Journalist Gilliland’s enthralling debut recaps the decades-long battle by a group of Argentinian grandmothers, the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, to locate their grandchildren who were kidnapped by the junta in the 1970s. The “desaparecidos,” or “the disappeared,” were alleged “subversives”—mostly members of leftist groups—who were abducted, tortured, and killed by the military dictatorship’s forces. Horrifyingly, those who were pregnant were allowed to wait to give birth before their executions so that junta members could clandestinely adopt the babies. Gilliland centers the story of one Abuela, Rosa Tarlovsky de Roisinblit, and her tireless search for her grandchild. Through Rosa, Gilliland follows the Abuelas as they employ every method at their disposal to find their grandchildren, from protesting at the risk of death to recruiting an American geneticist to develop testing to prove grandparental lineage, a scientific breakthrough that made them “pioneers of genetic genealogy.” While the Abuelas succeeded in locating more than 130 grandchildren to great public fanfare, the book delves into how these discoveries led to further complications, including fierce custody battles and adult children’s struggles with the revelation their parents were actually their kidnappers. Noting that several potential grandchildren resisted genetic testing, Gilliland also poses larger questions about identity (“Is it the sole property of an individual—or does their family and their society also have a right to truth?”). Written with the nail-biting verve of a thriller, this spotlights relentless perseverance in the face of unthinkable brutality. (July)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Educator and ultramarathoner Triolo’s poignant if meandering debut explores circumambulation, the ancient practice of walking in circles around a fixed point, like a mountain. Triolo strives to understand not just the practice’s origins and meaning but also his own interiority after having collapsed and felt like “something cracked open” during a 100-mile race. He circumambulates Mount Kailash in Tibet (a sacred site for many religions), Mount Tamalpais in California (beloved by Beat poets), and the toxic Berkeley Pit Complex in Montana. Along the way, he considers everything from imperialism to surveillance, climate change to his mother’s breast cancer diagnosis. Citing several millennia-worth of thinkers who have considered the spiritual significance of the circle, Triolo connects circumambulation to attempts to push back against a consumerist, achievement-driven lifestyle as he learns how to “hold the center together with the pressing of your dumb feet.” At the center of the circle is some form of God, according to cultures that engage in the practice, though it is “dethroning the Self” that is the aim of circumambulation. As such, readers are left without much sense of the author who has taken them on this journey, although that’s partially the point, as the narrative touches on various ideas about self-abnegation. It’s a sometimes too circuitous search for meaning that nonetheless offers some powerful insights. (July)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this by turns amusing and tedious compendium, historian Chrystal (World-Changing Women) bombards readers with outlandish and surreal things written by ancient Greeks and Romans. He arranges them into chapters whose subheadings seem to promise more detailed ruminations on specific practices or experiences (from voyeurism to being left-handed), but the tidbits are so bereft of context they will frustrate anyone seeking a larger explanation for why Strabo wrote that the Irish are cannibals, whether the story of Publius’s decapitated head delivering an oracle was viewed as historically accurate, or how common female infanticide by exposure to the elements really was. Still, Chrystal maintains a jocular tone (“Eat your heart out John Hurt,” he proclaims after describing a pestilence that led to snakes bursting out of those infected) and the individual items range from amusing (such as a naturalist’s report that a beaver would self-castrate when being hunted for its medicinally valuable testicles like a robber who “sacrifices all that he is carrying to save his life”) to horrifying (such as instructions found alongside an ancient Roman voodoo doll advising practitioners of magical spells for fidelity to back them up with abusive deprivation of food and sleep). While entertaining to dip in and out of, this catalog of curiosities doesn’t add up to more than the sum of its parts. (May)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Science writer Black (When the Earth Was Green) doles out fresh trivia on dinosaurs in this entrancing primer. She explains that such species as the Supersaurus were able to grow to over 100 feet long because air sacs in their bones enabled them to reduce their weight-to-size ratio. Surveying the creative methods paleontologists use to piece together extinct animals’ lives, Black describes how researchers determined that one T. rex was still growing at 18 years old and about to lay eggs by examining growth rings and the buildup of calcium-rich tissue in its bones; this indicated that T. rex could reproduce long before it reached full size. Black also studies evidence for social behavior in dinosaurs, contending that contrary to Jurassic Park’s depiction of velociraptor packs coordinating hunts, fossil evidence indicates prehistoric predators likely approached “food sources under uneasy truces that could easily lead to cannibalism as each dinosaur vied for a portion.” Elsewhere, she explores what dinosaurs ate, what they used their horns for, and how the discovery that some had feathers transformed scientific understanding of their behavior. The author has a knack for singling out the most surprising and engrossing findings of modern paleontology, bringing the ancient reptiles back to vivid life. The result is an excellent overview of the ever-evolving science on dinosaurs. Photos. (June)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Product designer Scherling (Digital Transformation in Design) delivers a jumbled overview of the current state of cybersecurity. Pushing back against the notion that hackers are antisocial “maniacal geniuses,” Scherling cites studies that found they aren’t necessarily tech-savvy, with many sourcing malicious code from digital black markets for as little as $50. She surveys major hacks from the past decade, describing how a 2017 Equifax breach exposed the Social Security numbers of over 150 million people and how a software engineer extracted data on 100 million people from Capital One in 2019. However, Scherling draws from these incidents only the superficial observation that businesses and individuals should “become more cyber aware and resilient.” This lack of perspective gives the volume a listless feel, as when she extols Denmark and South Korea for their data privacy policies and online security infrastructure, but provides few details on how they work or what other countries might learn from them. While tangents on “ethical hackers” who work with businesses to identify security vulnerabilities and online scam centers in the global south that operate like sweatshops are stimulating enough, Scherling fails to integrate them into a coherent argument. Lacking a clear point or perspective, this doesn’t make much of an impact. (July)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this bracing report, journalist Grunwald (The Swamp) explores the challenges of developing a more sustainable agricultural system through an extended profile of Tim Searchinger, a hard-charging environmental lawyer whose skepticism of claims about ethanol’s viability as a fossil fuel alternative inspired him to take on a second line of work as an agriculture researcher at Princeton University. Grunwald details how in the late aughts, Searchinger’s research on how a congressional mandate for plant-based fuels exacerbated deforestation (producers razed land to grow corn that could be transformed into ethanol) helped turn the tide against them in environmental circles. Instead, Searchinger argues that humans should avoid the creation of new farmland by making existing tracts more productive. Surveying ongoing controversies over how to do so, Grunwald explains that while some believe replacing beef with plant-based meat would reduce methane emissions, the foods are ultraprocessed and unhealthy, and that while some decry GMOs as unnatural, Searchinger believes they hold promise for boosting harvests. In capturing Searchinger’s “pain-in-the-ass tenacity” and iconoclastic spirit, Grunwald offers a myth-busting overview of current debates around how to improve the world’s agricultural systems. This provides much food for thought. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (July)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Journalist and spy novelist Stock follows up No Place to Hide with a harrowing deep dive into the lurid life and crimes of British psychiatrist William Sargant (1907–1988). After WWII, Sargant rose to prominence as a so-called expert on mental illness, advocating for lobotomies, electroshock therapies, and narcosis as standard treatments for even mild ailments. Drawing on medical records and first-person accounts from Sargant’s mostly female patients, Stock paints a chilling portrait of Ward 5 at London’s Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women, where Sargant, who authored several popular books on mental illness, treated even minor cases of depression with drug-induced comas between 1948 and his retirement in 1972. As Stock catalogs Sargant’s malpractices, he also pieces together a biography of the man himself, who suffered from nervous breakdowns and addictions to pornography and drugs. Most intriguingly, Stock covers Sargant’s work developing truth serums and brainwashing compounds for the British armed forces during WWII, positing that some of his patients may have been guinea pigs for military intelligence. With the thoroughness of top-notch journalism and the controlled tone of the best espionage fiction, Stock serves up one chilling anecdote after another. The result is an unforgettable glimpse into the heart of darkness. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit. (July)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Former America’s Next Top Model contestant Hartshorne debuts with a gossipy exposé of her 2007 stint on the reality show’s ninth season. After showing up to set, she was blindsided by the harsh shooting conditions—she was unable to talk to her fellow contestants off-camera, forced to give up her phone and wallet, and rarely knew what time of day it was. Meanwhile, producers made her feel “like a whale,” jabbing at Hartshorne’s history of disordered eating by asking questions like, “Was it hard to be the only plus-size girl on set when all the other girls are so much thinner?” After being eliminated, Hartshorne was broke and rudderless. With the help of time and therapy, she decided to share her experiences online and in stand-up comedy. Though Hartshorne expresses gratitude for her time on the program more than once, she’s ambivalent about host Tyra Banks and the show’s cultlike atmosphere. Her revelations may not shock readers already familiar with the dark side of reality TV, but fans of America’s Next Top Model will appreciate this unvarnished peek behind the curtain. It’s equal parts upsetting and entertaining. Agent: Ayla Zuraw-Friedland, Frances Goldin Literary. (July)

Reviewed on 05/09/2025 | Details & Permalink

Through vivid renderings of once lush landscapes devastated by industry, and intimate profiles of those who fight to protect their land, climate organizer and cartoonist Nalamalapu’s bracing debut centers the thriving spirit of environmental activism. When backers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline proposed a destructive route through Appalachia, Nalamalapu joined what would become a decade-long fight. Here, they dedicate a chapter each to six advocates they met through this work. Photographer Paula Mann walked the pipeline’s proposed route, taking pictures of the land that would later inspire the Forest Service to “change their plans” given “what was at stake.” Researcher and nurse Karolyn Givens wrote reports for Congress and “took my homemade brownies with me” to court. Science teacher Becky Crabtree, who says “Appalachia is in my blood,” chained herself to her Ford Pinto to stop construction; single mom Crystal Mello joined Virginia’s famous Yellow Finch tree sit; and “seedkeeper” Desiree Shelley worked to connect herself and her children to their Indigenous homeland. Nalamalapu’s accessible portraits of everyday resistance capture the impact of what a single person can do in the face of corporate greed. Fans of eco-comics like Climate Changed will find hope in this energizing call to action. (May)

Reviewed on 05/02/2025 | Details & Permalink

Forgetful septuagenarian Loretta Plansky tries to solve a series of disappearances in the animated if disappointing sequel to Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge from Quinn (a pseudonym for Edgar winner Peter Abrahams). After Mrs. Plansky wins the New Sunshine/Old Sunshine Ancient Folks mixed doubles tennis championship in south Florida, she heads to the oceanside home of her tennis partner, Kev Dinardo, for a drink. Just after they arrive, Kev’s yacht bursts into flames. He attributes the explosion to a lightning strike, but Mrs. Plansky is skeptical; her alarm bells ring louder when Kev disappears a few days later. Police dismiss Mrs. Plansky’s concerns as paranoia, but then her estranged son, Jack, disappears as well, and she swings into action. Mrs. Plansky’s search for the missing men involves a treasure map, a kidnapping, a plane crash, and the impending wedding of her 98-year-old father. With all that sound and fury, Quinn fails to capture the effortless magic of the first installment, overstuffing the plot and hitting a few too melancholy notes in the process. Still, Mrs. Plansky remains a lovable heroine for the over-60 set. Series fans will hope the next installment is a return to form. (July)

Reviewed on 05/02/2025 | Details & Permalink