Macunaíma: The Hero with No CharacterMário de Andrade, trans. from the Portuguese by Katrina Dodson. New Directions, $17.95 trade paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-8112-2702-5
Dodson, a PEN Award–winning translator of Clarice Lispector, breathes new life into this spirited modernist classic from Brazillian writer de Andrade (1893–1945), whose other translated works include Hallucinated City. A frequent refrain—“Ants aplenty and nobody’s healthy, so go the ills of... Continue reading »
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for MurderersJesse Q. Sutanto. Berkley, $17 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-0-593-54922-3
At the start of this stellar mystery from Sutanto (Dial A for Aunties), 60-year-old, strong-willed widow Vera Wong discovers a body with a flash drive in its hand in her tea shop in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Vera contacts the police, but confident she can do a better job at pinpointing the... Continue reading »
The Salt Grows HeavyCassandra Khaw. Nightfire, $21.99 (112p) ISBN 978-1-250-83091-3
In this twisting and pitch-black horror tale from Khaw (Nothing but Blackened Teeth), a voiceless mermaid plucked from the ocean ventures into a snowy forest alongside a melancholy plague doctor. These unlikely traveling companions soon encounter a village of mutilated children and uncover ... Continue reading »
A Problem PrincessAnna Harrington. Sourcebooks Casablanca, $8.99 mass market (456p) ISBN 978-1-72824-299-6
Harrington’s un-put-downable sixth Lords of the Armory Regency romance (after A Remarkable Rogue) kicks off with Princess Cordelia of Monrovia traveling to London to seek a political marriage to a British duke. When a mysterious assailant holds a knife to Cordelia’s throat, she is saved by ... Continue reading »
Blood of the VirginSammy Harkham. Pantheon, $30 (296p) ISBN 978-0-593-31669-6
L.A. Times Book Prize winner Harkham (Crickets) delivers an ambitious panoramic period piece set in the early-1970s Hollywood exploitation film milieu. Seymour, a 20-something Iraqi Jewish immigrant, works as an editor for Reverie, a production company specializing in cheap grindho... Continue reading »
Chrome ValleyMahogany L. Browne. Liveright, $26.95 (160p) ISBN 978-1-324-09227-8
Browne’s moving latest (after I Remember Death by Its Proximity to What I Love) commemorates the struggles of Black women, drawing on episodes from her life and stories from family members. While these poems vividly relay the threat of violence (“the gun answers the door before/ anyone ever... Continue reading »
The Sisters of Sea ViewJulie Klassen. Bethany House, $17.99 trade paper (448p) ISBN 978-0-7642-3426-2
Jane Austen fans will delight in this nimble series launch from Klassen (Shadows of Swanford Abbey). In 1819, the four Summers sisters face reduced circumstances after their father’s untimely death, and they move into a seaside home in Sidmouth, England. Their mother is ill and the family i... Continue reading »
Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon ValleyAngel Au-Yeung and David Jeans. Holt, $32 (384p) ISBN 978-1-250-82909-2
Journalists Au-Yeung and Jeans debut with a nuanced, sympathetic biography of Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, tracing his life from Silicon Valley wunderkind through his spiraling addiction and death in 2020. Hsieh was raised in Northern California by Taiwanese immigrant parents, and from an early age he... Continue reading »
Motherland: A Jamaican CookbookMelissa Thompson. Interlink, $35 (288p) ISBN 978-1-62371-801-5
Food writer Thompson celebrates her Jamaican heritage in her stellar debut. Inspired by her dad’s tales of growing up in Jamaica, England-born Thompson found herself transported through food to a country she had never visited and here offers a rich and deeply satisfying collection of recipes, some o... Continue reading »
Oral Roberts and the Rise of the Prosperity Gospel Jonathan Root. Eerdmans, $26 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-0-80-287727-7
Root, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Missouri, debuts with a fascinating biography of pioneering televangelist Oral Roberts. Roberts, one of the 20th century’s most recognizable evangelical figures, left behind a legacy build on three pillars, each of which Root shrewdly analyzes. First,... Continue reading »
My Baba’s GardenJordan Scott, illus. by Sydney Smith. Holiday House/Porter, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8234-5083-1
In this picture book by the creators of I Talk Like a River, first-person lines from a child speaker describe a grandmother who “lives in a chicken coop beside a highway,” where the child is dropped off every morning before school. Scott’s gentle narration reveals that “my Baba didn’t have... Continue reading »
PREVIOUS GENRE
