by Frode Grytten, trans. by Alison McCullough
Norwegian author Frode Grytten's The Ferryman and His Wife is a beautiful meditation on love and loss that answers the question of how to tell the story of one man's life, outwardly modest yet nonetheless striking. The man is Nils Vik, trusted for years to ferry people across the fjord, now facing the last day of his life. Though it mentions a recent diagnosis, the novel doesn't offer further explanation; still, Nil's intentions are clear as he readies the house, leaves a note for his daughters, burns the
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by M. Cynthia Cheung
M. Cynthia Cheung is both a physician and a poet. Her debut collection, Common Disaster, is a lucid reckoning with everything that could and does go wrong, globally and individually.
Intimate, often firsthand knowledge of human tragedies infuses the verse with melancholy honesty. "We all endure our personal/ disasters," Cheung affirms. Her struggles include the death of her grandmother, also a physician; pregnancy loss; and sandwich-generation concerns for her daughters and ailing mother. She broods on Covid-era
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by Maria Popova, illus. by Sarah Jacoby
Writer, critic, and blogger Maria Popova (Figuring) partners with author/illustrator Sarah Jacoby (Doris) to create The Coziest Place on the Moon, a soothing, enlightening picture book that celebrates the rewards of solitude.
Re, who resembles an adorable porcupine with a golden-tinted, sky-blue dye job, wakes up one Tuesday in July "feeling like the loneliest creature on Earth." Not one to wallow, Re resolves "to go live in the coziest place on the Moon." Re lands "on the edge of the Sea of Tranquility" then
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by Rachel Poliquin, illus. by Clayton Hanmer
Author Rachel Poliquin and illustrator Clayton Hanmer, the clever creators of The Museum of Odd Body Leftovers, have devised another hilarious and fascinating biological tour for middle graders. This excursion escorts readers through the body's glands--goop, juice, and all. From the factory's entrance at the mouth to the exit at the waxy ear holes, The Gland Factory oozes facts and fun.
The factory's boss and deputy serve as tour guides through the body's glandular system where they introduce their audience
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by Nadia Davids
South African novelist Nadia Davids's twisting gothic drama Cape Fever opens by highlighting narrator Soraya's ability to read, which she keeps from her employer. Soraya goes to work as combined cleaner and cook for the settler Mrs. Hattingh in 1920. In the colonial city in which Mrs. Hattingh reigns over a large, lonely home, Soraya's close-knit, loving family lives in the nearby Muslim quarter; Soraya is rarely permitted by her employer to visit. Soraya's fiancé, Nour, is an accomplished scholar who
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by Matt Greene
Matt Greene's The Definitions is a transfixing and economical dystopian novel, deftly using its scant pages to speak volumes about language and the construction of identity. The unnamed narrator recounts her experience at the Center, a facility designed to rehabilitate its occupants after a virus and a massive data breach that renders them unknown to themselves and to anyone else.
Though the residents of the Center are adults, they must relearn the most basic of concepts as they await the return of their memories
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by Matthew Pearl
A darkly entertaining satire set in present-day Cambridge, Mass., The Award by Matthew Pearl tells the story of an unscrupulous writer's improbable rise to the upper echelons of literary society. It is a superb caricature of a ruthlessly ambitious young man who will stop at nothing, even murder, to claw his way to the top.
Armed with an MFA, dwindling funds, and an endlessly patient fiancée, David Trent is "always trying to finish the same first novel" while fending off panic that "he could never be
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by Betty Fussell
Betty Fussell refers to her 13th book, How to Cook a Coyote: The Joy of Old Age, as a "coming-of-death story." The Shakespeare scholar, food historian, and memoirist was born in 1927. Though "Tick tock" is a refrain as she senses time running out, her sardonic autobiographical essays burst with memories of food, friendship, sexual passion, and globe-trotting adventures.
Fussell (My Kitchen Wars) is mostly blind and since 2012 has lived in a Montecito, Calif., retirement home, Casa Dorinda--coincidentally,
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by Emma Stonex
Emma Stonex's second novel (after The Lamplighters) is a slow-burn psychological revenge thriller that uses multiple timelines, points of view, and geographic locations to create a layered and nuanced portrait of human nature and the need for adequate nurturing.
The Sunshine Man begins in 1989 as Birdie, one of two narrators, learns that Jimmy Maguire, the man who killed her sister, Providence, is being released from prison. Taking the gun she has saved for this occasion, Birdie leaves her family in London
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by Olivia Laing
The Silver Book, Olivia Laing's eighth book, is steeped in the homosexual demimonde of 1970s Italian cinema. Its clear antifascist message is filtered through the coming-of-age story of an Englishman trying to outrun his past.
Laing's second novel (after Crudo) opens with 22-year-old art student Nicholas Wade fleeing London for Venice in 1974. He falls in with Danilo Donati, a 40-something art director meticulously designing costumes for Federico Fellini's Casanova. Nico becomes Dani's apprentice--as well
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by Jules Howard, illus. by Gavin Scott
Oversized animals past and present run, hop, swim, slither, and fly through physical space and time in Mega, a fact-filled, mind-blowing, middle-grade nonfiction picture book written by science writer Jules Howard (Encyclopedia of Animals) and stunningly illustrated by Gavin Scott (Everything You Know About Sharks Is Wrong!).
Howard breaks down the important role megafauna has played in Earth's billions of years of evolution by first giving readers a brief introduction to megafauna and a definition. The term
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by CG Drews
A teenager, joined by the irresistible boy who tried to kill him, unlocks the mysteries of his guardian's murder and a malevolent garden in Hazelthorn, CG Drews's searingly atmospheric queer YA horror tale.
Seventeen-year-old Evander does not remember the 10 years of his life before Laurie Lennox-Hall tried to bury him alive in the gardens. After the murder attempt, Evander's guardian and Laurie's grandfather, Byron Lennox-Hall, locked Evander in a room of the Hazelthorn Estate, where he has stayed for the
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by Marissa Meyer
The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer (Cinder; Heartless) is a witty, romantic, and satisfyingly gory retelling of "Bluebeard."
Seventeen-year-old Mallory and 19-year-old Anaïs Fontaine are "descended from a long line of powerful witches." Due to a badly botched spell at age 10, Mallory is now "without a drop of witchcraft"; instead, she is dubiously gifted with the ability to see ghosts. Mallory and her sister, Anaïs (who hides her own powerful death magic) have been on their own for six years;
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