McGregor’s unforgettable novel begins with a 13-year-old girl’s disappearance from an English village, and then tracks the village through the following years, as teenagers become adults, babies are born, people grow old and die, and couples get together and separate while what happened to the girl ... Continue reading »

Przybylo, associate professor of anesthesiology at Northwestern University School of Medicine, weaves an enjoyable narrative out of personal anecdotes from the wealth of experience he has gained over more than 30 years in a field that’s “ubiquitous but largely invisible.” He displays an ever-fresh w... Continue reading »

Using only slight variations of the “meow” of the title as dialogue, Ying (Lost and Found, What’s That Sound?) follows an anthropomorphic gray kitten around his house as he looks for someone to play with. “Meow?” says the kitten imploringly to his parents and older sister, holding out a yel... Continue reading »

This detailed study of changes in leadership in the major communities of the Hasidic movement—Munkacs, Boyan and Kopyczynitz, Bobov, Satmar, and Chabad—is not aimed at the same general audience as sociology professor Heilman’s acclaimed other works (The Rebbe; Sliding to the Right)... Continue reading »

Schiele’s brief, controversial career is examined with bold insights in this graphic biography. Not only did Schiele have affairs with several women at once (many of whom were also his models), he also paid young girls to pose for erotic paintings, which earned him a stretch in prison. He emerged so... Continue reading »

Eleanor Oliphant is 30 years old and profoundly lonely, working in a dead-end job and stuck in an endless routine. At the start of the story, she seems to merely be socially awkward—she is overly blunt and truthful in a way people find off-putting, she doesn’t grasp social cues or pop culture refere... Continue reading »