critical time in history. It’s an entertaining and worthwhile account.
Aparna Nancherla
Mixed Kirkus The author astutely analyzes how systems of power have intersected to create her view of herself and her profession ... At its best, this heavily researched memoir is refreshingly perspicacious and darkly funny. Unfortunately, it also swings too abruptly between seriousness and humor, undercutting salient points with unnecessary jokes that jerk readers out of the main story.
Lawrence Wright
Positive Kirkus Just a few complaints: The sections about Sonny’s plan to convert the wastewater produced by fracking into a solution for the drought sometimes seem to be turning into New Yorker articles, and the storyline about Sonny and Lola’s marital troubles is not convincing. Wonderful characters, Texas-sized helpings of wit and insight, and, believe it or not, a vision of post-partisan redemption.
Rory Stewart
Rave Kirkus A personal, sharp exposé of British politics ... A biting, captivating memoir.
Mandy-Suzanne Wong
Positive Kirkus While the prose can be tiring, Wong also delivers something rare, evoking a creepy sort of glamour around books and stories ... Casts a curious spell despite its stylistic density and lack of traditional plot.
Mandy-Suzanne Wong
Positive Publishers Weekly A feast of knotty sentences ... The elaborate wordplay and run-on sentences eventually grow tiresome, though they entertain in short bursts. Fans of experimental fiction ought to check this out.
Ben Fountain
Positive Publishers Weekly A sprawling, fierce exploration of violence and corruption in the Caribbean ... Readers of international thrillers should pounce.
Ben Fountain
Positive Kirkus Not quite a thriller about treasure-seeking nor a study of spycraft nor realist historical fiction, the book displays Fountain’s smarts but also meanders and lectures. A fine-grained, if at times overly upholstered tale of humanitarian and political tragedy.
Katie Barnes
Rave Kirkus Barnes astutely positions today’s deliberations and controversies within the history of Title IX and women’s sports programs ... Their attempt to distill truth and instill comfort beyond traditional gender definitions results in a powerful treatise on what current outrage, particularly about transgender girl and women athletes, says about how we think about sports as a whole.
Graham Norton
Positive Kirkus Norton’s absorbing novels blend domestic strife and intriguing tragedies ... A heartfelt look at how family members make and break each other.
Graham Norton
Mixed Publishers Weekly Norton... misses the mark ... The family dramas... are evocatively rendered, but the oddly downplayed central traumas clash with the mildly humorous tone. Despite its zany plot, this is more limp than madcap.
Ashley Shew
Rave Kirkus Although framed as a denunciation of technoableism, the belief that technical advances will \"cure\" disability, this book is a more inclusive, intensely squirm-inducing attack on the almost universal conviction that disabled people are broken and require fixing ... Essential reading for the disabled and nondisabled alike.
Ashley Shew
Positive Publishers Weekly Equally fierce and funny, this will galvanize readers to demand genuine equity for people with disabilities.
Gary Gulman
Positive Publishers Weekly Winsome ... Throughout, Gulman alternates his recollections with brief present-tense updates about the status of his adult depression. These can feel aimless and inconsequential beside the more vivid childhood sections, but they give the narrative shape and help Gulman pull off a moving conclusion.
Gary Gulman
Positive Kirkus Some readers may wish to have learned more about his ordeal. However, he tells his story well, and his knack for creating a well-crafted phrase is very much in evidence.
C Pam Zhang
Rave Publishers Weekly Exquisite and seductive ... Emotionally captivating and raw, this masterpiece will be enjoyed to the last bite.
C Pam Zhang
Rave Kirkus [Zhang\'s] skills have only increased since she wrote her stunning debut. Mournful and luscious, a gothic novel for the twilight of the Anthropocene Era.
Katherine Spillar
Positive Publishers Weekly This thorough survey makes a persuasive case for the magazine’s continued importance.
Tiya Miles
Positive Kirkus A fresh, graceful contribution to women’s history.
Tiya Miles
Rave Publishers Weekly Evocative and unique ... An inventive take on what inspired people to challenge norms and agitate for change.
Maria Smilios
Positive Kirkus Vivid accounts of medical and racial progress with a mostly happy ending.
Maria Smilios
Positive Publishers Weekly Evocative ... Smilios’s narrative is sympathetically told in rich if sometimes flowery prose.
Elyssa Maxx Goodman
Rave Kirkus Throughout this lively and celebratory book, Goodman portrays the dynamic forces of a fearless community bound by their love of performance and using “glamour as a potent force of resistance.”
Elyssa Maxx Goodman
Positive Publishers Weekly Expansive ... Filled with vibrant character portraits and lesser-known histories, this is a comprehensive guide to New York’s long tradition of drag performance and queer activism.
Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz
Rave Kirkus A fast-paced, welcome celebration of groups that have been “at risk of erasure from the canon of pop music history.”
Annie Ernaux, trans. Alison L. Strayer
Rave Kirkus A crucial addition to Ernaux’s oeuvre.
Annie Ernaux, trans. Alison L. Strayer
Rave Publishers Weekly Slim yet stunning ... A poignant and essential addition to Ernaux’s oeuvre.
Hannah Stowe
Rave Publishers Weekly Spellbinding ... The result is an unforgettable plunge into the passions of an extraordinary storyteller.
Hannah Stowe
Positive Kirkus Nature lovers and sailors will savor Stowe’s personal, thoughtful, science-filled voyages.
Jessica Knoll
Rave Kirkus A stunning, engaging subversion of the Bundy myth—and the true-crime genre.
Jessica Knoll
Rave Publishers Weekly Stunning ... By focusing on the women affected by her Ted Bundy stand-in instead of the nuances of his criminal psychology, Knoll movingly reframes an American obsession without stripping it of its intrigue. The results are masterful.
Minna Dubin
Positive Kirkus At its best, this book is a cleareyed analysis of the intricate web of cultural and political challenges that make female-identified parenting nearly impossible. Occasionally, Dubin loses sight of this argument, focusing instead on individual responses that locate the problem in the parents rather than the systems that oppress them. Overall, though, the author writes with humor, vulnerability, and a level of expertise that shape her narrative into a nuanced and convincing argument for justice. A trenchant analysis of the ways in which society renders modern motherhood emotionally impossible.
Minna Dubin
Rave Publishers Weekly Trenchant ... It’s an astute account of how society fails mothers.
Gay Talese
Positive Kirkus Fans of Talese may already be familiar with many recollections; new readers will discover an astute observer. Candid testimony from a new-journalism icon.
Gay Talese
Positive Publishers Weekly [A] nostalgic jaunt ... A smooth and enchanting wordsmith, Talese delivers a lovely testament.
Scott Shane
Rave Publishers Weekly Exhilarating ... This astonishing and propulsive narrative rights a historical wrong by returning Smallwood to prominence. It’s an absolute must-read.
Scott Shane
Positive Kirkus \"Both Smallwood and Torrey merit remembrance and honor, for what they did was at the risk of their lives. Along the way, readers will find satisfying the demise of one of their chief tormentors, killed by yellow fever, which ironically \'had first traveled to the New World aboard the slave ships from Africa.\' A forgotten chapter in abolitionist history is restored to history in a lively, readable narrative.
Jonathan Raban
Positive Kirkus A touching farewell from a careful, thoughtful observer of life.
Jonathan Raban
Rave Publishers Weekly Exceptional ... Tirelessly researched and told with remarkable candor, this often breathtaking memoir is a worthy successor to Raban’s hero’s.
Susie Boyt
Rave Kirkus Gentle but heart-wrenching ... Readers who are averse to crying in public be warned: You’ll want to sit with this astounding story at home.
Susie Boyt
Rave Publishers Weekly Mordant and touching ... Powerful ... Boyt’s assured effort brims with intelligence and feeling.
Ismail Kadare
Positive Kirkus Kadare’s novel is an appealingly plainspoken lament, and Hodgson’s translation captures a somber mood. The run-through of variations leaves the story without an arc, but delivers a strong case against dictatorial meddling in art. An interior, prismatic tale of writerly defiance.
Ismail Kadare
Rave Publishers Weekly This multifaceted examination amounts to a fascinating consideration of the relationship between totalitarianism and freedom of expression. Admirers of Kadare’s previous meldings of fact and fiction will be mesmerized.
Nathan Hill
Positive Kirkus Bittersweet ... A warmhearted satire.
Nathan Hill
Rave Publishers Weekly Jack and Elizabeth’s story speaks to the way people craft narratives to give their lives meaning, and it asks whether believing in those narratives ultimately helps or harms. This stunning novel of ideas never loses sight of its humanity.
Simon Schama
Positive Publishers Weekly Insightful ... Schama’s wide-ranging history brings worthwhile lessons from the past to the present. Readers will be enlightened.
Simon Schama
Positive Kirkus This is a broad canvas, but Schama, a diligent and experienced historian, keeps the narrative on track, and he has a good eye for illustrative anecdotes. It adds up to a strong story that, in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic, speaks to us all. A vivid account of the horror of epidemics and the breakthroughs that can bring them under control.
Simon Schama
Positive The Economist \"[A] fascinating story of vaccines’ spread ... In tracing the transmission of this idea, Mr Schama’s gaze moves from China to colonial Europe. He highlights forgotten characters, including a Greek woman who was one of the earliest and most prolific public-health servants, inoculating more than 4,000 patients herself and causing no ill effects. Along the way, readers meet vaccination’s most regular traveling companion—distrust.\
David Diop
Rave Publishers Weekly Captivating ... This is a novel to devour quickly, but which will leave readers contemplating its story long after.
David Diop
Rave Kirkus The ease with which the narratives...unfold belies the emotional force they gather. A mesmerizing tale.
Richard Osman
Positive Kirkus The characters feel a bit more quickly sketched than usual, though the strands of the plot multiply entertainingly and get tied together in the usual satisfying way ... Another delightful mystery even if he\'s not at the top of his game.
Daniel Mason
Rave Kirkus Throughout, this loose and limber novel explores themes of illicit desire, madness, the occult, the palimpsest of human history, and the inexorable workings of the natural world...all handled with a touch that is light and sure. Like the house at its center, a book that is multitudinous and magical.
Daniel Mason
Rave Publishers Weekly [A] spectacular ghost story ... Mason interleaves his crystalline prose with enchanting and authentic-seeming historical documents, including a Native American captivity narrative, psychiatrist case notes, and pulpy true crime reportage. Each arc is beautifully, heartbreakingly conveyed, stitching together subtle connections across time. This astonishes.
Jayne Anne Phillips
Rave Kirkus Expect coincidences and convolutions, but Phillips pulls them off with gorgeous prose, attention to detail, and masterful characters.
Jayne Anne Phillips
Rave Publishers Weekly Exquisite attention to detail propels a superb meditation on broken families ... The bruised and turbulent postbellum era comes alive in Phillips’s page-turning affair.
Stephen Moss
Positive Kirkus The author’s thorough and well-argued book brings urgent attention to all the species that now face oblivion due to the global climate crisis.
Xialou Guo
Positive Kirkus An elegant and unreserved account of a life lived in full recognition of its possibilities.
James Frankie Thomas
Positive Kirkus The novel bursts with voice, skillfully conjuring both the easy banter of best friends on AIM and the ruminating uncertainty of adolescence.
James Frankie Thomas
Positive Publishers Weekly Intoxicating ... Thomas astutely captures his characters’ anxieties as the drama unfolds, and his choice to give them the benefit of hindsight allows for a nuanced and sensitive portrayal of Fay’s identity formation.
Martha McPhee
Rave Kirkus One of the book’s many strengths is the author’s ability to see herself clearly: The passages in which she narrates her own bad behavior are fascinating, which is rare in the memoir genre.
Martha McPhee
Rave Publishers Weekly Piercing ... A courageous self-examination made of equal parts candor and compassion.
Mick Herron
Positive Kirkus As usual, there’s a lot here to swallow. Fans will rejoice to see MI5 survive despite its members’ best efforts.
Mick Herron
Rave Publishers Weekly A riveting standalone thriller ... Espionage fans of all stripes will devour this exemplary outing.
Franklin Foer
Positive Kirkus Overall, the author creates a respectful portrait of a savvy, dedicated politician.
Franklin Foer
Positive Publishers Weekly Effusive ... Foer sometimes lapses into hero worship ... Still, his portrait of \"the old hack who could\" enacting a vigorous and far-reaching agenda is a stimulating corrective to right-wing caricatures of Biden as an inert near-invalid.
Bettina L Love
Positive Kirkus An impassioned plea for educational justice.
Bettina L Love
Rave Publishers Weekly Detailed and persuasive, this is a must-read for educators.
Paulette Jiles
Positive Publishers Weekly As usual, Jiles impresses with vital characterizations, well-honed dialogue, and a granular depiction of the Old West. She also steeps readers in the lore of 19th-century technologies such as the telegraph, and dramatizes how it transformed society. This tale has true grit.
Diana B Henriques
Positive Kirkus Defenders of regulatory watchfulness will find much ammunition for argument in this readable history.
Diana B Henriques
Positive Publishers Weekly Surprisingly colorful ... A skillful account of a pivotal era in America’s economic history.
Hannah Carlson
Rave The Wall Street Journal A surprisingly consequential story ... Less ponderous and more playful than most examples of the genre, Ms. Carlson’s study showcases the best features of cultural history ... This highly inventive and original book demands a pocket sequel.
Nina Simon
Positive Kirkus Simon puts most of her muscle into developing Lana’s character while Beth and Jack, as likable as they are, aren’t as fully drawn. Simon knows how to build an intriguing plot with lots of suspects, plenty of red herrings, and a handful of jaw-clenching attacks on the Rubicons designed to stop their investigation.
Nina Simon
Positive Publishers Weekly Simon stocks her layered plot with plausibly motivated suspects and convincing red herrings, but it’s her indomitable female characters and their nuanced relationships that give this mystery its spark.
J. M. Coetzee
Positive Kirkus A droll novel that skips lightly across serious matters ... Coetzee seems to be having some compassionate fun, and so will the reader.
J. M. Coetzee
Positive Publishers Weekly Rich and engrossing ... The prose is unornamented but nevertheless consistently incisive. Coetzee’s ability to render the human condition in all its vagaries is as masterful as ever.
Karl Ove Knausgaard
Mixed Publishers Weekly Inspired if slow-moving ... Doesn\'t shy away from big questions ... Knausgård captures the spirit of a Russian novel in this dense tale.
Karl Ove Knausgaard
Positive Kirkus Bulky ... As ever, Knausgaard is managing a precarious balance—his overwriting can be deeply immersive or exasperating ... A curiously affecting tale about science and spirit, optimistic despite its gloomy themes.
Oksana Vasyakina, trans. Elina Alter
Rave Publishers Weekly The narrative is distinguished by its dry wit and philosophical import ... Vasyakina stuns with this bold and emotionally raw chronicle.
Robert P. Jones
Rave Kirkus A searing, stirring outline of the historical and contemporary significance of white Christian nationalism.
Robert P. Jones
Rave Publishers Weekly Illuminating and erudite ... Arresting and deeply researched, this unique account brings to the fore the deep-rooted sense of \"divine entitlement, of European chosenness\" that has shaped so much of American history. It’s a rigorous and forceful feat of scholarship.
Meg Kissinger
Positive Kirkus Kissinger identifies endemic problems in dealing with mentally ill individuals, including housing, social support, medical treatment, and hospitalization ... An impassioned argument for reform in caring for the afflicted.
Meg Kissinger
Rave Publishers Weekly Searing ... Kissinger brings passion and immediacy to the subject, sharing her own story and those of her sources with bracing frankness ... As both a candid family portrait and a polemic against institutional neglect of people with mental illness, this delivers.
William Kent Krueger
Mixed Kirkus The latest stand-alone novel by [Kent Krueger] has so many people and subplots to keep track of it can’t help losing sight of some of them, including one significant character. Fans of the die-hard Minnesotan author will appreciate his evocation of the landscape and people’s connections to it. But in piercing the notion of an innocent small-town America in the 1950s, he goes way overboard.
William Kent Krueger
Mixed Publishers Weekly A patient, character-driven standalone mystery ... Each [character] is painstakingly drawn, but their intricate backstories sometimes slow the pace too much. Though Krueger’s fans will appreciate his empathetic portrait of a small town in distress, readers hoping for a vigorous investigation may be disappointed.
Margaret Meyer
Positive Kirkus Based on records of an actual period of witch hunts in East Anglia during the years of the English civil war, Meyer’s saga of prejudicial ignorance and the horrors that result from innuendo campaigns is replete with period and chilling atmospheric detail.
Margaret Meyer
Positive Publishers Weekly Immersive if murky ... Things get a little hazy in the third act, as Martha uses the poppet she inherited from her mother to put a hex on the witchfinder who’d accused her and Agnes, though Meyer remains coy as to whether or not the magic is real. Still, the author offers a stirring depiction of the selfishness, revenge, and fear behind the accusations.
Aaron Neville
Positive Kirkus An edit could have trimmed some repetition from his narrative, and some of the lyrics and musician credits go on too long, but the author’s life has been an inspiration.
Bernie Taupin
Mixed Kirkus Taupin interestingly chronicles their first years working together; when the fame finally arrives, the book turns into a string of encounters with celebrities, interspersed with tales of rock-star excess around the world. While some of the bits are insightful or revealing, there are dozens of variations of these escapades available elsewhere. Only in the last couple of chapters, when Taupin writes about settling down on a California ranch to raise cutting horses and live out his childhood cowboy dreams in rodeo competition, does the book recover some sense of the author as an individual ... A feast for fans of celebrity gossip; less interesting for those curious about where the music comes from.
Sung-Yoon Lee
Positive Kirkus A detailed examination ... A vivid portrait of a ruthless, egocentric woman driven by an unrelenting sense of entitlement and destiny.
Diana Evans
Rave Kirkus Vibrant ... Broad in range, vivid in detail, alight often with eloquent language ... Sprawling but always engaging, the novel’s cast is filled with rounded individuals, their problems and options as Black, middle-class Londoners showcased at work and play and contemplation, with humor and empathy. A baggy, striking, perceptive slice of intergenerational life.
Anne Enright
Rave Kirkus Melodious, poetic ... Tender and truthful as ever, Enright offers a beguiling journey to selfhood.
Anne Enright
Rave Publishers Weekly Whip-smart ... Enright imbues a sense of great importance to domestic incidents, such as in a flashback to Nell as a child, when Carmel strikes her after she acts out by breaking a light fixture, but the tone is far from despondent; the prose fizzes with wit and bite. Enright’s discomfiting and glimmering narrative leans toward a poetic sense of hope.
Tracy Daugherty
Rave Kirkus A thoughtful yet appropriate critical treatment ... A definitive life of the novelist/bookseller/scriptwriter/curmudgeon of interest to any McMurtry fan.
Tracy Daugherty
Positive Publishers Weekly Authoritative ... This is no hagiography—Daugherty contends that McMurtry’s five-pages-a-day writing routine privileged quantity over quality ... Worth saddling up for.
Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
Rave Kirkus Tshuma’s novel is cerebral yet passionate, a heady stew of science, family drama, and political intrigue.
Charlotte Gray
Rave Publishers Weekly Compassionate and vivid ... Gray strikes an expert balance between the big picture and intimate glimpses of each woman. It’s an enlightening study of two mothers’ crucial influence upon sons who would make history.
Charlotte Gray
Positive Kirkus An engaging dual biography ... A sympathetic portrait of formidable women.
Millie Bobby Brown
Pan Kirkus Her fans are likely to reach with excitement and hopeful generosity for this coming-of-age story. But it is inexpertly written, its major tragic scene confusing and poorly described, and the characters never transcend the paper-thin clichés with which they were constructed (plucky young woman; handsome Yank; asthmatic, nobly suffering friend). Though it seems likely to be a hit, the novel lacks the depth to elicit real emotion. Poorly drawn characters and clichés abound in this familiar story of WWII.
Loren Grush
Rave Kirkus Grush has an important story to tell, and she tells it well ... An inspiring story of the first American women to go into space, charting their own course for the horizon.
Kristi Coulter
Positive Kirkus With wry humor, Coulter provides candid insights about life, love, and gender as well as surviving a toxic workplace.
Ben Goldfarb
Rave Kirkus Wide-ranging, fascinating ... Illuminating, witty ... An astonishingly deep pool of wonders.
Ben Goldfarb
Rave Publishers Weekly Captivating ... Humor leavens the frequently grim subject matter ... This one\'s a winner.
Mona Awad
Rave Kirkus [A] hypnotic tour de force ... Awad smartly grounds her critique in the corrosive envy and misunderstandings that spring up between biracial Mirabelle and her white mother. Mirabelle is a singularly unreliable narrator, but readers who stick with her throughout bouts of confusion and peril will be richly rewarded. This is the stuff of fairy tales—red shoes, ballrooms, mirrors, and thorns but also sincerity, poignancy, and terror.
Mona Awad
Positive Publishers Weekly Delightfully twisted ... Though the narrative stretches on a bit too long, Awad invents increasingly warped skin-care routines as Belle falls under Rouge’s spell: her face is electrified, her memories are manipulated, and she stares at a jellyfish in a tank. The author’s acerbic wit radiates in this excoriating story of beauty’s ugly side.
Julius Taranto
Positive Kirkus Smart and funny ... Taranto’s climax is over-the-top. But it’s a fine study of the idea that, for all the complaints about the culture wars, nobody can pretend they’re not implicated in them. A bright, well-turned satirical debut.
Walter Isaacson
Rave Kirkus Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
Claudia Dey
Mixed Kirkus Detailed ... Everyone in this novel is tortured. Expect sharp observations and fluid prose; don’t expect a sense of humor. Dey’s characters take themselves very seriously.
Claudia Dey
Pan Publishers Weekly Obtuse, melodramatic ... Dey’s mostly flat, unvaried prose style becomes tiring, and despite a satisfying ending, readers will likely run out of steam before they make it there. This disappoints.
Myriam Gurba
Rave Kirkus Gurba’s lyrical prose forces us to face the sexism, racism, homophobia, and other systems of oppression that allow some Americans to get away with murder while the rest of us live in constant fear. Every piece is rife with well-timed humor and surprising conclusions, many of which come from the author\'s staggering command of history. Profoundly insightful, thoroughly researched, incredibly inventive, and laugh-out-loud funny, this book is a masterpiece of wit and vulnerability. A truly exceptional essay collection about safety, fear, and power.
James Ellroy
Positive Publishers Weekly Sprawling ... Ambience, plus his signature jazzy turns of phrase, will thrill longtime fans, but newcomers may get lost in the sprawl. This fascinating, overstuffed outing won’t win Ellroy many new converts, but it’s still a hell of a ride.
James Ellroy
Mixed Kirkus he plot embeds Monroe in porn, prostitution, pedophilia, and political protest as well as a scheme to blackmail the president into divorcing Jackie and making Marilyn first lady. There are so many layers of sleaze that it can be tough to keep things straight as the breakneck momentum accelerates. The climax might well leave the reader as breathless as Ellroy’s prose, and in need of a good shower.
James Ellroy
Rave The Star Tribune \"Ellroy\'s book, inspired by the death of Marilyn Monroe and her reputed relationships with John F. and Robert Kennedy, presents Hollywood as a violent cesspool, virtually the opposite of [Tom] Hanks\' sweet tale ... The Enchanters also underscores one thing that might be a rule for Hollywood novels: Use real names. Ellroy\'s profane, scuzzy, hilarious tale is crammed with dope — real or imagined — on dozens of celebrities, including Elizabeth Taylor and the aforementioned POTUS. It gives his book a huge leg up because we know these \'characters\' the second he name-drops them.\
Marisa Meltzer
Mixed Kirkus The tone of the book is energetic but overly gushing ... Meltzer’s subject is certainly intriguing, but many readers may wish for a more evenhanded approach. Occasionally entertaining but bloated business success story written from the cheering section.
Marisa Meltzer
Positive Publishers Weekly Perceptive ... Lean-in–style feminists and fashionistas alike will revel in the rise of this woman-led business.
Kate Atkinson
Positive Publishers Weekly Stunning...a master class ... If the concept sounds promisingly fun, the whimsical but sharp prose is built to match, full of speculative glee, but tinged with poignancy.
Kate Atkinson
Pan Kirkus This collection feels like an amateurish parody of her signature style, exacerbated by the attempt to tie it all together with recurring characters and repeating motifs ... Atkinson’s fans might want to wait for her next book.
Lauren Groff
Rave Publishers Weekly Extraordinary ... Groff builds and maintains suspense on multiple levels, while offering an unflinching portrayal of her heroine’s desperation and will to survive. This is a triumph.
Lauren Groff
Positive Kirkus [A] historical fever dream ... What plot there is centers on learning the reason for her flight and how it will end, but the book must be read primarily for its sentences and the light it shines on the place of humans in the order of the world ... The writing is inspired, the imaginative power near mystic, but some will wish for more plot.
Maria Bamford
Rave Kirkus \"Laugh-out-loud funny, weird, and touching—a great example of what a celebrity memoir can bring to readers.\
Maria Bamford
Positive Publishers Weekly \"It’s all delivered with Bamford’s trademark blend of disarming intimacy and dark whimsy. The result is a consistently funny and occasionally heartbreaking glimpse into a unique comedic mind.\
Stephen King
Pan Kirkus \"...it’s possible that even his hardcore fans might find this story a bit slow. There are also issues in terms of style. Much of the language King uses and the cultural references he drops feel a bit creaky ... But the biggest problem is that this narrative is framed as a mystery without delivering the pleasures of a mystery. The reader knows who the bad guys are from the start. This can be an effective storytelling device, but in this case, waiting for the private investigator heroine to get to where the reader is at the beginning of the story feels interminable. Loyal King stans may disagree, but this is a snooze.\
Mustafa Suleyman
Positive Publishers Weekly Shrewd ... Suleyman’s account of DeepMind’s achievements can come across as self-serving, but anecdotes about other companies working on technologies capable of, for instance, interfacing directly with the human brain, underscore the mind-bending possibilities. It’s a sober take on navigating the perils of AI.
Mustafa Suleyman
Rave Kirkus Worrying, provocative ... An informative yet disturbing study and a clear warning from someone whose voice cannot be ignored.
Naomi Klein
Positive Kirkus Klein’s prose is tight and urgent, almost breathless, evoking both laughter and dismay and entrancingly matching the mounting frenzy of seeing your public self morph into someone else—or of watching conspiracy theories take hold, particularly in the destabilizing context of the pandemic. Braiding cultural criticism with a charitable attempt to humanize the \'Other Naomi,\' Klein excavates legitimacy beneath sensational fears and exposes the failures of both sides of so many of the world’s binaries ... A disarming and addictive call to solidarity.
Naomi Klein
Positive Publishers Weekly \"Klein’s writing is perceptive and intriguingly personal, but the doppelgänger theme begins to feel slightly overextended, with too many variations muddling the metaphor. However, by articulating such an expansive view of the uncanny, Klein’s mesmerizing narrative reflects the unique anxieties and modes of analysis that have come to dominate the online era. Like Klein’s previous books, it’s a definitive signpost of the times.\
Ben Lerner
Positive Publishers Weekly Muted and heartfelt ... Readers are left with a gorgeous artifact of impasse between \'lyric and epic,\' and a mournful yet exuberant catalogue of \'darker ruminations tinged with gold.\'
Ben Lerner
Rave Library Journal Sometimes it can feel like a tale of two works, the junction not quite seamless, with some of the poetry here feeling a bit more academic and opaque next to the thrilling prose. But on the whole, this is another stunningly audacious work from Lerner that surveys life through the lens of art and vice versa, intimate and universal, challenging but deeply rewarding.
Sean Michaels
Positive Publishers Weekly Inventive ... Readers wary of AI’s role in the production of art will approach the premise warily, but Michaels entices with probing and humane questions about what it means to be an artist. By focusing on Marian’s conundrums, Michaels elevates what could have been a gimmick.
Katja Hoyer
Rave Kirkus Compelling ... Definitive.
Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel
Rave Kirkus A remarkable, unusually rewarding work.
Ariel Dorfman
Rave Publishers Weekly [An] engrossing work of autofiction ... ess a conventional thriller than an erudite riddle that gracefully melds history and fiction, this feels like the capstone to Dorfman’s literary career. It’s a brainy, dazzling treat.
Sheena Patel
Positive Publishers Weekly Trenchant ... At times...the barrage of barbs creates a wearying air of cynicism. Still, Patel acutely captures how identity and intimacy can feel both deepened and deadened in the Instagram era’s attention economy.
Sheena Patel
Positive Kirkus There are echoes of poetic structure here, as in the way the very short chapters are each titled, like prose poems—and each driven by a mix of narrative and bellows of rage. Chaotic and cathartic.
Nathan Ward
Positive Publishers Weekly A vibrant portrait ... Ward’s sharp eye for detail and breezy prose style make this a riveting look at the mythology of the Old West.
Nathan Ward
Positive Kirkus Ward doesn\'t quite prove that Siringo helped create the foundations of the literature of the American West, he shows that this original cowboy certainly lived out the most fertile period of that time and place. A well-rendered cowboy tale that fleshes out a larger history of the Old West.
Jonathan Miles
Positive Kirkus Miles obviously has a great time recounting the history of the Riviera, making the book an enjoyable, absorbing read.
Chuck Palahniuk
Mixed Kirkus Aiming Palahniuk’s profanely giddy rhetoric at the tea-and-crumpets crowd popularized by Downton Abbey and its ilk sounds like more fun than it turns out to be here ... A garish, sticky confabulation, equal parts saccharine caricature and startling raunch.
Chuck Palahniuk
Mixed Publishers Weekly A grisly yet hazy satire ... Palahniuk’s unflinching approach to the macabre material is sure to please many of his fans, but the gratuitous violence and aimless narrative won’t win any new ones.
John Eisenberg
Positive Library Journal
John Eisenberg
Positive Kirkus A vigorously told story of the battle for equity on the gridiron, a battle that is still playing out.
John Eisenberg
Positive Publishers Weekly Insightful ... Eisenberg’s indictment of the pro leagues is scathing, and he makes clear the personal toll racism took on Black quarterbacks.
Alejandra Campoverdi
Positive Kirkus In this psychologically astute work, the author calls out her difficult childhood experiences in order to demonstrate how to overcome stigma and trauma.
Fran Littlewood
Positive Kirkus A gripping story of joy, grief, stress, worry, love at first sight, parenting, and trauma.
Fran Littlewood
Mixed Publishers Weekly An uneven perimenopause drama ... Though the plot can feel undercooked, Littlewood easily captures the grief Grace feels at nearing the end of her reproductive years, and the mother-daughter relationship is similarly well drawn. It’s a mixed bag, but Littlewood, like her protagonist, consistently finds the right words.
Yiyun Li
Rave Kirkus An infinite variety of ways to survive—or, at least, march through—devastating loss are cataloged in Li’s cool and measured litany of pain.
Yiyun Li
Rave Publishers Weekly Splendid and elegantly observed ... These stories find Li at the top of her game.
Raynor Winn
Rave Kirkus It may be a cliché to say this book is inspiring, yet it is, and it’s every bit as much about the Winns’ inner lives as their adventure. The narrative is so vividly drawn and emotionally resonant that most readers will come to feel like one of the family.
Melissa Etheridge
Positive Kirkus A must for Etheridge fans, with plenty of lessons for striving musicians.
Melissa Etheridge
Positive Publishers Weekly This clear-eyed look at life, loss, and art-making resonates.
Etaf Rum
Positive Kirkus Typical contemporary fiction about a woman’s journey toward self-knowledge and identity is enriched by the protagonist’s particular situation as the resentfully obedient daughter of Palestinian immigrants.
Etaf Rum
Positive Publishers Weekly The fierce feminist sentiments and nuanced approach to Yara’s fraught marriage and family history make for a winning combination.
Joe Posnanski
Rave Kirkus One of Posnanski’s winning ploys is to dig into the archives to find such hidden gems and especially to celebrate the mediocre players who, for one of those magical moments, pulled something out of their caps and hit a surprise homer.
Joe Posnanski
Rave Publishers Weekly Journalist Posnanski... hits it out of the park in this rousing celebration of baseball.
Ruth J Simmons
Positive Kirkus Graceful, poised ... The author’s decision to end the narrative at the precipice of her success may be jarring to some readers.
Ruth J Simmons
Positive Publishers Weekly Though she ends the narrative at her college graduation, which may disappoint readers seeking insights into her career, Simmons skillfully maps the contours of her young mind and sets the stage for future volumes that explore her time in academia.
Jacqueline Rose
Positive Kirkus Rose’s essays raise questions and spark thoughts, but they seldom arrive at cohesive conclusions. The author is best when she slows down to examine all sides of a passage from one of the authors she loves, bringing to light implications that might slip by in a cursory reading or, in the case of Camus, meditation on questions of translation.
Stefan Hertmans, trans. David McKay
Positive Kirkus As much a story of the family and the setting as of the horrible yet ludicrous figure at its center, the book, while overlong, delivers a haunting, detailed record of people, place, and atmosphere.
Stefan Hertmans, trans. David McKay
Positive Publishers Weekly A thoughtful and unflinching narrative ... In Hertmans’s hands, the dusty rooms of history come alive.
Peter Stark
Mixed Kirkus Stark’s prose is occasionally overwrought, especially when he’s enthusiastically building battlefield set pieces ... Still, his book provides a solid bookend to Peter Cozzens’ somewhat better Tecumseh and the Prophet.
Peter Stark
Positive Publishers Weekly Intriguing ... Vivid biographical detail and astute analysis of how Harrison and Tecumseh’s competing visions for the future fueled the conflict make this is an informative chapter in the history of the American frontier.
Andrea Lankford
Positive Kirkus In a book that is part true crime, part wilderness cautionary tale, Lankford follows the lost hikers with intensity and compassion. The narrative is paced well, and the author ably demonstrates the hardships of uncertainty and fear in the wake of the unknown.
Don Paterson
Positive Kirkus This memoir is gritty, direct, and alternately doggedly sincere and uproariously hilarious.
Don Paterson
Positive Publishers Weekly Exuberant ... A raucously funny picaresque laced with hard-earned wisdom.
Jeremy Eichler
Rave Publishers Weekly Masterful ... A moving declaration of the power of music to transmit human feeling across time.
Jeremy Eichler
Mixed Kirkus Eichler\'s examination of these artists and their works is authoritative, but the book is not an easy read. The text is dense, and some of the author’s detours, such as his lengthy discourse on Mendelsohn, do not seem to fit his theme. He also assumes that readers will have a detailed grasp of classical music. Consequently, this book is not for everyone, but those who choose to accept the challenge will find it fascinating and, in its own way, inspiring. A noteworthy piece of scholarship giving context and depth to key composers and their work.
Latoya Watkins
Rave Publishers Weekly Stunning ... These kinetic stories are no less powerful than Watkins’s marvelous debut novel.
Latoya Watkins
Rave Kirkus Searingly alive stories ... Granular yet transcendent storytelling.
Alison Rose
Positive Publishers Weekly Tantalizingly elliptical ... Her prose is languid yet involving, and occasionally precious. Rose writes of her life rather than examining it, and her haunting memoir is exquisitely detailed, eerily fraught and ineffably sad.
Alison Rose
Pan Kirkus What follows is a compendious, enervating catalogue of snappy responses and witticisms between her and the men, in and out of office and restaurants and bed. Not enough evidence of life here to warrant CPR.
Jenni Nuttall
Positive Kirkus Nuttall...brings humor and a merry curiosity to her examination ... A fresh, informative perspective on women’s lives through the centuries.
Jenni Nuttall
Rave Publishers Weekly An eye-opening survey ... This is required reading for logophiles, feminists, and history buffs
Alice Carrière
Rave Kirkus Render[s] real and poignant her experience—both material and interior—in stunning prose. A spellbinding memoir.
Alice Carrière
Rave Publishers Weekly Urgent, visceral ... Carrière’s surgically precise prose compresses her broken-glass experiences into hard diamond truths about family trauma and the mental health industry ... Brutal, illuminating.
Jill Lepore
Rave Kirkus Shrewd ... Intellectually rigorous ... A noteworthy collection from an indispensable writer and thinker.
Jennifer Weiner
Positive Publishers Weekly Charming ... Abby’s development feels genuine, as she learns to define herself on her own terms. This breezy outing goes down easy.
Jennifer Weiner
Rave Kirkus Abby is a deeply likable character, and Weiner expertly handles the delicate balance between her current body neutrality and her deep-seated trauma from years of attempting to shrink her body ... A lovely, compulsively readable story about finding your path and believing in your own worth.
Angie Kim
Rave Kirkus Mia is an amazing creation, as is Eugene. But what is most remarkable about this book is the way Mia\'s father’s \'happiness quotient\' theory ripples not just through the plot of the novel, but through the life of the reader. The claim that a book will change your life often seems like exaggeration. Here the potential is real.
Angie Kim
Positive Publishers Weekly Bittersweet ... Intimate ... Readers will be fascinated with how Kim bends the structure of a whodunit to serve a broader exploration of the dynamics of human relations and moved by her skill at wresting joy from tragedy.
Lee Mandelo
Rave Publishers Weekly Impressive ... Urgent, intimate, immediate, this is sure to wow.
Paco Calvo and Natalie Lawrence
Positive Kirkus Along with fascinating examples, Calvo devotes equal space to arguments with philosophers and fellow scientists over the meaning of intelligence ... Persuasive evidence for plant intelligence.
Jesse Q Sutanto
Positive Kirkus Gentle humor and abundant heart elevate Sutanto’s spirited mystery ... A kaleidoscopic third-person narrative allows Sutanto to fully develop each character, investing readers in their fates.
Blair LM Kelley
Positive Kirkus A well-researched, engaging, corrective American history.
Evan Thomas
Positive Kirkus A thoughtful study of nuclear war, its early discontents, and alternate scenarios that might have been worse.
Jennifer Banks
Positive Kirkus The author’s contribution isn’t providing new information about her subjects but rather illuminative, variable insights via her particular, occasionally amorphous lens ... The strongest sections concentrate on Arendt and Rich.
Mark Dent
Positive Kirkus Lively and meaningful ... Chiefs fans will find this a revelation, and urban planners might learn a thing or two, too.
Mark Dent
Rave Publishers Weekly Outstanding ... It’s a riveting look at the plight of a midwestern city through the prism of a star athlete.
Laura Meckler
Positive Kirkus A detailed, incisive portrait of a community’s shared quest.
Laura Meckler
Positive Publishers Weekly Meckler draws on extensive interviews with parents, teachers, community leaders, and students to present the various controversies from multiple perspectives, resulting in a nuanced and impressively detailed study of the barriers to racial equality.
Jennifer Breheny Wallace
Positive Publishers Weekly Wallace’s sharp analysis illuminates the social and evolutionary pressures that drive achievement culture, and her advice is well observed.
Cara Fitzpatrick
Positive Kirkus More textbook-style history than analysis, the book leaves Fitzpatrick’s driving questions about the role of individual liberty, government measurement and accountability, and the importance of education itself largely unanswered, and the narrative sometimes feels like more of a synthesis of materials rather than something new and incisive. Nevertheless, it is sure to be a valuable resource for anyone who studies public education.
Cara Fitzpatrick
Positive Publishers Weekly Informative ... Meticulously drawn from years of archival research, this is a lucid and thorough study of a hot-button issue.
Naomi Hirahara
Rave Kirkus Beautifully crafted ... Hirahara expertly folds this crime story into her insightful and fully realized portrait of postwar America and the struggles of Japanese Americans to come to terms with the American society that had imprisoned them during the war ... A thought-provoking noir with a searing period flavor.
Naomi Hirahara
Positive Publishers Weekly Insightful ... Drawing on rich historical detail, Hirahara provides a visceral account of the hardships facing Japanese Americans during and just after WWII, and her lucid prose elevates this above standard mystery fare.
Kyo Maclear
Positive Publishers Weekly Impressive ... Maclear’s precise, hypnotic prose will appeal to readers of Margaret Renkl. This quiet story lingers.
Kyo Maclear
Positive Kirkus A lovely meditation on the hidden past and the blossoming present.
Keith Houston
Positive Kirkus He charts the development of the pocket calculator, delivering a fascinating, witty tale ... An entertaining, informative story about a technology that defined an era.
Nikhil Goyal
Mixed Kirkus The personal narratives lend intimate context to numerous systemic issues, and the threads about Emmanuel are particularly original and memorable. However, Goyal does not offer a truly clear lens through which to understand his main characters’ stories ... erhaps the uncertainty of that answer is the point, but many readers may be left wanting more. One can expect that as his academic career matures and his research about and relationships with his subjects deepen, Goyal will be a forceful contributor to the work on many of the devastatingly and frustratingly intertwined topics he is only able to touch on in this book. A well-intentioned, straightforward narrative that teases the complexity of a series of societal issues.
Nikhil Goyal
Rave Publishers Weekly Nuanced and intimate ... While Goyal points to deindustrialization and a lack of good jobs, the war on drugs that unfairly targets people of color, and other causes of his subjects’ poverty, he makes the case that direct government financial support is the best method to help impoverished young people, and laments the recent expiration of the pandemic-era child tax credit, of which the author was an architect. It’s an enthralling and often maddening read.
Drew Gilpin Faust
Positive Kirkus The author is at her best when she immerses readers in a young person’s experience of the era’s moral urgency and passion ... An inviting, absorbing look at a privileged childhood in the segregated South and the birth of a questioning spirit.
Drew Gilpin Faust
Rave Publishers Weekly Faust pulls off a brilliant synthesis, grounding the macro stresses of the period in her quest to distance herself from her culture of origin and sharpen her political sensibilities.
Jerome Charyn
Mixed Kirkus There are enjoyable touches of magic realism... but descriptions and digressions can make for slow reading ... One of Charyn\'s less-rewarding forays into historical fiction.
Jerome Charyn
Mixed Publishers Weekly Underwhelming ... Though Charyn continues to deliver boisterous and flavorful prose, the dueling plotlines detract from each other, and the detective sections build toward an unsatisfying reveal.
Brendan Shay Basham
Positive Kirkus The novel’s prose is lush and evocative, and there’s an almost erotic charge to Basham’s writing about food ... An ambitious first novel whose intriguing parts never fully come together into a satisfying whole.
Brendan Shay Basham
Mixed Publishers Weekly Ambitious if meandering ... Despite the shambolic structure, readers will find much to admire in the author’s unique voice.
Nick McDonell
Positive Kirkus As McDonell illuminates a rarified world of money, power, and connections, he also offers candidly sobering insight into the systemic cultural mechanisms designed to protect long-standing social inequalities.
Nick McDonell
Rave Air Mail [An] exploration of privilege and what it means both to be part of the 1 percent and, just as critically, to be part of the other 99 percent and how the system works to keep the offspring in their respective slots ... A journalist who wrote about meritocracy once observed that the more successful the people he interviewed, the more he found that they believed fervently that they lived in a meritocracy. In delicate, persuasive, and beautiful prose, McDonell blows the notion of meritocracy sky-high.
Temi Oh
Rave Kirkus While the pacing leaves time for the reader to sink into emotions, the plotting is tightly crafted, weaving science fiction, mythology, and more to tell a tale that feels pertinent right now.
Ron Rosenbaum
Mixed Kirkus Readers who don’t share [Rosenbaum\'s] outrage may find his response overwrought ... Impassioned but often strained.
Ron Rosenbaum
Positive Publishers Weekly Defending love as an experiential phenomenon, Rosenbaum criticizes its misrepresentations ... Rosenbaum’s most convincing defense of love comes through earnest renderings of his own relationships and losses.
Luke A. Nichter
Positive Kirkus A fresh, authoritative analysis of a pivotal election year.
Lydia Kiesling
Positive Kirkus Designer bags, Korean skin care lines, nail polish colors, and the resolution of a long-held sexual attraction take turns as signals of Bunny’s evolving persona in this artful demonstration of how micro decisions have macro results.
Emma Donoghue
Mixed Kirkus An unabashedly romantic, dreamlike tone ... Not quite on the level of Donoghue’s very best work but nonetheless a treat for her many fans.
Emma Donoghue
Positive Publishers Weekly Impressive ... Donoghue makes good use of her choice to delve into Eliza’s perspective rather than Anne’s by exploring the steep cost for her protagonist of tethering herself to a rebel. This melancholic love story is imbued with deep feeling and generosity toward its characters.
Yunte Huang
Positive Kirkus An attentive biography ... Wong had an incredible yet short life, and the author documents it in an evenhanded, bittersweet manner. An intimate Hollywood profile perfect for students of film and pop culture.
Yunte Huang
Rave Publishers Weekly Vital ... Huang’s sympathetic treatment brings out the nuances of Wong’s story, highlighting how she by turns acceded to and bristled against the stereotypes Hollywood asked her to play ... It’s a fascinating—and long overdue—close-up of a Hollywood trailblazer.
Hilary Leichter
Rave Publishers Weekly Delightful ... Leichter soars with this cogent yet dreamlike tale.
Hilary Leichter
Positive Kirkus Leichter is juggling plenty of symbolism along with her zingy surrealism-lite and it can be a lot to untangle, but at the book\'s heart are the relatable grief and terror that go along with love—of our planet, of another—and the threat of losing it ... Leichter bends minds—and physics—to give a light touch to deep grief.
Isabel Cañas
Pan Publishers Weekly Uneven ... Repetitions and vagueries turn a desperate flight from the colonizers into a clunky slog. All but Cañas’s most devoted fans can skip this one.
Isabel Cañas
Mixed Kirkus The book’s weakness is that it can handle only two of them at a time. It isn’t until the last stand that everything comes together, but it’s powerful when it does. Nena and Néstor, who are both point-of-view characters, are equally charming and infuriating in some of their choices. The side characters are not very well fleshed out, though they add to the sense of place. While perhaps not greater than the sum of its parts, the parts themselves are quite good.
John Szwed
Rave Publishers Weekly Vividly detailed ... Brilliant ... The result is a masterful ode to a \'strange and singular character\' in American arts.
John Szwed
Rave Kirkus An overdue, comprehensive biography of a strange, singular man ... A revelatory portrait of a unique pop-culture figure.
Christine Mangan
Rave Publishers Weekly Richly layered characters, opulent settings, and graceful prose elevate this captivating crime caper from Mangan above most similar fare ... Alternating viewpoints and a shifting timeline enliven the yarn, and Mangan’s character exposition and vivid depictions of exotic locales are sublime. This is a treat.
Christine Mangan
Rave Kirkus A thrilling chase through 1960s Europe with an emotional core and gorgeous prose ... he world that Henri and Louise inhabit is, at times, heartbreaking, but it is never bleak thanks to the beauty of the language. Through Henri and Louise, the text offers insights about gender and colonization that are as relevant now as they ever were. For fans of spy thrillers and literary romances alike. A cat-and-mouse caper with the usual stock characters replaced by complex human beings.
Saul Austerlitz
Mixed Publishers Weekly An amusing examination ... Though Austerlitz doesn’t always persuade, this has enough behind-the-scenes insights to satisfy fans.
Saul Austerlitz
Rave Kirkus [A] well-crafted tale ... This surprising history doesn’t just stay classy; it reveals how remarkably deep the Ferrell comedy really was.
Keith Rosson
Positive Kirkus The mythology is a bit overstuffed, à la John Wick, but Rosson wields the tropes and trappings of horror nimbly, balancing nicely between familial devotion, big-screen apocalyptic visions, and full-throated splatterpunk.
Keith Rosson
Rave Publishers Weekly Stellar ... Sophisticated characterizations—even brutish Holtz and Reed are imbued with a degree of sympathy—distinguish this page-turner.
Jenn Shapland
Rave Kirkus Breathtaking in their sharp synthesis of a variety of ideas and experiences, Shapland’s essays are a truth-telling balm for mind, body, and spirit.
Jenn Shapland
Rave Publishers Weekly Exhilarating ... It’s hard not to marvel at how the author draws unexpected conclusions from a diverse array of anecdotes, illuminating the profound ways in which individuals and the world shape each other.
Una Mannion
Rave Publishers Weekly Outstanding ... Mannion expertly intertwines Nessa and Ruby’s stories via visceral, close-third-person narration that alternates perspectives, and weaves through time to build tension and dole out reveals. Her subtly shaded characters add nuance and poignancy.
Madeleine Blais
Positive Kirkus A vividly complete portrait of Alice Marble ... The high level of detailed research and compelling writing show why tennis player Hazel Wightman described Marble as \"the first girl who became sensational.\
Madeleine Blais
Rave Publishers Weekly An enthralling biography ... This will likely stand as the definitive account of Marble’s life.
Elizabeth Rush
Positive Kirkus In addition to her own poetic voice... the author incorporates the voices of everyone on the ship, highlighting women and racial and ethnic minorities ... The fascinating inside story of climate science at the edge of Antarctica.
Don Gillmor
Rave Kirkus The genius of this book is to capture the exact way a familiar world of aging parents and divorcing friends and nice charcuterie platters could go right around the bend ... A smart, funny, and sneakily terrifying version of the way we live now.
Farah Karim-Cooper
Rave Kirkus The author is most convincing when she insists that readers consider \"how students… or actors of colour… can get to grips with the excessively valued and quite sublime poetry that just happens to, at times, diminish their own bodies.\
Farah Karim-Cooper
Rave Publishers Weekly Electrifying ... The rigorous and nuanced analysis stimulates, and Karim-Cooper’s evenhanded approach refuses to excuse Shakespeare’s racism while insisting that his plays still have much to offer modern audiences.
Diane Williams
Positive Kirkus Mysterious, gemlike, and strange, these stories end up oddly predictable by defying narrative conventions in similar ways.
Diane Williams
Positive Publishers Weekly Williams’s blend of precision and understatement make her insights on her characters’ fears and limitations cut deeply while leaving the stories open to interpretation.
Lauren J A Bear
Positive Publishers Weekly Bear’s debut is immersive but not exactly groundbreaking ... Still, Bear offers an enticing plunge into the legends of ancient Greece.
Thomas Curran
Positive The Economist [Curran] makes a vigorous case, albeit one occasionally marked by cliché ... His argument errs in treating perfectionism as a purely cultural phenomenon.
Thomas Curran
Positive Kirkus Curran offers solid suggestions on how to avoid the perfection impulse ... Unfortunately, he wanders off the point in the final chapter, when he discusses sociopolitical reforms like a universal basic income and progressive taxation ... However, the author delivers many useful lessons and valuable insights.
Thomas Curran
Positive Publishers Weekly Supported by scholarly research and down-to-earth personal anecdotes, Curran’s explication is smart, thorough, and reassuring.
Alfonso Martinez Arias
Positive Kirkus Ingenious ... A rich, detailed exploration of the vitality of cells.
Alfonso Martinez Arias
Rave Publishers Weekly Revelatory ... Martinez Arias’s novel thesis invigorates, and the lucid scientific discussions will hold readers’ attention even through involved examinations of how cells respond to specific proteins.
Gunnar Broberg, trans. Anna Paterson
Positive Kirkus Writing for a general audience, the author mostly avoids turgid academic prose, but those who are less scientifically inclined may struggle with some passages ... Everything you ever wanted to know about Linnaeus and more.
Gunnar Broberg, trans. Anna Paterson
Positive Publishers Weekly Mostly rewarding ... Though this skimps on the unsavory parts of Linnaeus’s legacy, it will otherwise satisfy history of science scholars.
Genevieve Plunkett
Mixed Kirkus Intimate, fractured ... Simultaneously sensitive to Portia’s perception and muddy in its chronology, the novel succeeds in accumulating a faceted psychological profile, but its indulgent length (including excursions into Theo’s point of view), the absence of plot dynamism, and the limited appeal of the characters leave it partially stranded. Stronger on empathy than engagement.
Genevieve Plunkett
Positive Publishers Weekly Perceptive ... Short, intense chapters reflect Portia’s mental state and preoccupation with finding what she really wants out of life...and the story’s momentum dwindles and surges along with her moods. It adds up to an incisive portrait of mental health and the search for autonomy.
Genevieve Plunkett
Positive The New York Times Book Review Told from Portia’s and then her lover Theo’s unreliable perspectives, the close third-person narration takes us through a nonlinear story that revisits past events from multiple angles. Even when it comes to Nathan and Theo, perception and memory are multilayered and flawed. Plunkett applies a soft touch when rendering minds in turmoil, offering both reader and character relief through the escapes of music, love and small-town landscape.
Zadie Smith
Mixed Kirkus It’s skillfully done, but the minutely detailed trial scenes provide more information than most readers will want, and a lengthy middle section recounting Bogle’s African ancestry and enslaved life, though gripping, further blurs the narrative’s focus. Historical fiction doesn’t seem to bring out Smith’s strongest gifts; this rather pallid narrative lacks the zest of her previous novels’ depictions of contemporary life. Intelligent and thoughtful but not quite at this groundbreaking writer’s usual level of excellence.
Zadie Smith
Rave Publishers Weekly Mesmerizing ... Smith weaves Eliza’s shrewd and entertaining recollections of her life, a somber account of Bogle’s ancestry and past, brief excerpts from Ainsworth’s books, and historic trial transcripts into a seamless and stimulating mix, made all the more lively by her juxtaposing of imagination with first- and secondhand accounts and facts. The result is a triumph of historical fiction.
Anna Funder
Rave Kirkus Electrifying ... Daring in both form and content, Funder’s book is a nuanced, sophisticated literary achievement. A sharp, captivating look at a complicated relationship and a resurrection of a vital figure in Orwell’s life.
Anna Funder
Rave Publishers Weekly Potent ... Stylistic flourishes enhance the account, most notably the novelistic interludes interspersing Funder’s narration with first-person passages drawn from O’Shaughnessy’s letters that recreate scenes from her life, such as lying ill in London while the city was bombed during WWII. Full of keen psychological insight and eloquent prose, this shines.
Diana Athill
Positive Kirkus Although the brushwork is light...a well defined first novel sketching in people and places with a sure touch ... While Miss Athill is not as sharp a writer as say Edna O\'Brien (the problem perhaps--you identify all this without identifying) she appeals to the same audience which has had very little of this kind to read lately--a woman\'s novel with a flickering, sympathetic intelligence.
Julie Schumacher
Rave Kirkus A satirical recipe that manages to turn sour, mismatched ingredients into something feather-light, affable, and sweet.
Julie Schumacher
Positive Publishers Weekly Droll ... Though the passages of student writing tend to wear thin, Schumacher draws the series to a close with a satisfying arc and a surprising twist after Fitger forms an unexpected bond with his charges. Fans will delight in this winning send-off.
Harvey Sachs
Positive Kirkus A convincing, laymen-friendly reappraisal of a great musical theorist, teacher, and composer.
Clare Carlisle
Positive Kirkus Highly illuminating ... Carlisle’s empathetic exploration of a unique relationship provides a clear lens through which to view Eliot’s life and work.
Clare Carlisle
Positive Publishers Weekly Captivating ... This is a must for devotees of Victorian literature.
William Boyd
Rave Kirkus Appealing ... It’s an amusingly implausible life, and Ross, prey to drink, laudanum, strong passions, and the author’s massaging of history, is an always-engaging character. While W.B. may question the heft of Ross’ legacy, Boyd continues to enrich his own. A smart, colorful entertainment.
Alice Hoffman
Positive Publishers Weekly Enchanting ... Though the evil Joel is a bit one-dimensional, the portrayal of Hawthorne is credible and the conceit feels truly magical. For the most part, Hoffman manages not to break the spell.
Alice Hoffman
Mixed Kirkus Hoffman makes Nathaniel dreamily appealing and creates a riveting voice for his sister Elizabeth, whose brilliance is thwarted by the times in which she lives, but Mia is more author’s puppet than character, and Hoffman’s worthy message concerning women’s rights feels repetitive and ultimately didactic. More important, the realism and fantasy never quite jibe. Not one of Hoffman’s best, but it may spark a desire to reread Hawthorne.
Nigar Alam
Mixed Kirkus Serious in tone, slow to start, and increasingly forced in its plotting, the novel works hard to deliver sympathy and suspense. Its warm evocation of place is a strength, but the sense of authorial machinery at work as the characters repeatedly face intractable options handicaps this first work. A vibrant portrait of a place and time lends richness to an overdetermined storyline.
John Glatt
Pan Kirkus \"The so-called \'Murdaugh Murders\' have spawned a virtual cottage industry of content, from podcasts to a Netflix docuseries, and it’s hard to see what Glatt, though he capably catalogs all the relevant events, offers that’s unique. Ultimately, the narrative feels like a book-length Wikipedia article. An exhaustive, uninspired work of true crime.\
John Glatt
Rave Publishers Weekly \"...an exemplary work of true crime ... Glatt has produced the equivalent of a juicy John Grisham novel, featuring a lead more \'dark and totally devoid of conscience\' than anyone he’s ever researched. This real-life Southern noir lingers.\
David James Duncan
Rave Kirkus Though of Michener length, the story is talky and without much action; Duncan writes page after page to describe even the smallest incidents, as with his long and quite shattering disquisition on the death of a beloved dog. Yet that talk, arch and bookish... will prove captivating to those who enjoy novels of ideas ... For all its excesses, a book by a first-rate writer and one to be savored.
Stephen Kearse
Rave Kirkus There are many more questions than answers in Kearse’s enigmatic narrative, whose deadpan tone and sudden eruptions of bizarre violence often evoke the allusive, baleful essences of J.G. Ballard’s grimly visionary speculative fiction but with wittier dialogue and robustly seasoned with a rapier-keen perception of the collective psyche and complex aspirations of the Black intelligentsia.
Stephen Kearse
Positive Publishers Weekly A dazzling pharmacological thriller ... Written with incisive wit and studded with references to Black popular culture... and troubling incidents from recent history, this entertains even as it deeply disturbs.
Mona Susan Power
Mixed Kirkus Power’s book contains many evocative moments and even more lyrical passages ... But the premise of the book is saccharine. It might have worked better as a middle-grade title or a young adult novel ... An occasionally moving book that’s been steeped a minute too long in sentimentality.
Mona Susan Power
Rave Publishers Weekly Power’s deep knowledge of Indigenous history comes through in keen depictions of the Indian schools, and she illuminates the characters’s struggles with generational trauma, which arise as they try to sustain their connections to the past. This story of survival shines brightly.
Alexandra Chang
Mixed Kirkus Most of the works we see here feel like warm-up exercises or not entirely successful experiments. The author seems to have a particular aversion to—or difficulty with—endings ... An uneven collection from an exciting young author.
Alexandra Chang
Rave Publishers Weekly Powerful and delightfully strange ... Chang’s distinctive style and wry tone bring her characters to startling life, all the while rendering the pain of their loneliness and desire for stability in stark relief.
Jimin Han
Pan Kirkus The sentences are short, simple, and prosaic, the sentiments immature. The novel relies too much on the uniqueness of the narrator’s identity as an elderly Korean woman without doing the work to make her convincing. One wishes that the plot could be the novel’s saving grace, but this is not the case.
Jimin Han
Mixed Publishers Weekly An uneven ghost story ... The novel sags from a few too many side plots, but the feisty and misanthropic Jeonga is a captivating narrator.
Ben Purkert
Positive Kirkus Poet Purkert’s debut novel brings quite a few ideas to the table... but it’s the flash and sizzle of his wit that really deliver this bleak cautionary tale ... Ironic, plangent, gritty, and, ultimately, spiritual.
Ben Purkert
Positive Publishers Weekly A smart satire ... Like its protagonist, Purkert’s freewheeling narrative sometimes feels unsteady in its direction, but the finely wrought prose and spot-on descriptions are undeniable.
Tracey Lange
Positive Kirkus Lange offers a window into these messy, error-prone Connellys, understanding their flawed humanity and the fact that their Westchester community isn’t merely a haven for wealthy commuters, but also an increasingly difficult place to live for working-class families ... A compassionate look at family dynamics and a reminder that it\'s never too late to heal.
Tracey Lange
Positive Publishers Weekly Tara is a flawed heroine worth rooting for and her romance with Brian an affecting one ... The author conjures human moments with a convincing naturalistic style.
Yu Miri, trans. Morgan Giles
Positive Kirkus Readers may find this novel less immediately engaging than [Yu\'s others], opening as it does with an extended section of dense family history and religious rituals with invocations of ghosts. But in time three lead characters come into clear focus ... The book is overlong, but Yu’s passion for rescuing history from violence is palpable on every page.
Yu Miri, trans. Morgan Giles
Positive Publishers Weekly Resonant if overstuffed ... Though it doesn’t reach the height of Yu’s previous work in translation, this has a power of its own.
Wendy Chin-Tanner
Positive Publishers Weekly Poignant if somewhat mechanical ... Though the plotlines feel a bit rote, Chin-Tanner shines in her depictions of loyalty and familial obligation, Ruth’s in particular. Though clunky at times, the multicultural elements add an appealing layer to this drama.
Alan Paul
Rave Kirkus The book is full of trenchant observations by friends and contemporaries, creating a valuable perspective on the music scene in the early ’70s. A warm, entertaining appreciation of a key period in the career of a vital American band.
Alan Paul
Positive Publishers Weekly A rollicking tale ... Enriched by a cache of band interviews never heard before, Paul’s entry marshals encyclopedic detail and sterling prose for a vivid glimpse into a classic moment in music history. Rock fans will rejoice.
Christopher Miller
Rave Kirkus The value of this book is that it demonstrates the real toll in lives lost and broken ... Traveling around and speaking with people, Miller often finds it hard to maintain journalistic detachment, but his compassion and honesty are appreciated. He avoids a simplistic conclusion, but it looks as if the war has become a slogging match of attrition.
Christopher Miller
Positive Publishers Weekly Miller vividly illustrates the risks correspondents take ... but readers hoping for insights into the historical and cultural fault lines underscoring the conflict will have to look elsewhere. Still, this is frontline reporting at its finest.
Anjum Hasan
Positive Publishers Weekly Erudite and languid ... While the story is slow moving and at times unfocused, Hasan frequently blends her chronicle of Alif’s problems with insightful internal monologues, in which he reflects on the country’s history and simmering anti-Muslim sentiments.
Jennifer Chiaverini
Positive Kirkus A sprawling, ambitious story ... The good, the bad, and the ugly sides of war on the homefront are highlighted in this uplifting story.
Jennifer Chiaverini
Positive Publishers Weekly Serviceable if overlong ... Though Chiaverini takes too long establishing the characters, she succeeds at immersing readers in 1914 London.
Regina Black
Positive Kirkus Teeming with complicated family dynamics and the negative aspects of media attention, the novel also examines the difficulty of being in the public eye. The author also explores the complexities of interracial marriage with a perspective that feels fresh and insightful.
Regina Black
Rave Publishers Weekly Steamy and evocative ... As poignant as it is passionate, this marks Black as a writer to watch.
Ali Bryan
Positive Kirkus Bryan creates a small town that’s both quirky and disturbingly realistic. While her characters have flaws (be they cheaters or murderers), Bryan shows sympathy and respect for all of them. A surprising, darkly comic look at people dealing with tragedy and choosing to sing anyway.
Ali Bryan
Mixed Publishers Weekly Antic and darkly comic ... Though the many subplots don’t all cohere, Bryan provides entertainment with the ups and down of the competition and the bumbling efforts by Marcel to evade capture. There’s fun to be had, but this often buckles under its own weight.
Aimee Ogden
Positive Kirkus Those who can handle being dumped into the middle of a strange new world will be rewarded with a taut and compelling mystery with a surprising yet satisfying conclusion.
Aimee Ogden
Positive Publishers Weekly A twisty mystery that doubles as a potent, surprising, and necessary exploration of the many issues that arise from AI’s ever-increasing presence in the world.
Yael Goldstein-Love
Positive Kirkus The story’s inventiveness lies in the way it finds an SF narrative analog for the disorientation of postpartum psychology. The author, a psychotherapist herself, has orchestrated quite a mashup of genres, to page-turning effect.
Yael Goldstein-Love
Positive Publishers Weekly A memorable story about the limits of a parent’s ability to protect their child from harm.
Roland Ennos
Positive Kirkus Although generous with charts and pictures, inevitably, most of his explanations require words, and readers with no scientific background may struggle to understand his written descriptions of high- and low-pressure turbines or how humans keep their balance. Nonetheless, there’s plenty to ponder.
Roland Ennos
Mixed Publishers Weekly The author’s account of how the invention of the flying shuttle in 1732 improved the productivity of looms will be lost on anyone who isn’t intimately familiar with the machines ... This will make readers’ heads spin.
Oliver Franklin-Wallis
Positive Kirkus Franklin-Wallis wishes he could offer a sweeping solution, but he sees no easy fixes ... Nevertheless, the author gives readers much to ponder.
Oliver Franklin-Wallis
Rave Publishers Weekly An alarming exposé ... It’s a vital call to action.
Sara Flannery Murphy
Mixed Kirkus Aside from the fantastical houses, which are neither haunted nor quite benevolent, the world of the novel is conventional, and Jay is the only character with depth ... A thriller that doesn’t elevate its fascinating core premise.
Sara Flannery Murphy
Positive Publishers Weekly Gets its hooks into readers from the opening chapter and doesn’t let go ... This gives a familiar trope new life.
Jamila Ahmed
Positive Kirkus Readers will love Shaherazade, who is acutely sensitive to nuance—social, political, and romantic—and refuses to lose her empathy. Ahmed flawlessly weaves together countless threads to create a stunning tapestry revealing the bonds that tie people together and the deceptions that tear them apart.
Jamila Ahmed
Positive Publishers Weekly Ahmed brings new life to Shaherazade’s thrilling tales.
Daniel Kraus
Positive Publishers Weekly Gripping ... Kraus provides solid nautical science alongside the stretchy coincidences that fuel Jay’s survival. Just on the brink of horror fiction, especially for the claustrophobic, this deep-sea thrill ride will have readers on the edges of their seats.
Melanie Benjamin
Mixed Publishers Weekly Attuned if cluttered ... The core family story is moving, but Benjamin loses focus amid the many themes—Vietnam, the 1960s counterculture, and domestic violence being just a few. These women can hang 10, but the novel doesn’t quite hang together.
Melanie Benjamin
Positive Kirkus This sun-soaked novel is wonderfully awash in the music, television, and fashion of the \'60s as well as the counterculture movement that touted drugs and dropping out. Benjamin based this novel, in part, on real-life female surfers who faced sexism in the mid-20th century. A sun-drenched tale of two sisters trying to make peace with their past.
Lauren Beukes
Positive Kirkus The worldbuilding here is skillful, as is the pacing—Beukes avoids dropping anvil-like plot points or world details, trusting the reader to unpack clues and read between the lines ... Effective as metaphor but mostly ass-kicking, mind-bending entertainment.
Jennifer McAdam
Positive Kirkus \"Some readers may get lost in the wave of characters that weave through the labyrinth of Ignatova’s criminal network. McAdam’s work is an incredible story that requires focused attention. Meticulous readers will be at the edges of their seats, but others may feel the urge to skim. However, even without knowledge of cryptocurrency or OneCoin, it’s easy to empathize with the author ... A poignant dive into the rabbit hole of financial fraud and mysterious scammers.\
Jennifer McAdam
Rave Publishers Weekly \"[An] exhilarating mix of memoir and true crime ... This riveting account of a victim fighting back is an inspired, and inspiring, page-turner.\
Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer, Timothy J. Nelson
Rave Publishers Weekly Essential ... This eye-opening account provides a powerful lens with which to view contemporary inequality in America.
Patti Hartigan
Rave Publishers Weekly Engrossing ... This will serve as the definitive account of an essential American playwright.
Patti Hartigan
Rave Kirkus Appreciative, well-researched ... An authoritative portrait of a defiant champion of Black theater.
Helen MacDonald and Sin Blaché
Rave Publishers Weekly Sinuous and transfixing ... The well-matched authors make good on their audacious premise.
Helen MacDonald and Sin Blaché
Positive Kirkus Intriguing and deftly plotted (if overstuffed) ... A crisply written, inventive, complicated brew of a novel, though one that could have used some boiling down.
Maya Binyam
Positive Publishers Weekly Beguiling and dreamlike ... This is one of those novels that demands a second reading, and is well worth the time.
Maya Binyam
Rave Kirkus Fantastical ... A savvy, wildly imaginative narrative.
Catherine Chidgey
Positive Publishers Weekly Layered and concerned ... Chidgey satisfies and horrifies in equal measure.
Paul Murray
Rave Kirkus Painful, affecting ... A grim and demanding and irresistible anatomy of misfortune.
Paul Murray
Mixed Publishers Weekly The third act veers into a baroque tragedy, as Dickie continues work on the bunker and the reader tries to understand how the Barneses got to this point ... The questions aren’t always enough to sustain the story, but their open-ended nature provokes readers to hang on to the end.
Denise Mina
Rave Publishers Weekly Mina delivers a truly surprising plot. Noir fans will hope Mina returns to the mean streets of L.A. again soon.
Denise Mina
Positive Kirkus Female-forward in all sorts of ways—quite a change of pace for the legendary gumshoe.
James McBride
Rave Kirkus Another boisterous hymn to community, mercy, and karmic justice ... The interlocking destinies of these and other characters make for tense, absorbing drama and, at times, warm, humane comedy. McBride’s well-established skill with narrative tactics may sometimes spill toward the melodramatic here. But as in McBride’s previous works, you barely notice such relatively minor contrivances because of the depth of characterizations and the pitch-perfect dialogue of his Black and Jewish characters ... If it’s possible for America to have a poet laureate, why can’t James McBride be its storyteller-in-chief?
James McBride
Rave Publishers Weekly A vibrant tale ... McBride’s pages burst with life ... This endlessly rich saga highlights the different ways in which people look out for one another.
Tahir Hamut Izgil, trans. by Joshua L. Freeman
Rave Publishers Weekly Astonishing ... This is a spellbinding account of personal resilience and an eye-opening exposé on the humanitarian crisis in Xinjiang.
Tahir Hamut Izgil, trans. by Joshua L. Freeman
Rave Kirkus The author shines a much-needed light on the complex, contradictory emotions of trading a homeland for a lifetime of both safety and survivor’s guilt. A profoundly moving memoir about China’s oppression of the Uyghurs.
Yepoka Yeebo
Rave Kirkus \"Even as she catches readers up in what often reads like a breathless caper, the author takes care to ground them in what matters most: Ghana and its sadly \'fragile\' history. Utterly absorbing.\
Yepoka Yeebo
Rave Publishers Weekly \"Journalist Yeebo brilliantly illuminates the stranger-than-fiction career of Ghanaian fraudster John Ackah Blay-Miezah (1941–1992) in this thrilling true-crime account ... eebo’s details and research are beyond meticulous, and she spins her central con artist into a charismatic lead. This is perfect for fans of Frank Abignale Jr.’s Catch Me If You Can.\
Yepoka Yeebo
Positive Library Journal \"Well-researched and engaging, [Anansi\'s Gold] draws readers into the intricate web of lies about a trust-fund tall tale that spanned throughout the 1970s and \'80s and across the globe. Readers who enjoy true crime and stories about cons will quickly be absorbed into Yeebo\'s first book.”
Christian Madsbjerg
Positive Kirkus While Madsbjerg does offer numerous illustrations of what he calls \"hyper-reflection\" drawn from the realms of science, art, and business, readers who really want to learn how to put hyper-reflection into practice may come away feeling a bit unsatisfied ... Lots of anecdotes, many of them really cool, but not enough practical guidance.
Christian Madsbjerg
Positive Publishers Weekly Illuminating ... While Madsbjerg leans more into cultural influences on perception—drawing heavily on qualitative research and anecdotal evidence—than practical strategies, readers will be inspired by his clear enthusiasm for viewing the world with an open mind. This casts a fresh light on the everyday.
Yume Kitasei
Rave Kirkus Cerebral SF, tackling both humanitywide problems and the smaller but ever present conflicts closer to home.
Yume Kitasei
Positive Publishers Weekly Frequent flashbacks to Asuka’s past on Earth interrupt this tense spacefaring mystery, and though some readers may find this distracting, they successfully add context for and complexity to the resilient heroine. The result is a remarkable story of endurance and hope.
Gloria Dickie
Positive Kirkus Gloomy in outlook but a cleareyed view of the world’s bears and the many threats they face.
Gloria Dickie
Rave Publishers Weekly A superb study ... The searching accounts of threats faced by bears across the globe illuminate the struggles conservationists face, and the crisp prose will transport readers.
Scott Von Doviak
Positive Kirkus Von Doviak keeps things equally shaggy and pulpy by constantly bringing Chuck and Dean up against new waves of largely unconnected miscreants determined to force them into further criminal enterprises, fleece them, kill them, or sometimes all three.
Scott Von Doviak
Positive Publishers Weekly Though the story occasionally gets sidelined in favor of ever-escalating grindhouse madness, Von Doviak never drops the ball. Razor-sharp dialogue and high-octane action keep this entertaining pulp novel afloat.
Erika Kobayashi, trans. Brian Bergstrom
Positive Kirkus [Kobayashi\'s] interest in atomic energy and its insidiously long-reaching effects on Japanese society tends to be deep and wide-ranging rather than repetitive ... Kobayashi has the unfortunate habit, every once in a while, of hitting her mark a little too squarely on the nose.
Erika Kobayashi, trans. Brian Bergstrom
Rave Publishers Weekly With recursive events and characters, the author makes the most of her core themes. It’s a knockout.
Amiee Gibbs
Positive Kirkus Gibbs dazzles with lush, evocative prose, delightfully diabolical plotting, and abundant heart. Individual characters may lack dimension, but the dynamics of the found family formed by the \"curiosities\" add more than enough nuance and emotional complexity to compensate. Subtle worldbuilding elevates the tale’s intrigue without distracting from the action.
Amiee Gibbs
Positive Publishers Weekly Dark and glamorous ... Through lyrical prose, Gibbs builds an atmospheric historical world with danger and magic around every corner. The carnival’s minor acts steal the show; it’s harder to connect with the main characters, whose backstories come too little too late.
Jake Tapper
Mixed Kirkus A devoted history buff, Tapper, the CNN host, litters his novels with period details ... Ultimately, they serve the narrative less than the narrative serves them. Tapper feels compelled to explain his characters’ references to familiar things, rather oddly including footnotes in chapters narrated by Lucy ... A quasi-mystery in search of authenticity.
Jake Tapper
Pan Publishers Weekly Limp ... Overwrought prose... doesn’t help sell some wildly improbable plot developments. When a character literally jumps the shark, it’s a sign that Tapper’s formerly exciting series may have done so as well.
John Milas
Positive Kirkus Milas nimbly and delicately balances the book between genres: It would be a relief for Loyette, and for the reader, if we could classify it... as horror rather than having, agonizingly, to view it as a realistic portrait of a war-damaged mind collapsing in on itself. The novel turns, as the gothic often does, on what happens when one can no longer distinguish inside from out, mind from world, fear from menace.
John Milas
Rave Publishers Weekly Horror debuts don’t come much more impressive than this unsettling offering from Milas ... Milas is brilliant at making his lead’s eerie experiences and surreal hallucinations vivid, scary, and psychologically nuanced.
Nishanth Injam
Positive Kirkus While the collection takes little risk, it offers an array of characters and circumstances that capture contemporary concerns with grace; the language, well-rendered details, and strong story structures combine to deliver revelations.
Nishanth Injam
Rave Publishers Weekly Dynamic and insightful ... Injam succeeds in equal measure with the variety of styles, and he offers enriching details about the various experiences his characters face as immigrants and offshore workers.
Hannah Rothschild
Mixed Kirkus Insecure, status-seeking Sleet is a monster painted with such broad strokes he might as well have a mustache to twirl, and the rest of Rothschild’s characterizations are equally clichéd ... To give Rothschild her due, she crafts an enjoyably complicated narrative ... The abundance of machinations by a horde of not especially memorable characters, however, makes it likely that little of it will be remembered once the last chapter is finished.
Hannah Rothschild
Rave Publishers Weekly With scenes that are over-the-top hilarious and a sharply satiric view of late-stage capitalism, this plays like a savvy cross between Brideshead Revisited and Succession as written by the Monty Python troupe.
Jacob Mikanowski
Positive Kirkus Mikanowski... proves to be a capable guide to countries and cultures that many readers may have never encountered. An informative study of a part of the world too often ignored, told with vigor, color, and authority.
Jacob Mikanowski
Rave Publishers Weekly Shot through with lyrical reflections and astute analysis, this is a rewarding portrait of diverse and complex part of the world.
Wolfram Eilenberger, trans. by Shaun Whiteside
Positive Kirkus While never quite providing a cohesive rationale for joining these four disparate writers together, Eilenberger offers solid insight into a center-minded way of thinking applicable to each ... An absorbing, well-grounded study.
Wolfram Eilenberger, trans. by Shaun Whiteside
Positive Publishers Weekly Illuminating ... Though Eilenberger could sometimes weave the narrative’s various threads together more seamlessly, his energetic, multilayered group portrait reveals that these celebrated thinkers were real people whose ideas, as contradictory as they may seem, developed in response to shared social or political circumstances.
Rebekah Bergman
Rave Kirkus \"Each narrative ring reveals unexpected connections among them, images and bits of language that recur, ideas and themes—memory, death, the slippage between the past and the future—that deepen as the novel blends fairy tale, philosophy, and shades of literary-futurist classics like Never Let Me Go. With melancholy imagination, Bergman elegantly tackles nothing less than the entire arc of human history.
Rebekah Bergman
Positive Publishers Weekly \"[A] cluttered yet satisfying speculative debut ... The cast slips in and out of each other’s lives, a narrative device that Bergman doesn’t always master—the large number of coincidental connections occasionally strains credulity. Still, the characters’ loss and grief are palpable. This will leave readers considering the fallibility of memory and the costs of attempting to preserve one’s youthful appearance.\
Giorgio Parisi
Mixed Kirkus Throughout, Parisi’s voice is amiable and conversational, which endows the book with the feel of a conversation with a wise and generous elder. However, each of the chapters is wildly different in tone and content. While some passages read like literary memoir, others read like dry excerpts from textbooks ... An intermittently charming but incohesive essay collection about physics, matter, and memory.
Rachel Ingalls
Positive Publishers Weekly Funny and striking ... Ingalls keeps things moving at a fast pace, and it all culminates in a dizzying, unforgettable finale.
James R. Hansen
Positive Kirkus The remarkable adventures of two men fighting nature and their own demons.
Leesa Cross-Smith
Pan Publishers Weekly Lackluster ... Cross-Smith’s villains are cartoonishly evil... and though the friends’ motivations are understandable, the story nonetheless feels contrived.
Kate Collins
Rave Kirkus Collins skillfully intercuts the two storylines, making clever use of structure to maximize tension, resonance, and fright, while the familiar setup fools readers into thinking they know what path the plot will follow. A moody, evocative, close-third narrative underscores the keenly rendered characters’ mounting distress and claustrophobia.
Chandler Baker
Rave Kirkus Red herrings abound and clues are dispensed tantalizingly. The building social tension is so good that the murder mystery can feel almost unnecessary ... Baker limns the fascinating ways parents in a community can be simultaneously at odds with and bonded to each other and how the pressure of parenthood makes crisis hard to define.
Chandler Baker
Positive Publishers Weekly Suspenseful and darkly comic ... Baker’s descriptions of the joys and trials of raising children bolster the mystery at the book’s core. With winning cynicism, she delivers a wicked thriller that doubles as a glimpse at motherhood’s dark underbelly.
Brad Fox
Positive Kirkus Some readers may be frustrated by Fox’s vaguely connected tangents and wish instead for a more linear history, but there’s a method to his pacing ... Fox seeks to not just tell Beebe’s story, but to embody his philosophy, and he explores the vast potential of storytelling and searches its depths for glimmers of life and connectivity.
Brad Fox
Rave Publishers Weekly Mesmerizing ... Original and often profound, this is a moving testament to the wonders of exploration.
Susan Isaacs
Pan Kirkus Unfortunately, [Isaacs] breaks no new ground here; her dull storyline is slowed down by the constant observational digressions of the characters. Everyone talks, talks, talks, and they don’t always stick to the point ... Likewise, Isaacs’ noted snarky humor now feels stale. The action only picks up in the book’s final third, and by then the reader doesn’t much care.
Susan Isaacs
Positive Publishers Weekly Winning ... Offbeat characters, witty narration, and a winsome father-daughter dynamic complement Isaacs’s clever if madcap plot. Fans of breezy suspense will be delighted.
Prudence Peiffer
Positive Kirkus A fond portrait ... A warm evocation of a unique place and time.
Kyle Dillon Hertz
Rave Publishers Weekly [A] scorching portrait ... he prose is remarkable, alternating from lush sensuality to unsparing brutality to quick cutting asides ... This marks the arrival of a vital new talent.
Kyle Dillon Hertz
Mixed Kirkus Sharp, candid ... Dylan’s narration strives for a kind of hard-won stoicism but often reads as flat; the characterizations of Moans and other secondary characters...are relatively thin; and plotwise the novel cycles from a memory of abuse to self-sabotage to desperate gestures of love and affection. Hertz’s talent for evoking the horrors and consequences of abuse runs deep, but the effect is of a short story stretched past its limits. A promising debut seeking storytelling to match the trauma it evokes.
Janet Wallach
Positive Kirkus Extensive endnotes make clear that the author relied heavily on Harrison\'s own books ... Nonetheless, Wallach\'s expert storytelling, which has the suspense and pacing of a good spy novel, is clearly her own, and it makes for engaging reading. The globe-trotting exploits of \'a confirmed wanderer\' and top-notch spy finally get their due.
Janet Wallach
Positive Publishers Weekly Colorful ... Wallach presents the eye-popping action crisply, but struggles to get under the surface of this impressive woman. Still, it’s a remarkable tale of intrigue and daring.
Roger Reeves
Positive Publishers Weekly Strong ... Reeves’s trademark lyricism...shines throughout, proving that he’s just as affecting in prose as in verse. This impresses.
Roger Reeves
Positive Kirkus A cerebral, ruminative essay collection brimming with insight and vision.
Shane McCrae
Rave Publishers Weekly McCrae recounts the jaw-dropping circumstances of his childhood in this exceptional memoir ... McCrae’s account of the abuses he endured are unflinching, but readers will walk away with a stronger sense of awe than pity, both for his resilience and his command of language. This gorgeous meditation on family, race, and identity isn’t easy to shake.
Shane McCrae
Positive Kirkus The first half of the text sings with a gorgeously wrought tension. In the second half, however, the tension starts to sag. In these chapters, McCrae is a young teenager learning to skateboard, but his prose doesn’t carry the nearly excruciating tautness of the early pages. Still, as a whole, the book is original and satisfying. Intricately wrought and unrelenting in its honesty.
Richard E. Grant
Rave Publishers Weekly Excellent ... Grant’s tender recollections effectively conjure on the page the couple’s enduring connection. The result is a moving and entertaining celebration of life and love.
Edan Lepucki
Rave Kirkus \"Lepucki is known for combining domestic realism with a magical worldview and/or SF–adjacent elements (here, there’s an isolation chamber in a box in the garage inspired by Reich’s Orgone Accumulator) and for evoking California in all its real, surreal, and unreal glory. She does it again. This emotionally intense, wildly imaginative novel is both down-to-earth and out-to-lunch. One of a kind.\
Edan Lepucki
Positive Publishers Weekly \"...enjoyable if convoluted ... Extensive asides on Wilhelm Reich’s orgone theories and his energy accumulator are bizarre and distracting, though Lepucki deploys plenty of evocative similes...Thanks to Lepucki’s fine prose, this intrigues more than it frustrates.\
Daniel Magariel
Positive Kirkus \"A notable strength of the work is the engaging backdrop it provides of maritime culture in a declining town. There are consistently sharp and memorable descriptions of land and sea and of the ecological disruptions which form a counterpart to the human world...The author clearly knows this world well; the daily lives of those in the fishing trade, at work and at home, are rendered with a strong sense of authenticity ... Less successful are the rather stale scenes and occasionally implausible dialogue charting the psychological mechanics of Les and Marlene’s failing relationship or Marlene’s interactions with Josie, her ersatz daughter, and the pimp who eventually reclaims the girl. The novel is written in a style that oscillates, a little awkwardly, between brisk realism and a sometimes-strained poeticism ... Nevertheless, beyond these distractions, the vision of a coastal region and its cultural milieu offered here is often poignant. A bracing story of grieving, coping, and reaching for the terms of recovery.\
Daniel Magariel
Positive Publishers Weekly \"Magariel effectively portrays Neverland as a wild place populated by lost souls, stripped in his words of \'the illusion that the world has been conquered, charted, angled for human need.\' Downbeat and atmospheric, this psychological drama gets the job done.\
Brando Skyhorse
Mixed Publishers Weekly Astutely observed if uneven speculative outing ... Despite an overwrought plot, this satire has plenty of bite.
Brando Skyhorse
Positive Kirkus Skyhorse’s satirical eye is sharp ... Skyhorse doesn’t quite untangle the mysteries he sets up, but he cultivates an engrossing Kafkaesque atmosphere across the novel. A well-imagined allegory of divisive racial politics.
Khashayar J. Khabushani
Rave Publishers Weekly Beautiful ... Khabushani renders K’s experiences in poignant vignettes that speak to the young boy’s sensitivity as he dreams of a better, albeit uncertain future. This heartrending tale will stay with readers.
Susan Casey
Rave Kirkus Fascinating ... Space exploration gets the headlines, but Casey makes a convincing case that the deep ocean is more interesting.
Elizabeth Acevedo
Positive Publishers Weekly Colorful ... Though the various magical elements aren’t very well developed, Acevedo is brilliant at portraying the women’s love and loyalty for one another. The author’s fans will eat this up.
Elizabeth Acevedo
Mixed Kirkus Sprawling ... An uneven effort with somewhat flat characters and prose that fails to sing consistently.
Jamel Brinkley
Rave Publishers Weekly Dazzling ... Brinkley crafts unforgettable portraits, humming with barely restrained tension, of Black men and women exploring what it means to be part of families and communities that are awash in hope and disappointment alike. These intimate vignettes have the power to move readers.
Jamel Brinkley
Rave Kirkus Short stories that in their depth of feeling, perception, and sense of place affirm their author’s bright promise ... After just two collections, Brinkley may already be a grand master of the short story.
Peter Heller
Mixed Publishers Weekly An immersive story ... Though the plot is fairly thin, Heller compensates with strong characterizations, a vivid sense of place, enough wolf lore to fill several NatGeo specials, and a Boy Scout Handbook’s worth of wood-crafting tips. Fans of fiction about the outdoors are well served.
Peter Heller
Rave Kirkus Fast-paced, elegantly written ... As the author displays in a thrilling climactic chase scene, he doesn’t neglect his obligation to bring what at heart is a nature adventure story to a satisfying conclusion ... Lyrical.
Dan Schreiber
Positive Kirkus A collection of wacky beliefs, incidents, and conspiracy theories that will amuse many readers ... Ghost hunters and conspiracy theorists will find plenty of red meat to chew on.
Katie Siegel
Positive Kirkus Notes of a Gen Z-er, with writing on the edge.
Victoria Kielland, trans. Damion Searls
Positive Kirkus The language, in Searls’ translation, is dense, poetic, and deeply figurative ... A meditation on female desire, on loneliness, on mental illness.
Veronica Raimo, trans. Leah Janeczko
Positive Kirkus Raimo weaves together a series of nonlinear vignettes with a deft hand, connecting seemingly disparate moments through themes of longing, loneliness, identity, and, perhaps most profoundly, the concept of memory itself.
Veronica Raimo, trans. Leah Janeczko
Positive Publishers Weekly Despite the narrator’s evasiveness, a thrum of honesty bleeds through. With its stellar voice, Raimo’s inquisitive and vulnerable novel proves tough to put down.
Ana Menéndez
Rave Kirkus Vividly drawn characters and finely crafted prose enhance these interwoven tales.
Ana Menéndez
Positive Publishers Weekly Ambitious if diffuse ... A late foray into magical realism feels a bit hackneyed, and some of the time periods are more evocatively described than others. Still, Menéndez’s nesting-doll narrative serves as a thoughtful meditation on the transient nature of home.
Carolyn Mackler
Mixed Kirkus What starts as a socially conscious novel about the plight of women becomes an increasingly lightweight romp ... There is surprisingly little social texture; these likable-enough women live in a world without racial tension or political anxiety ... Mackler knows how to shape scenes and characters but offers an oddly dated, privileged version of feminism lite.
Carolyn Mackler
Positive Publishers Weekly While the writing is at times didactic... Mackler identifies many real, often unspoken problems inherent in domesticity.
Thea Glassman
Positive Publishers Weekly A fun, nostalgic look at how classic teen TV shows have influenced modern television ... While some chapters don’t delve as deep as others... Glassman offers enough tantalizing, behind-the-scenes scoop to keep readers hooked, peeling back the curtain on writers’ processes, casting decisions, and on-set gossip.
Itamar Vieira Junior, trans. Johnny Lorenz
Rave Kirkus Among the laudable feats Vieira Junior accomplishes in this novel is the way it gradually moves from a highly specific story to one with implications for a region\'s entire working class. In a book that often concerns itself with voices both singular and collective, it\'s a stirring progression.
Itamar Vieira Junior, trans. Johnny Lorenz
Positive Publishers Weekly Alluring ... Vieira Júnior conveys the girls’ childhood confusion and wonder in hypnotic prose, and he brings the close-knit Água Negra to life.
Beth Raymer
Rave Kirkus Evocative language and crackerjack storytelling ... This unsparing version of the modern American tragedy is more fun to read than can possibly be right.
Beth Raymer
Positive Publishers Weekly Lively if meandering ... While there isn’t much momentum, Raymer impresses with heart-rending characters and clear-eyed exploration of class differences. Though it’s a little messy, there’s a great deal of life on the page.
Emma Mieko Candon
Mixed Kirkus Readers may find themselves desperately searching for more explanatory backstory, which is only partially forthcoming ... It\'s not always possible to tell who is narrating or experiencing various moments of the story, as consciousnesses merge and only incompletely separate. There’s definitely some important point being made about the nature of sentience, but it’s not 100% clear what that point is.
Emma Mieko Candon
Positive Publishers Weekly Fascinating if sometimes disorienting ... Candon’s fresh, vivid worldbuilding skillfully blends anime staples like giant robots and cigarette-smoking aunties with edgy SFF tropes ... Though the emotional thread of trauma, guilt, and grief is well-executed, the narrative is written in an elaborate, often evasive style that may lead some readers feeling left behind by the plot.
Molly Lynch
Rave Publishers Weekly Spectacular ... Writing in tight, precise prose, Lynch weaves environmental disaster, feminist theory, and classical myth into a mesmerizing tale.
Molly Lynch
Positive Kirkus While efforts to explain the missing-mother phenomenon feel convoluted and undercut the tale’s otherworldly appeal, Lynch writes evocatively and insightfully about the divine feminine, nature’s gravitational pull, and her characters’ struggles with alienation and fear.
Peter Moore
Rave Kirkus An energetic and meticulously researched history.
Peter Moore
Rave Publishers Weekly A rich and immersive intellectual history ... The portrait of Franklin and Strahan’s relationship is especially well done, and Moore’s fluid prose is infused with the \"boisterous\" excitement of the era.
Agustina Bazterrica, trans. Sarah Moses
Positive Publishers Weekly Though the author leans a bit much on shock value, she adds depth to the strange and eerie atmosphere with recurring themes of religion and death.
David Gessner
Positive Kirkus Excellent environmental journalism, light on optimism.
James Wolff
Rave Publishers Weekly Wolff is particularly good at making his lead, who could have been a colorless figure in lesser hands, sympathetic, and delivers some truly knockout twists.
Marjolijn Van Heemstra
Positive Kirkus Brief yet paradigm-shifting ... A striking text that takes us beyond our planet for a fresh perspective.
Marjolijn Van Heemstra
Positive Publishers Weekly Delightful ... The author’s curious, investigative spirit and lyrical prose enchants.
Gail Tsukiyama
Mixed Kirkus In offering so much painstaking, historically accurate detail, Tsukiyama sacrifices story. For readers familiar with Wong’s biography, the book reads too much like an elevated Wikipedia entry ... This sympathetic account of a silver-screen legend flies admirably between triumph and tragedy but struggles to soar.
Gail Tsukiyama
Mixed Publishers Weekly A comprehensive but lackluster fictionalized memoir of Anna May Wong ... Tsukiyama nails the tone of an amateur memoirist struggling to get her story down, but it doesn’t make for very dynamic fiction, and the rushed pacing doesn’t help.
Aharon Appelfeld, trans. Stuart Schoffman
Rave Kirkus The book, in which Yaakov’s dreams play an important role, has a fuzzy, dreamlike quality itself ... A powerful and timely addition to Appelfeld\'s great body of work.
Aharon Appelfeld, trans. Stuart Schoffman
Positive Publishers Weekly An engrossing tale ... The dreams are vivid and economically written, and the unsettling, unresolved ending adds heft.
Tamara J Walker
Positive Kirkus Nuanced, poignant tales that beautifully flesh out a little-known aspect of the African American experience.
Claire Daverley
Positive Kirkus Daverley’s moving debut outlines a lyrical story of unspoken words and one unending love ... A poignant romance.
Zechen Xu, trans. Eric Abrahamsen and Jeremy Tiang
Mixed Publishers Weekly Evocative if monotonous ... Xu doesn’t offer much perspective on the characters’ inner lives, and a dulling sameness eventually takes over the stories, though they offer a convincing assessment of the city’s inescapable drudgery and inequitable circumstances.
Ruth P Watson
Positive Kirkus Historically minded readers will enjoy the accurate details here ... Others may be disappointed by the expositional prose and dialogue ... A stirring fictional account of a remarkable figure that’s occasionally hampered by wooden prose.
Ruth P Watson
Positive Publishers Weekly Illuminating if straightforward ... Though the story is simplistic, Watson adds plenty of drama as Maggie perseveres in dangerous situations involving physical intimidation from white men.
Natalie Beach
Rave Publishers Weekly An elegant memoir-in-essays ... Throughout, Beach’s wide-eyed honesty and utter lack of pretense... contribute to the sense that she’s mined every inch of her experience for these pieces. Incisive and candid, this is a must-read.
Colin Walsh
Positive Publishers Weekly Engrossing if overstuffed ... There are a few too many red herrings, and some woolly hints of a temporal reality in which the characters see versions of themselves at different ages, yet the emotional pull of Walsh’s core trio steadies the ship. Despite some wobbles, this is hard to put down.
Colin Walsh
Rave Kirkus Walsh makes an assured debut with this gritty heartbreaker of a thriller ... Skillfully blending the psychological complexity of a literary novel with the propulsive pace of a thriller, the author juggles three disparate points of view ... Part heartfelt coming-of-age tale, part brutal Irish noir, this is a spectacular read for Donna Tartt and Tana French fans.
Andy Field
Rave Kirkus Engaging ... A poetic, insightful examination of human connections and unexpected intimacy.
Vajra Chandrasekera
Mixed Publishers Weekly Lyrical but sluggish ... The result is a meandering meditation on mind-body duality, fanaticism, and eschatology that will appeal only to fans of the most cerebral fantasies.
Deborah Bonello
Positive Publishers Weekly In the book’s strongest sections, Bonello recounts her investigations, including risks to her own safety, and explains how she tracked down sources that included criminals, members of law enforcement, and court documents. Readers fascinated by organized crime and the inner workings of investigative journalism will want to check it out.
Deborah Bonello
Positive Kirkus Evenhanded ... An eye-opening work of journalism that largely avoids glamorizing its subjects’ criminal activity.
Lindsay Lynch
Positive Kirkus Entertaining ... An intimate look at Hollywood’s dark secrets.
Lindsay Lynch
Positive Publishers Weekly Intelligent ... Though the pacing tends to drag, the dialogue and Edie’s narration are steeped in the rapid-fire rhythm of the era’s films, making for a convincing portrayal of the world they emerged from. Lovers of the silver screen will be drawn to this.
Steven Millhauser
Positive Publishers Weekly Accomplished ... This will please Millhauser’s longtime fans and earn him new admirers.
Steven Millhauser
Rave Kirkus More turmoil and magic in suburbia from one of America’s most accomplished short story writers ... Millhauser remains gifted at stretching time, space, and expectations.
Erik Hoel
Mixed Publishers Weekly Challenging ... The history intrigues, but the jargon-heavy discussions of contemporary neuroscience are hard to follow ... The result is a mixed bag.
Nat Segaloff
Positive Publishers Weekly [An] encyclopedic overview ... The surfeit of minutiae and workmanlike accounts of film production will test readers’ patience ... Still, the author’s love for the original film buoys this, and his insights into how Blatty’s ruminations on faith and the existence of God animate his book and screenplay shed new light on the story. The result is a competent celebration of a horror classic.
Andrew Leland
Rave Publishers Weekly Masterful ... Enriched by its sparkling prose, this is an extraordinary and intellectually rigorous account of adapting to change.
Andrew Leland
Positive Kirkus When the author gets personal, he does so with such honesty and vulnerability ... Emotional but never sentimental, this quest for insight delivers for its readers.
Ann Patchett
Rave Publishers Weekly Masterly ... As Patchett’s slow-burn narrative gathers dramatic steam, she blends past and present with dexterity and aplomb, as the daughters come to learn more of the truth about Lara’s Duke stories, causing them to reshape their understanding of their mother. Patchett is at the top of her game.
Ann Patchett
Rave Kirkus These braided strands culminate in a denouement at once deeply sad and tenderly life-affirming. Poignant and reflective, cementing Patchett’s stature as one of our finest novelists.
Hila Blum
Positive Kirkus Bit by bit Blum’s novel reveals itself to be a dissection of misapplied maternal love in one particular instance, in which emotions and impulses contradict themselves and turn inside out. Part detective story, part morality tale, this is a disturbing story of being damaged and damaging ... Deft, claustrophobic.
Hila Blum
Rave Publishers Weekly Moving ... Blum builds a great deal of suspense over what caused Leah to flee, and she creates a realistic portrayal of the joys, sorrows, and uncertainties of motherhood. This one hits hard.
Henry Bean
Rave Publishers Weekly Marvelous ... Rediscovered, this stands as one of the great novels of adulthood’s losing battles.
Laura Lippman
Positive Publishers Weekly Gripping ... Lippman works up a slow burn, gently teasing out a game of cat and mouse between Joe and Amber that comes into full focus toward the end of the novel. Readers who persevere will reach a devilishly satisfying conclusion.
Laura Lippman
Positive Kirkus As usual, Lippman creates a convincing portrait of a particular sector of Baltimore, this time well-heeled professionals in the northern part of town, and adds New Orleans to the mix as well, with a king cake and a side order of red beans working as plot points. A character study of pedestrian evil in the Wegmans-and-Peloton class, fascinating in its heartlessness.
Laura Lippman
Rave Library Journal This exquisitely crafted tale of triangulation and treachery builds slowly to a shocking ending.
Nathan Go
Positive Kirkus There is something almost Kierkegaard-ian in the way Go weaves together fictional narrative and nuanced explorations of forgiveness, redemption, guilt, and commitment to one’s ideals. His attention to historical detail breathes life into the novel’s philosophical inquiry, which avoids didacticism while striking at the heart of some of the most pressing questions of the human condition. Despite its often dramatic subject matter, Go’s narrative burns slowly, gracing the novel with an understated yet profound power.
Nathan Go
Mixed Publishers Weekly Timid ... Though Go evokes the country’s messy recent history, the promising premise is bogged down by overly didactic narration and strained prose.
Dominic Smith
Positive Kirkus Absorbing ... More fine work from a gifted storyteller: engrossing, well written, and affecting.
Jessie Gaynor
Positive Publishers Weekly \"...a witty send-up of wellness culture and the perils of transforming people into brands ... Though the narrative idles a bit too much in exposition and backstory mode, there’s an amusing story in here about the pitfalls of idol worship. With pithy and poignant observations about the costs of treating people like products, Gaynor makes this shine.\
Jessie Gaynor
Mixed Kirkus \"The first third of the book is a hokey slog, filled with every wellness cliché imaginable. However, once Jane starts working for FortPath full time, there is a definite shift, and Gaynor is able to balance humor with a decent amount of heart. A somewhat successful look at the people who participate in and profit from the wellness industry.\
Peter Turchin
Positive Kirkus This is intriguing material, but some crucial parts of the argument fail to connect, and the assertion that the U.S. is in a period of unprecedented turmoil might not be valid ... The text will be overly dense for general readers, but the author does have important things to say about power relationships and social evolution.
Peter Turchin
Rave Publishers Weekly ... scintillating theory of history ... Turchin’s elegantly written treatment looks beneath partisan jousting to class interests that cycle over generations, but also yields timely policy insights. It’s a stimulating analysis of antagonisms past and present, and the crack-up they may be leading to.
Harrison Scott Key
Rave Kirkus This book documents Key’s attempt to summon love and understanding in the face of Lauren’s admission, seeking guidance from friends and the Bible. It makes for occasionally dark reading, but it’s never maudlin or vindictive. Through it all, Key demonstrates his gift for memorable humorous descriptions.
Ben Terris
Positive Kirkus A dishy look at how insider Washington works, fueled by drugs, booze, and, of course, mountains of money.
Elysha Chang
Positive Kirkus Funny, original, and overflowing with wisdom—this is an absolute delight of a debut.
Elysha Chang
Positive Publishers Weekly The understated and quietly devastating story of a grieving 20-something woman ... The somewhat pensive tone is broken up by moments of levity, but always returns to questions of family history and the impossibility of understanding someone else’s story when one’s own memories are so unreliable.
Patrick J Deneen
Pan Kirkus It’s unfortunate that one of the examples of family-friendly, birth-rate–promoting government that Deneen holds up is the far-right Orban regime of Hungary. It’s even more unfortunate that the conservatism it upholds is a counter to the \"ethos of cosmopolitanism,\" that last term being a historic antisemitic dog whistle, whether Deneen intends it that way or not ... Just the thing for those who use the word woke without knowing what it means.
Will Grant
Positive Kirkus Entertaining ... Well and self-effacingly written and a pleasure for armchair travelers and Old West buffs.
Will Grant
Positive Publishers Weekly A thoughtful and entertaining account ... Enriched by Grant’s deep knowledge of the West, matter-of-fact prose, and colorful character sketches, this is a rewarding ride.
Norman Erikson Pasaribu, trans. Tiffany Tsao
Positive Kirkus Pasaribu’s debut collection explores the way colonial violence and anti-queer prejudice permeate contemporary culture ... Rendering characters with refreshing nuance and raw honesty, Pasaribu’s is a promising new voice.
Norman Erikson Pasaribu, trans. Tiffany Tsao
Rave Publishers Weekly A remarkable collection of speculative and absurdist fiction.
Ani Kayode
Mixed Kirkus Ani’s novel is undoubtedly sincere, filled with a justifiably righteous anger over anti-gay hate crimes, and it’s apparent he cares about his characters. But they’re not fleshed out quite enough, leaning too close to archetypes. The writing is competent but uninspired, the plot formulaic, and the dialogue unrealistic. The author shows promise, but the novel feels like a first draft, though certainly a well-intentioned one.
Ani Kayode
Positive Publishers Weekly In emotionally fraught scenes, Ani lays bare the characters’ fragile states, with August grappling with his fear and excitement after a kiss or Segun processing his anger over past abuses. This timely and striking love story resonates with authenticity.
Greg King
Rave Kirkus [King\'s] haunting, sometimes inspiring narrative is sure to move anyone interested in trees and nature. A disheartening yet wholly engrossing, urgent account of redwood preservation.
Greg King
Rave Publishers Weekly King’s dogged research turns up the closed-door deals and nefarious legal schemes that led to the destruction of 96% of redwood forests, providing a disturbing chronicle of how lumber companies flouted laws and came out on top. The result is a sobering accounting of the forces environmentalists are up against.
Neil Howe
Mixed Publishers Weekly Far-ranging ... The result is an intriguing but ultimately unconvincing theory of history’s convoluted patterns.
Neil Howe
Rave Kirkus Riveting ... A fascinating work of global history and look to the future.
Emily Monosson
Positive Publishers Weekly \"Monosson keeps the discussions of fungi biology accessible, and the battery of case studies of fungal outbreaks underscores the urgency of the threat. This wake-up call should not go unheeded.\
Emily Monosson
Rave Kirkus \"...fascinating ... Monosson is a skilled writer, capable of translating complicated scientific topics into compelling layperson’s terms, and she crafts a thrilling narrative around even the less charismatic victims of fungal pathogens (bananas, for example). An engrossing read with an urgent message about the next frontier of disease.\
Richard Russo
Positive Publishers Weekly Wise and witty ... Russo gets a slow start, laying on a bit too much backstory at the outset, but the novel soon picks up speed, delivering the generous humor, keen ear for dialogue, and deep appreciation for humanity’s foibles that have endeared the author to his readers for decades. Though Sully is gone, his world is alive and well.
Richard Russo
Rave Kirkus Russo’s version of the good old-fashioned comic novel is the gold standard, full of heart and dexterous storytelling.
Oksana Lutsysyna, trans. Nina Murray
Positive Kirkus This well-told tale with rich prose and relatable characters is a good primer on Ukraine.
Oksana Lutsysyna, trans. Nina Murray
Positive Publishers Weekly Lutsyshyna conveys themes of disillusion and misogyny with a wicked sense of humor and an unflinching view of the characters’ inner pain. This harrowing anti–love story is a winner.
Rachel Nuwer
Rave Kirkus An illuminating, myth-free exploration of mental health from a unique perspective.
Michael Mewshaw
Positive Kirkus Mewshaw finds much in Greene\'s life and work to admire and emulate, along with human frailty, and he conveys the ups and downs of their relationship with genuine intimacy.
Anne Hull
Positive Kirkus This warmly evocative recollection of her formative years will appeal to a wide audience, especially those who enjoy understated, stylishly well-told stories.
Anne Hull
Positive Publishers Weekly Entrancing ... Hull dispatches invaluable insights into Deep South culture and Cold War–era gender politics, but they sometimes come at the expense of her personal story. Still, this is a stirring account of growing up at odds with one’s environment and making it out on the other side.
Mary Kay Zuravleff
Positive Publishers Weekly Meticulous ... Zuravleff richly describes the hardscrabble setting, capturing the horrific working conditions, her characters’ will to provide for their families, and how all of it is stifling to Yelena.
Scott Patterson
Rave Kirkus Throughout, the author provides deft, accessible analysis and guidance. Complex economic and scientific theories lucidly rendered, even if the resulting picture is unremittingly gloomy.
Scott Patterson
Positive Publishers Weekly An illuminating investigation into those who profit from anticipating crises ... The author has a knack for translating complicated financial maneuvers into easily comprehensible terms.
Javier Fuentes
Pan Kirkus Fuentes has an unfortunate tendency to stretch credulity on multiple fronts. The glimpses into Demetrio’s artistry as a chef are surprisingly few and often underrealized ... Demetrio’s narration occasionally sparkles, but the dialogue is stilted and sometimes dated beyond the novel’s 2007 setting ... What should be a thoughtfully constructed, sensuous confection falls flat.
Javier Fuentes
Mixed Publishers Weekly Lush but meandering ... The plot drifts by, with conflicts emerging and then swiftly disappearing... on the way to an implausible conclusion. It’s got style, but it’s light on substance.
Magogodi oaMphela Makhene
Positive Kirkus Throughout the stories, Makhene peppers her prose with Dutch, Afrikaans, and South African English. Quick internet translations will reward diligent readers, but the book\'s most striking multilingual moments arrive when characters add their own flavor of interpretation ... Makhene\'s vividly rendered stories are propulsive and challenging.
Fern Brady
Positive Kirkus Although Brady hopes her memoir will \"make things feel better for the next autistic or misfit girl,\" her anger is as evident as her compassion. An unflinching self-portrait.
Jane Smiley
Positive Publishers Weekly Smiley makes for great company, and her unpretentious style will appeal even to those whose eyes glaze over at the thought of revisiting these high school classics. Fleet-footed and smart, this delights.
Charles Glass
Rave Kirkus Within an engrossing novelistic structure, Glass... expertly weaves the stories of these men into a history of Craiglockhart and advancing insights into the causes and treatments for shell shock ... An absorbing, well-researched addition to the expansive canon of World War I literature.
Charles Glass
Positive Publishers Weekly Thoroughly researched and lucidly written, this is an immersive look at the healing power of art and a forceful indictment of the inhumanity of war.
Djuna, trans. Anton Hur
Rave Publishers Weekly A tremendously propulsive thrill ride ... Hur’s translation is zippy and often quite funny as the cinematic plot unfolds, packing in both twisty cyberespionage and deep questions about legacies, AI, and the price worth paying to do something truly great.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Positive Kirkus \"Moreno-Garcia’s quick pacing and thoroughly developed characters are aided by the author’s seamless blending of invented filmographies with references to actually existing niche titles...and era-appropriate moviemaking techniques...Details regarding the dark arts and occultism are equally immersive ... Moreno-Garcia’s clever blurring of these lines makes for fantastic reading. An engaging, inventive story of moviemaking and the occult for film geeks and genre buffs.\
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Rave Publishers Weekly Combining real history with unsettling magic, Moreno-Garcia effortlessly ties explorations of misogyny, addiction, antisemitism, and racism into a plot that never falters from its breakneck pace. The narrative shifts effortlessly between fantasy, horror, and romance, helmed by a well-shaded cast. The complex female characters are particular standouts. This is a knockout.
William J. Mann
Positive Kirkus A cleareyed, sympathetic dual biography ... A star-studded, well-researched portrait of two superstars.
Molly Dektar
Mixed Kirkus The book lives inside Nora’s perceptions, which after a while become as redundant as the sex itself. Perfect for those who like a soupçon of Wittgenstein and a dollop of Meister Eckhart with their sadomasochism.
Karen Pinchin
Rave Kirkus An engaging and fascinating tale of a natural struggle that will help determine the future of the oceans.
Karen Pinchin
Mixed Publishers Weekly A competent examination ... Though the surfeit of detail on Anderson’s life distracts, Pinchin provides a solid analysis of the far-reaching consequences of human action on marine life, noting, for instance, that excessive fishing of tuna can lead to the overpopulation of the crab and shrimp they prey on. This is at its best when it’s focused on the fish.
Khaled Khalifa, trans. by Leri Price
Positive Publishers Weekly A lyrical if laborious story ... Though the ambitious narrative doesn’t always cohere, it’s carried along by Khalifa’s ornate writing, often in the style of Middle Eastern classical poetry and lucidly translated by Price, and by such recurring themes as the supremacy of love over sensual pleasure, power, and religion. Though baggy, there’s beauty on each page.
Khaled Khalifa, trans. by Leri Price
Rave Kirkus Elegant ... A small epic that blends magic realism with grim realities, always memorably.
Cristina García
Positive Publishers Weekly Rich if uneven ... Garcia piles on a bit too much backstory in the first half, though the narrative becomes much more intriguing once the family members reunite. Though a slow burn, this will appeal to readers of Cuban diasporic stories.
Cristina García
Pan Kirkus The plotline isn’t much to speak of, and the prose isn’t quite as fresh as it might have been—there are all too many adverbs ... A subplot about a long-lost twin feels like a stretch. All in all, the book has a kind of matte, lackluster quality that is especially disappointing when compared to García’s earlier work. The del Pino family continues their machinations but without the same vibrancy.
Caleb Azumah Nelson
Rave Booklist \"Azumah Nelson captures the innocence of youth set against the pressure of a gentrifying neighborhood, complex family relationships, and the bridging of two worlds and cultures, Great Britain and Ghana. The result is a beautifully rich novel celebrating love and art and conducting an in-depth exploration of the joys and pains of Black youth.\
Caleb Azumah Nelson
Rave Publishers Weekly \"...astonishing ... Nelson’s assured writing captures the pulse of a dance party, the heat of a family’s bond, and the depth of spiritual fervor to conjure a story­ as infectious as a new favorite song.\
Kate Flannery
Positive Kirkus The author provides a disturbing look at the dangerous ways modern capitalism can debase, deform, and blind the individuals it exploits. A candid and provocative memoir.
Kate Flannery
Positive Publishers Weekly Bold ... Flannery succeeds in illustrating the fashion industry’s blurred lines in the decade prior to #MeToo, and the tough choices women faced between professional success and personal safety. This is an authentic portrait of the battle to remain true to oneself.
Samuel G. Freedman
Positive Kirkus A vigorous history ... A strong step in rehabilitating Humphrey’s image as a practical politician and civil rights activist.
Ann Beattie
Rave Booklist Beattie tracks aftershocks obvious and subtle following the deadly 2017 right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in six substantial, linked stories of exceptional subtlety and wit ... A virtuoso of decimating dialogue and provocative predicaments, Beattie is at her sharpest and most exhilarating in this nimble and surprising exploration of place, identity, and responsibility.
Ann Beattie
Positive Kirkus Sharply focused work from a master of the short fiction form.
Ann Beattie
Rave Publishers Weekly Smart and wry ... Measured prose and incisive humor make these stories shine. Once again, Beattie proves herself up to the task of pinpointing America’s contradictions.