Maurer’s dazzling debut chronicles a boy’s coming-of-age in rural Michigan. Everett, born into a sheep farming clan in Sault Ste. Marie, plans to spend the rest of his life on his family’s land, which goes back generations. He’s 17 in 1995 when he meets Mary, the daughter of a Coast Guard officer, w... Continue reading »

Mariola’s fifth crime novel centered on Baxter Police Department captain Delia Mariola (after Johnny-Boy) is another winner. Baxter, a “crumbling rust belt city,” has been transformed by a new Nissan assembly plant and an accompanying shantytown, known as Boomtown, where the workers live. T... Continue reading »

Henry (the Scorched Earth series) shows off her impressive gift for worldbuilding in this striking dystopian novel set in the near future. Echo London loves working at Cleveland’s Lewis library. Then her branch is permanently closed and the powers that be appoint her as head librarian at the People’... Continue reading »

Like a rom-com twist on Scream, debut author Thompson’s unputdownable slasher-romance mash-up gets a meta edge from protagonist Jamie Prescott’s passion for both genres. Jamie, a grad student at work on a thesis about the similarities between horror films and rom-coms, attends a speed datin... Continue reading »

Outrageous queer socialite and boat racer Marion Barbara “Joe” Carstairs (1900–1993) roars to life in this fearless and seductive graphic biography from late Angouleme winner Hubert, creator of Darkly She Goes, and animator Augustin. “I came out of the womb queer,” proclaims Carstairs, who ... Continue reading »

This brilliant collection of previously unpublished poems from Berryman’s Dream Songs cycle is proof, as Shane McCrae writes in the introduction, that he “understood his epic to be complete, but he did not believe that its completeness could have only one form.” For McCrae, Henry—Berryman’s alter-eg... Continue reading »

In this tour de force from Brotherton (A Bright and Blinding Sun) and Lee (A Single Light), four friends’ lives change irrevocably when America becomes embroiled in WWII. In 1930s Mobile, Ala., preacher’s son Jimmy Propfield shares an idyllic upbringing with childhood sweetheart Cl... Continue reading »

This incisive, empathetic debut study from journalist Liu examines three decades of the internet’s evolution in China, from the mid-1990s explosion of microblogs and message boards that corresponded with the country’s increasing liberalization, to the mid-aughts raising of the Great Firewall. Liu co... Continue reading »

Reproductive endocrinologist Sekhon debuts with an accessible and reassuring manual for navigating fertility treatments. She begins by laying out the basics of the reproductive system—and the many ways it can go awry in women and men—and then dives into contemporary fertility treatments, explaining ... Continue reading »

These stimulating essays and interviews from the first 50 years of Sojourners magazine, collected by poetry editor Berger (Who Killed Donte Manning?), seek “sabbath rest, contemplation, solitude, simplicity, and communal resilience” in today’s world. Franciscan priest Richard Rohr ... Continue reading »

Boundary-defying astronomer and astrophysicist Cecilia Payne (1900–1979) stars in this even-handed picture book biography. Early scenes highlight how a childhood spent immersed in the outdoors gives Payne the opportunity to hone her observational skills and learn to “always trust what she knew w... Continue reading »