Louise Erdrich. Knopf, $32 (384p) ISBN 978-0-06-327705-2
Pulitzer winner Erdrich (The Night Watchman) follows the folks of the Red River Valley of North Dakota—the original home to the Ojibwe, the Dakota, and the Metis—in a captivating tale of love and everyday life amid environmental upheaval and the 2008 financial crisis. Crystal hauls sugar be... Continue reading »
Richard Osman. Viking, $30 (400p) ISBN 978-0-593-65322-7
Bestseller Osman (the Thursday Murder Club mysteries) launches a promising new series with this sprightly tale of a father- and daughter-in-law who join forces to take down a shadowy killer. At the outset, bodyguard Amy Wheeler is on an island off the coast of South Carolina shielding bestselling no... Continue reading »
Sofia Ajram. Titan, $19.99 (144p) ISBN 978-1-80336-962-4
Taking the form of a disturbing, high-stakes choose-your-own-adventure novel, Arjam’s captivating debut explores loneliness and desolation. Vicken intends to ride the Montreal subway to the end of the line, where, at the Saint Lawrence River, he plans to die by drowning. When he arrives at his stop,... Continue reading »
Chad Beguelin. Penguin Books, $19 (336p) ISBN 978-0-14-313839-6
Playwright Beguelin’s sparkling debut novel sees Broadway musical writer Noah Adams returning home to rural Plainview, Ill., after his father suffers a heart attack. Noah is suffering, too; Stage of Fools, his adaptation of King Lear, has “joined the list of tragic musicals that op... Continue reading »
Jock. Dstlry, $30 (166p) ISBN 978-1-962265-00-3
A thirteen-year-old scavenges for food among the ruins of a dying city on a distant planet, trying to keep herself and her pregnant mother alive, in this transcendent graphic novel from cartoonist Jock (the Batman series). When a planned heist on the fleet’s flagship spaceship goes awry thanks to sa... Continue reading »
Sophie Cabot Black. Copper Canyon, $17 trade paper (72p) ISBN 978-1-55659-692-6
Cabot Black’s stunning, fable-like fourth collection (after The Exchange) urges readers, “do not expect the known; you were not there.” This unusual and poignant volume is equal parts gothic and pastoral, full of incisively written imagery characterized by sparse stanzas that allow each lin... 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 »
Jessica Valenti. Crown, $25 (256p) ISBN 978-0-593-80023-2
Valenti (Sex Objects) draws on her post-Roe-era newsletter Abortion, Every Day—where she has been “tracking every ban, court case, and anti-abortion strategy” in the U.S.—to create this clarifying and incandescent affirmation of not only the importance of abortion rights b... Continue reading »
John Kanell. Simon Element, $35 (336p) ISBN 978-1-66802-682-3
Bestseller Kanell follows up Preppy Kitchen with an impressive and memorable collection of flavor-packed recipes made with minimal fuss. Plenty of sweet and savory options—including skillet steaks with garlic-herb butter, balsamic-roasted zucchini and chickpeas with soft cheese, and piña co... Continue reading »
Bruce Gordon. Basic, $35 (528p) ISBN 978-1-54161-973-9
Yale Divinity School history professor Gordon (Calvin) delivers an ambitious study of how a collection of prophecies, poems, and letters became a sacred text that has shaped cultures. Styling the Bible as a migrant, he describes how diverse writings—the rabbinic Bible, the four Gospels, Act... Continue reading »
Ulrich Hub, illus. by Jörg Mühle. Gecko, $18.99 (88p) ISBN 978-1-7765-7-5954
One “dreary winter night around 4 BCE,” strangers travel to bring gifts to a baby born in a manger. Among these travelers are shepherds sans sheep, whose flocks’ sleep is disturbed by the appearance of a new star “shining bright as the dawn.” Afraid they’ve been abandoned—or that the shepherds have ... Continue reading »