Journalist Sherman (Blood in the Water) recounts the murder of Frank Lloyd Wright’s lover in this fascinating work of true crime. In 1909, Wright made headlines for running off to Europe with his neighbor’s wife, translator and feminist advocate Martha “Mamah” Borthwick Cheney. The couple were hounded by reporters abroad, so when they returned from Europe, Wright built the Taliesin compound in Wisconsin where they lived together happily. Then, in 1914, while Wright was in Chicago designing Midway Gardens, a handyman killed Mamah, her two children, and several of Wright’s staff before burning Taliesin down. Sherman lingers on the mystery of the act—the suspect swallowed acid and died in jail while awaiting trial, so historians remain unsure if he was criminally insane or carrying out a targeted attack—but pays greater attention to the ways that Mamah’s death haunted Wright, who considered her the love of his life. Though he remarried, Wright was buried next to Mamah at Taliesin in 1959. Sherman exhibits both a novelist’s sense of pace and a reporter’s eye for detail in this arresting true crime narrative of great passion and great tragedy. It’s a heartbreaker. Photos. Agent: Peter Steinberg, UTA. (May)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

The insecurities of Gen-Z girls have become increasingly commodified, particularly online, according to this troubling yet rocky debut treatise from India, author of the Girls newsletter. Partly drawing on her own experiences as a Gen-Z kid growing up online—“My worth was made public, measured in likes and followers”—India argues that, in addition to the “age-old anxieties” of adolescence, Gen Z encountered the added pressure of corporations, particularly tech companies, monetizing their struggles, rendering teen girls “both the consumers and the consumed” and leaving them alienated and detached as adults. Examples include dating apps that required girls to “become a better object” to get the most swipes, plastic surgery framed as “a path to... self-actualization,” and a TikTokker supporting Mental Health Awareness Month pausing to promote an ad for a skincare product that can “strip away the stigma of anxiety.” Yet the book is derailed by the author’s tendency to reach for well-trod conservative talking points, from pearl clutching over Miley Cyrus’s 2013 VMA performance (a sign of “how far things have gone”) to labeling gender dysphoria “a form of social contagion.” Her solutions to Gen Z’s crisis are equally unsatisfying, leaning toward individualism rather than demanding larger systemic change. It’s a disappointing attempt to grapple with the runaway exploitation endured by a generation. (May)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Executive producer Sancho (More Than You Can Handle) adapts his Emmy-winning History Network series for a brisk, earnest survey of anomalous and mysterious occurrences. Consulting with experts in physics, archaeology, video forensics, and more, Sancho debunks frauds or offers plausible scientific explanations for unusual phenomena; he also occasionally suggests he has come up against something that truly defies logic. UFO sightings and the Pentagon’s newly dedicated task force for investigating them, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, are the subject of the book’s standout segments, presenting tantalizingly inexplicable occurrences with an uncanny veneer of official legitimacy. Other topics like cryptids and ancient aliens retain their usual unlikeliness but get strikingly updated with fresh insights into the methods and thinking of their respective seekers. Readers will be fascinated to learn, for instance, that more mainstream zoologists and paleoanthropologists than ever are willing, albeit off the record, to dabble in the hunt for Bigfoot and other “relict hominids.” Elsewhere, Sancho gives a brief, evenhanded overview of Havana syndrome, the cognitive ailment first reported among U.S. diplomats, airing out both the possibility of a real “sonic weapon” and of the phenomenon being mass psychosis. (Not long after investigating the topic, Sancho himself reports experiencing something akin to the syndrome—a debilitating “hum”—for several weeks.) It’s a diverting must-read for those who want to believe. (May)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Music critic Maconie (The Nanny State Made Me) adds to the overflowing shelf of books on the Beatles with this earnest if stale ode to friends, promoters, supporters, industry connections, and odd characters in the Fab Four’s orbit. He profiles Astrid Kirchherr, the photographer who helped influence the Beatles’ style with her early monochrome portraits; drummer Pete Best, whose unceremonious 1962 firing “is the Kennedy assassination of the Beatles’ story,” according to the author; and lesser-known figures like Meta Davies, a traffic cop who supposedly gave Paul McCartney a parking ticket (though Maconie denies that she inspired “Lovely Rita,” which had already been recorded). Though the author wears his fandom proudly, he doesn’t gloss over less savory aspects of the Beatles’ history, including Lennon’s domestic violence allegations. Still, there’s little that’s revelatory, and the writing can feel like filler (see the entry for Sean O’Mahoney, the publisher of the magazine The Beatles Book, “an invaluable resource and more, a way for Beatles obsessives from Accra to Zagreb, Accrington to Zaragoza to share their passion and feel connected and nurtured by it”). This one’s strictly for Beatles completists. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Film historian Clements (Anime) provides a chatty, accessible overview of anime through 20 of its most influential films. He starts with the 1945 WWII propaganda film Momotarō—Sacred Sailors, Japan’s first full-length animated feature, and progresses from there to such landmarks as Katsuhiro Ōtomo’s “sprawling” 1988 hit Akira, Satoshi Kon’s critically acclaimed 1988 film Perfect Blue, and Miyazaki Hayao’s Spirited Away, which won the second Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film in 2003. Clements intersperses the history of anime with colorful tidbits about the scene and its players: Gainax director Hiroyuki Yamaga trained to helm his first feature by watching The Bad News Bears 10 times; Mobile Suit Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino is described as having “the simmering anger of a creative genius who was famous for a thing about space robots.” Clemens makes no secret of his preferences and as a result the list skews toward the films of his generation, with an emphasis on shonen (anime geared toward adolescent boys) science fiction and action anime. Though the 1970s–1990s picks could be more varied, the edgy anime of the “Akira generation” contrast dramatically with sentimental, Ghibli-influenced films of the 2000s. It’s a solid introduction to the genre with enough depth to teach even devoted fans a thing or two. (May)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Science journalist Preston debuts with an engrossing and accessible account of the evolution of caretaking, in which she demonstrates that the need for humans and animals to raise their young led to the creation of social structures. Humans are not the only caretakers, explains Preston, who shows how creatures from bromeliad crabs and clownfish to elephants and killer whales nurture and protect their young. Moms, dads, or both parents together may serve as primary caretakers, or an entire community may pitch in to lend a hand. Eusocial creatures, such as ants, honeybees, and naked mole rats, live in multigenerational communal groups in which adults who aren’t parents themselves help care for offspring. Some species go to extraordinary lengths to make sure their babies survive: black lace-weaver spiderlings, for example, eat their mothers shortly after hatching. Cuckoos invade the nests of other birds to eliminate the competition. In mammals, parenting changes the makeup of caretakers’ brains; according to scientists, such adaptations may have led to altruism, empathy, and an impetus to care for all. Preston stocks the account with astonishing examples of creatures caring for their offspring, proving herself an entertaining guide through the latest research on the subject. Readers will find this revelatory. (May)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Memoirist and former literary agent Bingley (Bertie, May and Mrs. Fish) finds profundity in the mundane in this lively collection of 26 autobiographical essays that employ a wide range of prose styles. “Down the Lane,” about Bingley’s late mother, opens with a breathless, paragraph-long sentence. By contrast, “No One Knows How Important I Am” utilizes staccato phrases and loose stream of consciousness to highlight Bingley’s fears, insecurities, and ambivalence about a lover (“My man isn’t cruel at work. Or maybe he is. I’m sure he isn’t. And anyway aren’t there laws to restrain cruelty in money manoeuvres”). The standout entry, “Princess Diana’s Funeral,” takes the fragmentation further: in it, Bingley recalls a series of conversations she overheard while waiting in line in various public places the evening before Diana’s funeral. The snippets of dialogue range from commonplace (“You still wanting to go to the toilet,” “Oh-oh this is my favourite song Jon Bon Jovi”) to bottled expressions of grief (“D’you really feel she’s gone”), and they come together to form an oddly moving mosaic of public mourning. With an evident love for language and the subtle textures of daily life, Bingley provides a dazzling trip inside her mind that rewards close attention. It’s a gem. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Travel blogger Rubiner (Fun with the Family in Iowa) became a dedicated diary keeper in 1977, at age 14, and has since filled 82 volumes with her musings and observations. In this illuminating account, she explores, among other things, why people feel the need to keep diaries, how these private writings are useful for historians, and how this practice has evolved in the digital age. Among the diarists referenced are such famous figures as Samuel Pepys, Queen Victoria, Virginia Woolf, Anne Frank, and Taylor Swift. But the author also spotlights diaries by lesser known figures that led to fresh historical insights when read in later eras, such as women whose experiences and opinions couldn’t be made public, as well as various explorers, naturalists, homesteaders, factory workers, prisoners of war, and others whose diaries exposed suppressed truths. Along the way, the author tracks how material changes to the diary’s form have altered people’s relationship to diary-keeping—during the 1800s, ready-made diaries sent the practice mainstream, feeding into a general rise in literacy; during the internet era, diaries suddenly had an audience, leading to a shift in how diaries were addressed and to the rising popularity, Rubiner perceptively notes, of a “confessional culture” and new types of “ego media” like memoirs and podcasts. While the prose is a bit workmanlike, this bursts with insights that entertain. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Palmer, cofounder and former vice president of the Amazon Labor Union, debuts with a conversational how-to for unionizing one’s workplace. In April 2022, the Staten Island Amazon fulfillment center where Palmer worked became the company’s first unionized facility in America. Palmer lays out how he and his compatriots did it, starting with the conditions that led to the union drive in the first place, including racism and dangerous working conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic. He covers the basics, including how to find a labor lawyer and how to set up a website and secure funds; describes what made the Amazon Labor Union specifically work so well (he chalks it up to their embrace of music, food, and culture); and describes some common setbacks and company counterattacks, such as grueling “captive audience meetings” where workers are required to listen to hours of antiunion arguments. Throughout, his guidance is as common sense as it is compassionate: “This may all be starting to feel overwhelming. You’re working a job and now suddenly I’m saying you need to go home and study state and federal law in your spare time? I know that can feel like a lot,” he writes. It’s a useful manual for those with a budding interest in unionizing. (May)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Poet and literature scholar Bennett (Spoken Word) offers a sprawling meditation on the history of African American child geniuses and prodigies. The author opens with recollections of his own upbringing by parents who saw him as a gifted child “destined for a path that would further the cause of our people’s freedom.” As he progressed through his studies, however, Bennett experienced the double-edged sword of such high expectations—“There was no middle ground: I was either an exemplar or a washout.” From there, the author employs a unique assortment of history, criticism, disability studies, and memoir to explore what it means to have potential as a Black child, delving into the early lives of such luminaries as James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Gwendolyn Brooks, as well as those of lesser-known figures like Thomas Fuller, an enslaved mathematical genius known as “The Virginia Calculator,” and Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins, a late-19th-century pianist who could precisely replay any musical performance he heard. While Bennett’s expansive analysis at times meanders, it abounds with insights, such as his perceptive deconstruction of the stereotype of the singular lone genius—the author carefully tracks how his subjects’ success came down to the care and education provided by teachers, families, churches, communities, and artistic forebears. It adds up to a profound rumination on what is needed to foster children’s promise. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink