Mystery and true crime writer Dobbs (A Date with the Hangman) offers a delightful, comprehensive overview of the turbulent legacy of whiskey and whisky, starting with the scoop on that pesky e. (Only when made in Ireland and the U.S. does the name have an e.) After a pithy lesson in how the distillate is made, Dobbs dives into whiskey’s colorful folklore, which features a plethora of ghosts (among them a murderous cat), a legendary Scottish cannibal, and even the devil himself. Dobbs also tracks how whiskey’s troubled relationship with the taxman has led to major political and social shifts, starting in 17th-century Scotland and Ireland under English rule (where ingenious ways of avoiding the fiscal authorities included women hiding canteens under maternity clothes and bottles tucked inside dead fowl). Public resentment sometimes led to the tarring and feathering of officials, and occasionally to kidnapping and murder, while across the pond taxes on distilleries were among those that prompted the 1791 Whiskey Rebellion. Dobbs also traces the later upheavals that resulted from Prohibition, not least the rise of the American gangster. Along the way, he gives tasting lessons, provides surprising suggestions for mixers (coconut water and green tea), and makes a study of whiskey in music, film, and literature. It’s an entertaining and edifying look at the mayhem inspired by “the wonderful golden liquid.” (May)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Cartographer Hill (Detroit in 50 Maps) delivers a diverting compendium of 50 different views of the “vast inland freshwater seas” that span “1,200 kilometers” along the border between the U.S. and Canada. While filled with hometown pride—Hill has lived in cities throughout the region—he also points to the Great Lakes basin’s global economic and ecological significance. The area is “home to over one-tenth of the US population and one-quarter of the Canadian population,” hosts “some of the world’s largest concentrations of industrial capacity,” and the lakes and their large watershed support unique species and agricultural products like salmon, cherries, pumpkins, and maple syrup. The maps presented here range from the historical (sites of the underground railroad) to the ecological (bird migratory routes) to more standard but still illuminating cartographical fare (population density, roadways), all of which are layered over a fascinating palimpsest that Hill devises at the outset, compromising an outline of the Great Lakes watershed superimposed over another outline delineating the “Rustbelt megalopolis.” More offbeat offerings include maps of shipwrecks, startups, surf spots, reported sightings of sea monsters (sea serpents cluster around Quebec; Wisconsin seems to be the only region haunted by an octopus), and businesses with “Great Lakes” in their name (Michigan is rife with them). Readers will be able to while away the hours with this one. (June)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Slate staff writer Ismail debuts with a tender autobiography that covers his childhood in New Jersey and his complex relationship with religion. “When I was growing up, the very air in our home contained a hush reverence around the Quran,” Ismail writes. He attended elementary school in a mosque in Jersey City, and was raised among fellow practicing Muslims until he was a teenager. After 9/11, Ismail’s parents enrolled him in a public school, launching a “tug-of-war” within him “between tradition and self-discovery.” Never content to rebel but interested in peeking beyond the strictures of his religious upbringing, he started working in journalism in New York City, first on the photo and video team at an art magazine and then as a political writer for Slate, covering high-profile cases including the murder of George Floyd by police and the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Eventually, the book zeroes in on Ismail’s relationship with the open-minded Mira, who prompted him to unpack his ideas about family and religion as the pair married and had children. Lucid and openhearted, this inquiry into what makes a good life will resonate with readers of all faiths. Photos. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Historian Houston (Empire of the Sum) chronicles the rise of the emoji in this fun romp through the evolution of digital language. He begins the account in Japan, where teenagers’ widespread use of pagers in the late 1980s led to the coded use of number combinations (888 meant laughter, for example, because the number 8 in Japan can be pronounced “ha”). In the 1990s, engineer Shigetaka Kurita created 176 digital icons to express “complex ideas like love in a single character.” These were quickly popularized and named emoji, a portmanteau of the Japanese words for “picture” and “written character.” In 2011, Apple became the first major Western company to fully embrace the phenomenon by introducing emoji to the iPhone keyboard, building on the groundwork laid by Google when they expanded into Asia. From there, “emoji went global.” Houston skillfully covers the ups and downs of the evolution of emoji, including controversies surrounding their depiction of race and gender, and concludes that the current era is the heyday of emoji, which are currently “diverse enough to be useful but small enough to fit into the average human brain.” With a casual approach that suits the content, this is equal parts informative and delightful. (July)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Golf.com writer Bamberger (This Golfing Life) shares in this discursive and eccentric account what happened when he set out to “play golf with more focus and more purpose” and seek “the wonder of golf, wherever it might be.” In 2024, Bamberger participated in multiple tournaments, both as an amateur player and as a caddie. The Florida’s Natural Charity Classic, for instance, with its “Double-A baseball” vibe, reminded Bamberger of a past era when most players “didn’t have equipment deals or traveling caddies or creased new tour clothes.” He also describes finding meaning at California’s “recess-gone-wild” Pebble Beach pro-am tournament, where he caddied for Fred Perpall, president of the United States Golf Association. “I felt like I was in my mid-twenties again, caddying for George Archer, Bill Britton, Tony Cerdá, Mike Donald, Steve Elkington, Brad Faxon, Al Geiberger, Jamie Howell—I could go on,” notes Bamberger, who cadied at pro-ams in high school and college. The author manages to cleverly convey some of the appeal of the sport, describing, for instance, how golfing “promotes a tingly anxiety.” But not everything advances his goals—Bamberger’s rambling approach to his narrative, which he at times concedes is overly technical, can be a bit much. It’s a mixed bag. Agent: Kristine Dahl, CAA. (June)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Sports journalist Brennan (Inside Edge) focuses on Caitlin Clark’s time on the hardwood in this top-notch biography of the WNBA player. Brennan begins by putting Clark in historical context: born in 2002, she benefited from Title IX, which barred discrimination on the basis of sex. She “couldn’t get enough of” basketball at an early age, and her talent as a high school player in Iowa led to her being scouted by colleges including Notre Dame and Northwestern. During Clark’s four years at the University of Iowa, beginning in 2020, she broke the Division I scoring record and became a household name. From there, Brennan details Clark’s rookie year in the WNBA in 2024; after a slow start, in which every miscue was scrutinized, she set multiple records, including becoming “the fastest player in league history to reach 100 three-pointers in a season.” Her rookie season wasn’t devoid of controversy, however; some players took issue with Clark’s silence on social issues including racism. Brennan more than justifies her assessment of Clark as a “groundbreaking, historic, immensely popular, but also at times controversial cultural figure” who is “dramatically altering one of the last great bastions of male superiority.” It adds up to a triumphant account of a game-changer. (July)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Historian Rediker (The Slave Ship) zooms in on an all-but-unknown leg of the underground railroad in this revelatory and propulsive account. Slavery peaked, Rediker notes, during “the golden age of American maritime trade,” when “every trade route was a potential route for a runaway.” Digging through firsthand narratives by escapees and records from abolitionist organizations, he finds that escapes by sea were far more prevalent than previously realized. Several famous figures made maritime escapes, and their stories are narrated here with cinematic flair, among them the writers Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, both of whom dressed up as sailors to pass as seamen on escapee-friendly vessels. However, Rediker digs further, seeking to understand whom these vessels were piloted by. He finds evidence of organized resistance to slavery among the era’s sailors, pointing to a range of confluences including how Black radical David Walker’s pamphlets (which called for a Haitian-style revolution) were abundantly smuggled into the South by Black and white sailors; the arrest of white sea captain Jonathan Walker for smuggling runaways; and accounts like the one of an escaped 14-year-old girl who, when asked by abolitionists in the North how she escaped, reported simply being asked in passing by a white sailor if she’d like to hop aboard. This is a radical reimagining of the antebellum period that enthrallingly depicts resistance to slavery as widespread, unwavering, and multiracial. (May)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Comedian Kaplan (The Encyclopedia of Epic Myths and Legends) wryly and informatively catalogs superstitious beliefs across history, spotlighting the many that are still prevalent in the modern world. According to Kaplan, “superstitions are more deeply enmeshed in contemporary life than you might think.” He notes that certain common practices are actually superstitious at their core, from traditions like throwing a bouquet at a wedding to everyday etiquette like how to speak to a baby (in much of Asia and Eastern Europe, one should never call a baby “cute,” as it might provoke the evil eye). Arguing that the contemporary conception of “superstition” as based on “ignorance, fear.... or a false conception of causation” is “a little judgmental,” he looks instead for the logic behind superstitious beliefs, ranging from the origins of the taboo against opening an umbrella indoors (likely handed down by the ancient Egyptians, who used umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun and had reasonable concerns about doing things that might offend the sun god) to the explanation for the nearly universal belief (documented in Asia, Native America, and early modern Europe) that pointing at a rainbow will bring bad luck (probably just an easy way to teach kids the good manners of not pointing at things). Written in an appealingly chatty style, this packs an impressive amount of research into an entertaining package. (July)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Howard University English professor Williams (In the Light of Likeness—Transformed) spotlights Toni Morrison’s efforts to shepherd Black literature into the mainstream in this enthralling chronicle of her tenure as an editor at Random House in the 1960s and ’70s. Drawing on Morrison’s correspondence, Williams assembles rousing stories of her editorial projects that coalesce into a rich portrait of her interests and politics. Her first project at the imprint, a 1972 anthology of African literature, laid the groundwork for her “editorial aesthetic.” She also worked on To Die for the People by Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton and The Case for Black Reparations by legal scholar Boris Bittker; championed poets Barbara Chase-Riboud, Lucille Clifton, and June Jordan; and went to bat for transgressive writers like Wesley Brown, Leon Forrest, and John McCluskey. Williams reveals Morrison to be an editor whose instincts went beyond the recognition of great writing; she shows Morrison as a decisive voice in how the books she edited should be marketed, and steadfast in her belief that Black writing should be taken seriously. The result is a triumphant account of an underexplored aspect of Morrison’s influence on American literature. (June)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Film critic Levy (King of Comedy) argues in this sharp biography that Clint Eastwood is “an inkblot in whom we see a variety of opposing ideas at once.” Eastwood was born in San Francisco in 1930, and after performing in a school play as an eighth grader, he told his drama teacher that, despite her praise, “I don’t want to do that again, ever in my life.” That changed after his military service ended in 1953, thanks to fellow soldiers who urged him to take “a shot at Hollywood.” Taking a wide angle, Levy covers Eastwood’s rise to stardom starting with some lucky breaks; his forays into politics, including his bizarre speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention, where he addressed an empty chair as if Barack Obama were in it; his complex personal relationships; and how sexual assault functions as a “personal obsession” in his films. Levy has a knack for memorable phrasing, describing 1997’s Absolute Power, for example, as “a B-movie story requiring significant momentum so as to keep the audience from falling into the holes in the plot.” It makes for a solid account of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the life of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (July)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink