There's a curl in the air, hardly perceptible but for the dusky hours, whose breezes are perhaps crisper than last week's, rustling through pale leaves of tall grass. Or maybe it's just that Swedish author/illustrator Cecilia Heikkilä's gently gothic picture book The Slightly Spooky Tale of Fox and Mole has all the cozy hallmarks of the season's turn toward autumn. Meanwhile, move over Andy Sachs, Empire of the Elite, journalist Michael M. Grynbaum's captivating survey of the Condé Nast media conglomerate, has the scoop on all the angels and devils wearing Prada. And Alexis Okeowo's Blessings and Disasters paints a nuanced big-picture portrait of her home state of Alabama, "a place she wrestles with and will always love."
--Dave Wheeler, senior editor, Shelf Awareness