Mystery and true crime writer Dobbs (A Date with the Hangman) offers a delightful, comprehensive overview of the turbulent legacy of whiskey and whisky, starting with the scoop on that pesky e. (Only when made in Ireland and the U.S. does the name have an e.) After a pithy lesson in how the distillate is made, Dobbs dives into whiskey’s colorful folklore, which features a plethora of ghosts (among them a murderous cat), a legendary Scottish cannibal, and even the devil himself. Dobbs also tracks how whiskey’s troubled relationship with the taxman has led to major political and social shifts, starting in 17th-century Scotland and Ireland under English rule (where ingenious ways of avoiding the fiscal authorities included women hiding canteens under maternity clothes and bottles tucked inside dead fowl). Public resentment sometimes led to the tarring and feathering of officials, and occasionally to kidnapping and murder, while across the pond taxes on distilleries were among those that prompted the 1791 Whiskey Rebellion. Dobbs also traces the later upheavals that resulted from Prohibition, not least the rise of the American gangster. Along the way, he gives tasting lessons, provides surprising suggestions for mixers (coconut water and green tea), and makes a study of whiskey in music, film, and literature. It’s an entertaining and edifying look at the mayhem inspired by “the wonderful golden liquid.” (May)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Cartographer Hill (Detroit in 50 Maps) delivers a diverting compendium of 50 different views of the “vast inland freshwater seas” that span “1,200 kilometers” along the border between the U.S. and Canada. While filled with hometown pride—Hill has lived in cities throughout the region—he also points to the Great Lakes basin’s global economic and ecological significance. The area is “home to over one-tenth of the US population and one-quarter of the Canadian population,” hosts “some of the world’s largest concentrations of industrial capacity,” and the lakes and their large watershed support unique species and agricultural products like salmon, cherries, pumpkins, and maple syrup. The maps presented here range from the historical (sites of the underground railroad) to the ecological (bird migratory routes) to more standard but still illuminating cartographical fare (population density, roadways), all of which are layered over a fascinating palimpsest that Hill devises at the outset, compromising an outline of the Great Lakes watershed superimposed over another outline delineating the “Rustbelt megalopolis.” More offbeat offerings include maps of shipwrecks, startups, surf spots, reported sightings of sea monsters (sea serpents cluster around Quebec; Wisconsin seems to be the only region haunted by an octopus), and businesses with “Great Lakes” in their name (Michigan is rife with them). Readers will be able to while away the hours with this one. (June)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Golf.com writer Bamberger (This Golfing Life) shares in this discursive and eccentric account what happened when he set out to “play golf with more focus and more purpose” and seek “the wonder of golf, wherever it might be.” In 2024, Bamberger participated in multiple tournaments, both as an amateur player and as a caddie. The Florida’s Natural Charity Classic, for instance, with its “Double-A baseball” vibe, reminded Bamberger of a past era when most players “didn’t have equipment deals or traveling caddies or creased new tour clothes.” He also describes finding meaning at California’s “recess-gone-wild” Pebble Beach pro-am tournament, where he caddied for Fred Perpall, president of the United States Golf Association. “I felt like I was in my mid-twenties again, caddying for George Archer, Bill Britton, Tony Cerdá, Mike Donald, Steve Elkington, Brad Faxon, Al Geiberger, Jamie Howell—I could go on,” notes Bamberger, who cadied at pro-ams in high school and college. The author manages to cleverly convey some of the appeal of the sport, describing, for instance, how golfing “promotes a tingly anxiety.” But not everything advances his goals—Bamberger’s rambling approach to his narrative, which he at times concedes is overly technical, can be a bit much. It’s a mixed bag. Agent: Kristine Dahl, CAA. (June)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Historian Rediker (The Slave Ship) zooms in on an all-but-unknown leg of the underground railroad in this revelatory and propulsive account. Slavery peaked, Rediker notes, during “the golden age of American maritime trade,” when “every trade route was a potential route for a runaway.” Digging through firsthand narratives by escapees and records from abolitionist organizations, he finds that escapes by sea were far more prevalent than previously realized. Several famous figures made maritime escapes, and their stories are narrated here with cinematic flair, among them the writers Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, both of whom dressed up as sailors to pass as seamen on escapee-friendly vessels. However, Rediker digs further, seeking to understand whom these vessels were piloted by. He finds evidence of organized resistance to slavery among the era’s sailors, pointing to a range of confluences including how Black radical David Walker’s pamphlets (which called for a Haitian-style revolution) were abundantly smuggled into the South by Black and white sailors; the arrest of white sea captain Jonathan Walker for smuggling runaways; and accounts like the one of an escaped 14-year-old girl who, when asked by abolitionists in the North how she escaped, reported simply being asked in passing by a white sailor if she’d like to hop aboard. This is a radical reimagining of the antebellum period that enthrallingly depicts resistance to slavery as widespread, unwavering, and multiracial. (May)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Howard University English professor Williams (In the Light of Likeness—Transformed) spotlights Toni Morrison’s efforts to shepherd Black literature into the mainstream in this enthralling chronicle of her tenure as an editor at Random House in the 1960s and ’70s. Drawing on Morrison’s correspondence, Williams assembles rousing stories of her editorial projects that coalesce into a rich portrait of her interests and politics. Her first project at the imprint, a 1972 anthology of African literature, laid the groundwork for her “editorial aesthetic.” She also worked on To Die for the People by Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton and The Case for Black Reparations by legal scholar Boris Bittker; championed poets Barbara Chase-Riboud, Lucille Clifton, and June Jordan; and went to bat for transgressive writers like Wesley Brown, Leon Forrest, and John McCluskey. Williams reveals Morrison to be an editor whose instincts went beyond the recognition of great writing; she shows Morrison as a decisive voice in how the books she edited should be marketed, and steadfast in her belief that Black writing should be taken seriously. The result is a triumphant account of an underexplored aspect of Morrison’s influence on American literature. (June)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

In the ebullient debut novel from Conklin (after the collection Rainbow Rainbow), a queer alt-folk singer embarks on a journey of self-discovery after a disastrous performance. Joan Vole is beloved in New York City’s underground music scene, and she gets off sexually on a crowd’s adoration. During a show at a punk club, she lets down her guard and satisfies her fetish by peeing on a fan on stage. After the show, she spirals from embarrassment, ducking her best friend Paige, a rising star in the underground scene, and flees the city to teach at a writing camp for teens in rural Virginia. There, Joan is revitalized by the free-spirited campers, who freely express their gender identity and sexuality, and by an intense connection with younger faculty member Sparrow, a cartoonist who is nonbinary and who has been following her work since they were a teen. The pair’s bond prompts Joan to reflect on her intense yearslong friendship with the beautiful and androgynous Paige, whose affection Joan wasn’t comfortable reciprocating. Conklin’s comedy of manners has a shrewd undercurrent, and much of the novel’s charm derives from the teens’ easy banter with one another, which helps Joan work through her hang-ups. It’s a winner. Agent: Samantha Shea, Georges Borchardt, Inc. (June)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

In the satisfying if muted latest from Porter (The Disappeared), a middle-aged writer sets out to discover why his father abandoned him and his mother four decades earlier. Steve has recently begun a trial separation from his wife and young son, and his quest unfolds on two tracks: by road, as he travels up the California coast to visit his disgraced English professor father’s friends and relatives, and via memories, as he works through his last year with his father, beginning in summer 1983 when he was 11. He remembers his father’s boisterous backyard pool parties at their home in Fullerton, Calif., and the days his father would spend in the cabana with close friend and colleague Deryck Evanson. Looking back, Steve recognizes that his mother had caught onto his father’s affair with Deryck. His road trip includes a stop in Ojai to see his uncle Julian, with whom he discusses his father’s failed bid for tenure shortly before his disappearance. “He was railroaded,” Julian claims, defending his brother’s merit and referencing an obscure controversy. Further up the road, Steve uncovers a few secrets as he tries to make sense of his own life in relation to his father’s. Though there aren’t many surprises, there’s a comforting quality to Steve’s insights about fathers and sons. This therapeutic novel is worth a look. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

In this striking, elegant account, novelist and Anglican priest Helwig (Girls Fall Down) recalls how in spring 2022 her small churchyard in Toronto became the site of a homeless encampment. Finding shelter is a grueling and often senseless process for Toronto’s unhoused, according to Helwig, who calls it “a Lewis Carroll fantasia,” replete with mysterious calls from city staff that are later contradicted, permits that don’t exist, and a stance of “encouraging people to come indoors when there was no indoors... to come into.” The encampment at Helwig’s church quickly became a lightning rod for controversy, with the city sending an ominous vehicle called “the Claw” to remove tents and a nearby Montessori school emerging as a particularly sinister nemesis. Throughout, Helwig gracefully illuminates the encampment’s embattled residents; one particularly awful anecdote describes how a beloved dog is stolen from a resident by a Cruella de Vil–esque figure. Helwig recounts guarding tents, serving coffee, and standing by deathbeds as “the holder of sacred things,” whose job it was to redistribute the meager worldly possessions of the deceased to those who loved them and, as Helwig emphasizes, did indeed notice when they were gone. In crystalline prose, this sheds light on not only the struggles of the unhoused but the heartlessness of a society that would rather not see them at all. (May)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

“When workers are sailing on the ship that they’ve built and charting its course, great things can happen to the economy, our democracy, and the quality of people’s lives,” asserts Abrams (Companies We Keep) in this standout guide to a more democratic workplace. He encourages businesses to become a “CommonWealth company,” one that focuses on the common good. Becoming one requires five transitions: from proprietary ownership to “widely shared”; from “original” leadership to “next generation”; from an “unprotected” to a “permanent” mission; from top-down control to democratic; and into a certified B Corp. He offers plenty of guidance for each—the concrete steps he outlines for becoming employee-owned include creating a value proposal and a steering committee, for example. Though he’s a strong advocate for co-ops, Abrams also presents a fair share of alternatives, including employee stock ownership plans and employee ownership trusts. Along the way, he draws on his experience with the architecture and energy firm he cofounded in 1973 and transformed into a worker co-op in 1987. Zealous without being preachy, Abrams makes a solid case that small businesses can “spread wealth more equitably.” The result is a must-read for business owners looking to put more power in the hands of employees. (June)

Reviewed on 05/23/2025 | Details & Permalink

Mount Shasta, Calif., high school senior Izumi Tanaka is a normal 18-year-old American girl: she enjoys baking, watching Real Housewives, and dressing like “Lululemon’s sloppy sister.” But Japanese American Izzy, conceived during a one-night stand in her mother Hanako’s final year at Harvard, has never known the identity of her father. So when she and her best friend find a letter in Hanako’s bedroom, the duo jump at the chance to ferret out Izzy’s dad’s true identity—only to find out he’s the Crown Prince of Japan. Desperate to know her father, Izzy agrees to spend the summer in his home country. But press surveillance, pressure to quickly learn the language and etiquette, and an unexpected romance make her time in Tokyo more fraught than she imagined. Add in a medley of cousins and an upcoming wedding, and Izzy is in for an unforgettable summer. Abrupt switches from Izzy’s perspective to lyrical descriptions of Japan may disrupt readers’ enjoyment, but a snarky voice plus interspersed text conversations and tabloid coverage keep the pages turning in Jean’s (Empress of All Seasons) fun, frothy, and often heartfelt duology starter. Ages 12–up. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary Management. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink