
Allison Pataki. Ballantine, $30 (416p) ISBN 978-0-593-60023-8
Pataki (The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post) takes readers on a trans-Atlantic journey in this winning fictional biography of Transcendentalist writer Margaret Fuller (1810–1850). In 1836, Ralph Waldo Emerson offers the 26-year-old scholar a job as editor of his magazine the DialContinue reading »

Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis. Penguin Press, $28 (304p) ISBN 978-0-593-48986-4
Former Marine Ackerman and retired Navy admiral Stavridis follow up 2034 with another top-shelf thriller about near-future geopolitical turmoil. The decade-long rule of American president Angel Castro, whose American Dream Party has weakened both the Democratic and Republican parties to the... Continue reading »

Bora Chung, trans. from the Korean by Anton Hur. Algonquin, $17.99 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-64375-621-9
Booker Prize–shortlisted Chung (Cursed Bunny) makes a dazzling return with these eight inventive tales. The collection opens with “The Center for Immortality Research,” which imagines bureaucracy, hierarchy, and capitalism continuing on for eternity. In “A Very Ordinary Marriage,” a man’s s... Continue reading »

Rebecca Serle. Atria, $27 (272p) ISBN 978-1-982166-82-3
Serle (One Italian Summer) complicates a woman’s lifelong search for love with a hint of the supernatural in this stirring romance. Daphne Bell receives a mysterious note every time she meets a new potential love interest. Each missive has only two things written on it: the name of the pers... Continue reading »

Yann Damezin, trans. from the French by Aqsa Ijaz and Thomas Harrison. Humanoids, $29.99 (176p) ISBN 978-1-64337-948-7
Through a vibrant visual tapestry, French cartoonist and Angouleme’s Prix Orange debut comics winner Damezin reimagines a centuries-old Persian love poem. Since childhood, Qays has adored Layla, a woman with a “face like the moon” and “teeth of sugar... tall as a cypress.” His love turns to obsessio... Continue reading »

Willie Lee Kinard. Alice James, $17.95 trade paper (100p) ISBN 978-1-949944-57-0
Kinard’s ambitious debut weaves disparate elements to create a textured consideration of queer Black identity in the deep South. Drawing on a diverse array of mythological figures from African and Western traditions as well as Black- and Southern-inflected Christian ritual, Kinard’s poems form an in... Continue reading »

Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee. Revell, $26.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-8007-4275-1
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 »

Julie Schwartz Gottman and John Gottman. Harmony, $30 (336p) ISBN 978-0-593-57965-7
Fighting is vital to healthy relationships, yet few couples know how to engage in it meaningfully, according to this persuasive and plainspoken guide. The Gottmans (The Love Prescription), psychologists and married cofounders of the Gottman Institute, an organization that studies marriage a... Continue reading »

John Oakes. Avid Reader, $30 (320p) ISBN 978-1-66801-741-8
This thought-provoking debut from OR Books cofounder Oakes weaves meditations on fasting into an account of his successful attempt to go a week without food. He reports undertaking the fast as a kind of “personal exorcism,” realizing by the end that “I eat out of habit” and “routine can be the enemy... Continue reading »

Helen Tworkov. St. Martin’s Essentials, $29 (336p) ISBN 978-1-250-32155-8
In this stimulating and elegant memoir, Tworkov (Zen in America), the founding editor of the nonsectarian Buddhist magazine Tricycle, chronicles the lifelong search for answers that drew her to Buddhism. Born to an artist father and a melancholic mother, Tworkov was pained as a you... Continue reading »

Cece Bell. Walker US, $19.99 (64p) ISBN 978-1-5362-2624-9
Newbery Honoree Bell creates an entire high-fidelity world with this clever, irresistibly prodigious abecedarian, which features album cover art and one song’s worth of liner-note lyrics from 26 invented animal recording artists. The creaturely crooners—soloists and groups alike—represent each lette... Continue reading »

