
Clarice Lispector. New Directions, $15 (64p) ISBN 978-0-8112-2960-9
Readers will delight in this short collection of luminous, laugh-out-loud stories from the late Brazilian cult writer Lispector (The Chandelier). Each centers on the natural world, though in wildly different ways. In the title story, a meticulous woman apologizes and attempts to exculpate h... Continue reading »

William Kent Krueger. Atria, $28 (400p) ISBN 978-1-9821-2871-5
In Edgar winner Krueger’s outstanding 19th mystery featuring PI Cork O’Connor of Minnesota’s Tamarack County (after 2021’s Lightning Strike), Cork is tending the grill at his burger joint when he’s approached by a stranger who introduces himself as Louis Morriseau. Louis wants the PI to fin... Continue reading »

Rae Mariz. Stelliform, $14.99 trade paper (128p) ISBN 978-1-77768-234-7
Mariz (The Unidentified) takes readers deep beneath the ocean for a strange and beautiful cli-fi fantasy. When Ceph, a many-armed, many-brained scientist, has a run in with Iliokai, a deep-sea whale rider with her finger on the ocean’s pulse, Iliokai confirms her deepest fears: the above-wa... Continue reading »

Sam Ledel. Bold Strokes, $17.95 trade paper (240p) ISBN 978-1-63679-175-3
Ledel (Wildflower Words) reunites ex-lovers in this elegant and understated historical romance. When Harriet Browning and Ava Clark met in college 15 years before the start of the novel, lumber heiress Harriet was a coolly elegant N.Y.C. socialite and Ava a kindhearted country mouse who hel... Continue reading »

Noah Van Sciver. Abrams ComicArts, $29.99 (464p) ISBN 978-1-4197-4965-0
Van Sciver (One Dirty Tree) pulls off an ambitious feat: a nuanced graphic biography of Mormonism’s founder. In 1825, treasure hunter Joseph Smith (1805–1844) tells Emma Hale about his visions of an ancient record etched on gold plates. Against her family’s wishes, they marry and return to ... Continue reading »

Forough Farrokhzad, trans. from the Persian by Elizabeth Gray. New Directions, $16.95 trade paper (128p) ISBN 978-0-8112-3165-7
This excellent assemblage of the late Farrokhzad’s selected work brings the yearning and sensual lyricism of the modernist Iranian poet to a contemporary audience. Gray’s introduction provides useful context on Farrokhzad’s tragically short life, while her curation captures much of the arc and scope... Continue reading »

Sandra Byrd. Tyndale House, $25.99 (480p) ISBN 978-1-4964-2687-1
Four women discover that family comes in many forms in this gorgeous saga from Byrd (Lady of a Thousand Treasures). In 1958, Helen Devries, the widow of a Navy lieutenant, receives an unexpected call from Choi Eunhee, who says her recently deceased husband had been good friends with Helen’s... Continue reading »

Peter Orner. Catapult, $26 (320p) ISBN 978-1-64622-136-3
Pushcart Prize–winning fiction writer Orner (Maggie Brown & Others) brings his lyrical, mosaic style to the story of his own life in this gorgeous and contemplative memoir. Blending photographs, family lore, speculation, and literary musings, Orner’s nonlinear narrative weaves through ellip... Continue reading »

Sunshine Cobb. Quarry, $24.99 trade paper (176p) ISBN 978-0-7603-7476-4
Ceramicist Cobb (Mastering Hand Building) marries form and function in her masterful debut, a look at “the mysterious and magical world of clay.” She begins with an overview of best practices for posture and breathing at the wheel, as well as stretches to warm up one’s hands for working cla... Continue reading »

Caleb Wilde. Broadleaf, $26.99 (242p) ISBN 978-1-5064-7161-7
In this profound treatise, sixth-generation funeral director Wilde (Confessions of a Funeral Director) reflects on death and the hereafter in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Wilde outlines a “progressive view of the afterlife” that sees death as a “liminal” space in which the deceased live ... Continue reading »

Pauline David-Sax, illus. by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow. Doubleday, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-593-37882-3
Instead of heading out to recess, where “everyone’s found their group,” young Nicky, who reads as Black, prefers shelving books at the school library, where “everything has its place.” When she learns that the library will be closed for a week and she’ll have to join recess during that time, “my sto... Continue reading »

