Never underestimate the drama in seemingly ordinary lives. That's a lesson English novelist Andrew Miller (The Crossing; The Slowworm's Song) reinforces to brilliant effect in The Land in Winter, finalist for the 2025 Booker Prize and a work that, like the legendary U.K. winter of 1962-63 that is the novel's setting, starts quietly but gathers immense power as it proceeds. In a West Country asylum, a 19-year-old patient, "the baby of the ward," dies from an overdose. Readers eventually discover the connection between the patient who finds him and one of the married couples who dominate the narrative: Eric and Irene Parry, an adulterous doctor and his pregnant, London-transplant wife; and Bill and Rita Simmons, a would-be farmer whose immigrant father got rich as a vile slumlord, and his wife, also pregnant, who used to dance at a club called the Pow-Wow and isn't thrilled about her new life among chickens and dairy bulls.

One might not expect this premise to yield smoldering drama, but Miller expertly unearths many layers of raw emotion. There's little plot here, but Miller delves deep in a way that's rare for contemporary fiction. That may seem like a nice way of saying that this is old-fashioned storytelling, but it's the good kind of old-fashioned, patient and thoughtful and generous rather than antiquated. The second half of the novel includes a magnificent extended sequence with multiple characters on multiple trains, shifting among their perspectives as the snow falls and, in some cases, makes travel dangerous. Fans of the literary slow build will be dazzled. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Discover: The Land in Winter tells the smoldering drama of two couples in rural England during the winter of 1962-63 and the agonies that rise to the surface as emotions rise and the snow falls.

A young woman in the Canary Islands struggles through the daily grind of work, dating, and inexplicably disdainful coworkers in Meryem El Mehdati's funny, brutally honest slice-of-life debut novel, Supersaurio.

Protagonist Meryem, a 25-year-old Canarian woman from a Moroccan family, has a humanities degree, lives with her parents, and has started an internship in the corporate offices of Supersaurio, the largest grocery store chain in the Canary Islands. Getting the internship felt like a stroke of fortune, a short-term employment opportunity with the alluring possibility of a permanent position.

Now she endures workday tedium, the unearned scorn of the only other woman in her department, and awkward breakroom conversations about her Islamic faith. Her colleagues struggle to remember her name, let alone correctly pronounce it. Her coping strategies include using the skills she honed posting fanfiction as a teen to write darkly hilarious fics based on her coworkers and texting Omar, a supervisor from another department. Their camaraderie makes life at Supersaurio more bearable, but when her crush develops into a connection, Meryem must contend with the perils of a possible office relationship.

Novels about persevering against everyday toil are no rarity, but El Mehdati's bleak, forthright candor and modern take breathes vitality into the concept. Readers will want to root for snarky, tender-hearted Meryem, but they will also reckon with the limited options available as she faces a reality in which basics like affordable housing and starting a family seem wildly out of reach. The Canary Islands setting vibrantly grounds the story with specificity, but readers all over the world will laugh and cry in solidarity with Meryem's struggles. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Discover: A woman in the Canary Islands faces the tedium of an underpaid office job and the angst of an uncertain future in this bleak, funny take on life as a modern young professional.

Through the AIDS crisis and Covid-19 pandemic, Terry Dactyl, the eponymous transgender protagonist of Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's searing excursion into love, loss, friendship, family, and identity, grapples with and survives one personal and social crisis after another.

The harrowing künstlerroman follows asthmatic Terry from early life, raised by two free-spirited lesbian mothers on Seattle's Capitol Hill, to a successful career in New York City's drug-addled club and stressful art worlds and back to Seattle in middle age. Against all odds, Terry fashions a formidably resilient life.

After only one semester at Columbia University with her singular sense of style and a roommate teaching her to "pour coke into the bowl when [they] smoked pot," she creates a new family amid a gaggle of club-hopping kids. One of them, Sid Sidereal, becomes her soul mate. Then "one fateful night in 1997" Terry's life changes: on two hits of ecstasy, with her body painted magenta, in an '80s Goodwill prom dress with wings of trash, she is hired by gallerist Sabine Roth as an administrative assistant. There, Terry curates an art show that she names Club Kid Diaspora, which catapults her into a heady cultural stratosphere cut short by Sid's death. Later, Covid-19 lockdown sends her back to Seattle, where she reinvents herself in the old neighborhood, and her mothers turn their garage into a "little Costa Rica." She joins Black Lives Matter protests and bangs pots and pans at 8 p.m. with neighbors. Like her character, Sycamore (The Freezer Door) finds that she can allay loneliness through expression and art, sharing in "collective joy, collective rage, collective struggle." --Robert Allen Papinchak, freelance book critic

Discover: In Terry Dactyl, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's visceral prose, steamy sex, and vivid settings showcase her eponymous protagonist and her dazzling resilience.  

From the Gospel of Matthew to Doctor Who, many texts have used the idiom "the eleventh hour" to refer to the last possible moment before an opportunity becomes unfeasible. Salman Rushdie (The Golden House) joins that group with The Eleventh Hour, a collection of five stories in which he offers perspectives on mortality, with side trips to thrillingly expatiate on ghosts, cinema, and more. In the opener, "In the South," two 81-year-old men in India trek to the post office to cash their pension checks when one of them suffers a frightening fall. "The Musician of Kahani" is the story of a music prodigy whose playing skills "acquired powers of enchantment," and the use she puts those powers to when confronted with unreasonable demands from her "rich-rich-rich" in-laws.

While those stories brilliantly explore the inevitability of death, "Late" features a protagonist who has already faced it, in its tale of an honorary fellow at a British university who wakes up to discover he's dead, and the history student who is the only person who can communicate with him. The final works are "Oklahoma," a story of an Indian author's friendship with an older writer who may or may not have walked into a body of water like Virginia Woolf, and "The Old Man in the Piazza," an amusing piece about a café dweller who accidentally develops a reputation as "a judge with the wisdom of Solomon." Books about mortality are nothing new, but Rushdie gives the subject his distinctive spin, highbrow yet accessible, in this exuberant collection --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Discover: The Eleventh Hour by Salman Rushdie is a collection of five stories, all of which, as the title suggests, offer highbrow yet accessible ruminations on death and mortality.

Author Raharimanana is an iconic figure in the Francophone literary world and within his native Madagascar. In the semi-autobiographical Return, protagonist Hira is an author who begins his story with a near drowning, which throws him immediately into tension with elemental forces that are both threatening and necessary for his survival.

The novel follows Hira on a book tour throughout Madagascar and his concurrent grappling with his memories, his sense of identity, and various losses accumulated over his and his family's lifetimes. Hira has repressed the violence enacted upon his family and his country and finds it erupting through his subconscious in his dreams. Through a series of non-linear recollections, writing, and reflections, he embarks on a quest to free himself from generational pain and embrace the promise of return to love and life.

Translator Allison M. Charette adroitly hits every note of the elliptical, lyrical prose. The writing style is fragmented and introspective, blending poetic imagery with stream-of-consciousness text and creating a dreamlike atmosphere. ​The language is evocative, highly poetic with intense imagery, often contrasting sensual images with those of brutal violence. Recurring metaphors and symbols explore themes of identity, trauma, and enduring love, as when the author writes, "Love is a nomad's land where looking grows the roots."

For Hira, writing serves as a refuge and a tool for processing personal and generational trauma, preserving his memories, and reclaiming his identity. ​Writing also helps him confront his family's history, bridge the gap between the past and present, and recover the wonder and innocence of childhood amid violence and loss. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

Discover: Return is a moving novel of the impact of colonialism and violence as seen through the lens of an individual lifetime.

A middle-aged Londoner gets a keyhole view into a diametrically different life after she reconnects with an old schoolmate in Harriet Lane's quick-witted and dire outside-looking-in novel, Other People's Fun.

As the novel opens, narrator Ruth Saving, a milquetoast freelance translator, is at her old boarding school attending a memorial that doubles as an informal reunion. There she runs into Sookie Utley (now Inchcape), the "stand-out star of our year," who has married a wealthy businessman and hasn't lost any of her sparkle. Back in London, Ruth and Sookie begin to socialize. Having recently been left by her husband, Ruth could use the support of a friend, but it soon becomes apparent that Sookie is only in it for Sookie. A tables-turning opportunity arrives when Ruth learns, and eventually acts on, a highly exploitable secret about her new confidante.

Unfolding in one long riff (there are no chapter demarcations), Other People's Fun is a lightly plotted slow-boiler: Ruth's moves are gradual, stealthy, and considered. Lane (Alys, Always; Her) is a supremely good writer who connects every time she takes a swing at the bottomlessly moneyed social-media-fueled life (in a characteristic gesture, Sookie whips out her phone to show Ruth "a particular bathtub she liked in a Parisian hotel, and also Gwyneth Paltrow's cooker"). When it comes to Sookie, Ruth's morality may be shaky, but she's confident about what she sees: "None of it matters, the culottes, the car with its leather interior, the entitlement, the monstrous self-assurance. We are both alone." --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Discover: Two diametrically different middle-aged Englishwomen who attended the same boarding school reconnect, initially harmoniously, in this quick-witted and dire outside-looking-in novel.

Kendra Coulter's gentle, lyrical first novel, The Tortoise's Tale, takes readers on a leisurely, illuminating journey through the life of a giant tortoise who spends decades on a lush estate in Southern California. The tortoise, who goes by many names, observes the dynamics between the estate's resident humans, passes time in the company of other animals, and gains surprising knowledge about inter-creature relationships and the wider world.

Brought to the estate against her will, the tortoise befriends Takeo, the estate's kindhearted gardener, who christens her Daisuke (Japanese for "big helper"). Later, she bonds with a young girl named Lucy; their friendship will stretch over many years. The tortoise listens attentively as Lucy learns from a tutor; she also develops a deep love for music as the estate becomes a destination for artists, filmmakers, and musicians. As the humans and other creatures come and go, the tortoise thinks seriously about love and friendship, freedom and captivity, and the interconnection of all beings.

Coulter's contemplative prose evokes the tortoise's slow physical movements but also shows the quickness of her mind as she pieces together information and gathers insights. The outside world intrudes in brief glimpses, which help readers match the tortoise's experience of time to the human calendar. Lucy's quest to discover Daisuke's origins brings the tortoise great joy, even as she shares in the griefs and triumphs of the humans she loves.

Reflective, with wry humor and a keen observational eye, The Tortoise's Tale provides an unusual perspective on human-animal relationships through an engaging creaturely lens. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: Kendra Coulter's gentle, lyrical first novel traces the inner life of a wry, reflective giant tortoise who spends decades on a Southern California estate.

Arriving in time for Jane Austen's 250th birthday, Introducing Mrs. Collins by Rachel Parris is a captivating historical novel centered on Charlotte Lucas, the young woman who was Elizabeth Bennet's supportive best friend in Pride and Prejudice. Set in the glorious English countryside with a romantic, satire-fueled plot, Parris's first novel resurrects the early-19th-century classic in a sequel that is delightfully worthy of the original.

While plain, sensible Charlotte was the perfect foil to radiant, impetuous Elizabeth in Austen's masterpiece, here her gentle good looks, impressive intellect, and wicked sense of humor mark her firmly as the heroine of her own story. Charlotte made a respectable but dull match in Mr. Collins, a "tall, dark and... pious" vicar. She is reconciled to a life devoid of romance or passion until she encounters Richard, an enigmatic colonel who shatters her peace of mind. Charlotte has learned to love Mr. Collins, whose positive intentions and decency shine through, but can she forswear the passions Richard has ignited? That is the conundrum this heroine navigates in a collision between her head and her heart.

Parris is a British comedian who cofounded the improv comedy group Austentatious. Introducing Mrs. Collins is decidedly un-Austenesque in its depictions of sex and intimacy, which include comical scenes of conjugal confusion as well as Charlotte's sensuous explorations of forbidden love.

Being sensible is overrated, the risk-averse Charlotte realizes in a surprising plot twist, finding within herself a surprising capacity for joy that is the most precious revelation of all. --Shahina Piyarali

Discover: A British comedian's captivating, satire-fueled sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice follows Charlotte Lucas, Elizabeth Bennet's best friend, after she marries Mr. Collins. 

With far-ranging subjects that include holiday breakups, daycare mishaps, sexual exploration, and sibling loyalty, Love, Dirt, Bruce Johnson's stunning debut short story collection, examines the complexity of human relationships and the stories people tell to make sense of them. Most of the 16 stories here are only a few pages long, but Johnson's use of subtle humor and surreal touches make each one a glittering jewel.

In the eerie "The Knack," a woman charms her colleagues in a Las Vegas public relations firm with her ability to discern their birthplaces by listening to them speak, but her gift becomes dangerous when she starts blurting out their childhood secrets as well. In the poignant "Consider It Saved," a young man spends Christmas with his ex-fiancée's family, who don't know that their daughter has left him for a woman. The father in "The So-Called Jacob" is sure his son has been switched with another boy when he picks up the child from daycare, and in "In Case I Don't Call," an aspiring male sex worker offers to pay his estranged sister to protect him. Perhaps the most layered and moving piece is the titular story, which describes a teenager on a family trip to Chile who hides in his parents' closet to avoid being discovered having sex with the son of his father's friend.

Johnson's gift, evident in every story, is his ability to express how relationships shape people and how ordinary events like parenthood, heartbreak, and marriage can become extraordinary in the experience. The way in which the characters in Love, Dirt narrate their lives is how they make sense of those experiences. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor

Discover: This stunning debut short story collection uses humor and surreal touches to examine complex human relationships and the stories people tell to make sense of them.

Graeme Macrae Burnet's sixth novel, the intriguing, darkly comical Benbecula, recounts a real-life mid-19th-century murder spree on a tiny Scottish island. It is at once a pitch-perfect historical reconstruction and a frank depiction of hereditary mental illness.

The aging MacPhees and their four adult children scrape together a living on an Outer Hebridean croft by growing potatoes and gathering kelp. On July 9, 1857, 26-year-old Angus kills his parents and aunt and flees to a smaller island. When apprehended, he initially lies that he saw a tinker enter the house but soon matter-of-factly confesses. His excuse--absurd to readers but perfectly logical to him--involves a bowl of porridge.

Burnet (Case Study; A Case of Matricide) depicts the troubled MacPhee family through the memories of Angus's irascible older brother, Malcolm. Angus's behaviors would today be associated with neurodivergence and mental illness but then signaled depravity: disruptiveness at school, flapping and moaning, public masturbation, and aggression that could only be controlled by tying him up. According to a neighbor, "some members of the family had occasionally fits of insanity." And indeed, Malcolm--alone, visited weekly by a caretaker, and haunted by visions of his departed family--seems just as troubled as his brother.

An afterword reveals the novel's source documents and casts a compassionate eye on Angus who, no matter his misdeeds, suffered abominably during 42 years of incarceration. As in his novel His Bloody Project, a finalist for the Booker Prize, Burnet proves himself a master of the faux historical testimony--and the unreliable narrator. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck

Discover: Graeme Macrae Burnet's pitch-perfect pastiche of a Victorian true-crime account, set on a tiny Scottish island, is intriguing and compassionate--and even darkly comic.

In With Friends Like These, Alissa Lee's inventively plotted debut thriller, some Harvard roommates turn a secret college game into a tradition extending well (and worrisomely) beyond graduation.

Sara, a fledgling Manhattan photographer who works part-time as an assistant to an established artist, has been living with guilt ever since Claudine, one of her five Harvard roommates, died during their senior year. Twenty-three years later, Sara is sure she sees Claudine on the street in New York--the city Sara and her friends are about to stealthily traverse as they play the Circus, which is basically the game Assassin with water guns, and which they enjoyed playing with Claudine before she died. This time the stakes are high: the winner will pocket nearly a million bucks. (One of the friends invested the game's pot wisely.) Offsetting Sara's ebullience--she, like the other players, could really use the money--is another friend's warning that a county DA in Massachusetts wants to reopen the case surrounding Claudine's death.

As the players plunge ahead with the Circus, Lee teases the novel's plot concerns--what happened to Claudine, what's up with her doppelgänger, and who's going to win the game?--while Sara puzzles over her college friendships and her high-stress marriage. With Friends Like These can sometimes lean too hard into Sara's psychologizing; the keenest insight comes not from her but from one of her old Harvard roommates' kids, who observes that the Circus "makes you all crazy." It also stands to make one of them flush with cash. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Discover: In this inventively plotted debut thriller,Harvard friends haunted by the death of a roommate turn their secret game into a tradition extending well (and worrisomely) beyond graduation.

Celeste Connally's third Lady Petra Inquires mystery, Revenge, Served Royal, takes its charming protagonist and a gaggle of friends to a royal celebration that includes a patisserie contest--and soon mixes in a little murder.

Lady Petra Forsyth is pleased to be at Windsor Castle to judge Queen Charlotte's inaugural competition to determine the best baker in England. The contestants include Petra's excellent cook, Mrs. Bing. But before the contest can begin, Sir Rufus Pomeroy--longtime chef to the royals and the aristocracy, including Petra's own family--is found dead in the castle. It's clear he was murdered, and Petra must join forces with her friends and stalwart maid, Annie, to unmask the killer without upsetting the other guests.

Connally (All's Fair in Love and Treachery; Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord) brings back the series' engaging ensemble cast, including Petra's trio of spirited female friends; her dashing lover, Duncan; and her elegant Aunt Ophelia. Verbal jousting and culinary feats abound as Petra searches the castle for a mysterious memoir manuscript left behind by Rufus. Complicating matters is the possible involvement of the Prince Regent, as well as the explosive society secrets supposedly contained in Sir Rufus's manuscript, which may implicate Petra's beloved aunt. Connally concocts a satisfying mystery alongside the contest's progression, which includes mouthwatering descriptions of British classics like Shrewsbury cake and ambitious French bakes such as fanchonette and vol-au-vent. As she tries to balance her judging duties with her clandestine investigation, Petra must divine the killer's motive before they dish up another helping of murder. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: Celeste Connally's third Lady Petra mystery takes its protagonist to a celebration at Windsor Castle, where she must judge a patisserie contest and investigate a murder.

Animation director and cartoonist Cathy Malkasian's powerfully poignant Shadows of the Sea brings together two gentle, suffering strangers who create a healing community of found family. Stanwick, aka Landmine Sniffer Dog #336, has been dismissed with a mere letter and wad of cash. While paused in his aimless wandering to adjust his prosthetic leg, he smells serious trouble: three sore losers viciously attacking a woman for prizes not theirs. Stanwick strategically intervenes, intertwining his future with hers.

Their journey commences, through forests, rivers, and winding paths, and lands the pair in an abandoned town. Along the way, Doris chatters--about a mother who cursed her, working as a "vermin hunter" then "in puhtatuhs," recalling her "fella Ralph." Stanwick's silence doesn't mean he's incommunicative; he saves Doris from poisonous berries, laughs at her bad jokes, assuages her hunger. But both carry debilitating grief from their pasts, literally manifested into burdensome shadows ready to subsume them. But "tuh mudder sea... wash dere shadduhs clean," allowing woman and dog to bear witness to their respective tragedies and finally let (enough of) the sadness go. Finding themselves in an abandoned seaside village, the duo is ready to chance renewed beginnings.

Malkasian creates warmly inviting panels in earthy watercolor shades of browns and blues. Her characters--particularly the kind ones--are gorgeously expressive, a head tilt, raised eyebrow, faraway gaze affectingly capturing every emotion. The left-behind empty town is an architectural marvel, seemingly carved into mountainous stone, magically landscaped, ready for new life. Doris envisions "good peoples will come from near an' far"; good readers will surely appreciate and remember their visits. --Terry Hong

Discover: Cathy Malkasian's graphic novel lovingly draws two unlikely companions together in Shadows of the Sea as they find a way to escape their debilitating, burdensome pasts.

"I've spent a lifetime feeling drawn to gay men," Kelly Foster Lundquist writes in her riveting debut memoir, Beard. Her brother and best friend are gay; she loves musical theater and considers Judy Garland a patron saint. So it's all the more ironic that she didn't realize for years that her first husband was homosexual.

Lundquist met Devin during college, when they were counselors at a Christian summer camp in Mississippi. She knew he'd been bullied in adolescence for being effeminate but only later learned he'd been subjected to counseling that fell just short of conversion therapy. When Lundquist started a PhD, the couple relocated to Chicago--to Boystown, a historically gay neighborhood. Descriptions of food and fashion create a neat context for their early-2000s courtship and marriage. She tracks her disordered eating and Devin's growing alcohol dependency with sensitivity, and she convincingly re-creates her naïve confusion over finding gay images and chat room discussions on their shared computer.

The scenes and dialogue sparkle. That's especially true of the pivotal sequence in which Lundquist dresses as Liza Minnelli for Halloween and, days afterward, the truth emerges about Devin's affairs with men. Lundquist explores the history of the "beard" stereotype common to 1950s Hollywood films and TV sitcoms. The language of deconstruction and queer literary theory, gleaned from her doctoral research, pairs with a newfound affirming theology. With that fresh perspective, Lundquist looks back--two decades on, a remarried English professor and mother--with compassion for her ex-husband as well as her younger self. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck

Discover: This riveting debut memoir chronicles the author's first marriage to a closeted homosexual and the shift in worldview that allowed her to compassionately let him go.

In his exhaustively researched and eminently readable biography, Coyote, Robert M. Dowling reveals the complex life and psyche of iconoclastic American playwright, actor, and musician Sam Shepard through his relationships, his many creative endeavors, and Shepard's own words.

Shepard and his two younger sisters grew up in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley with a doting mother and an alcoholic father who was physically and emotionally abusive. Both the place, which Shepard called "a collection of junk," and his rage-filled father would loom large in his plays, notably The Curse of the Starving Class and Buried Child, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979. Escaping to New York City in the 1960s, Shepard, a talented musician, played drums in a band called the Holy Modal Rounders, took copious amounts of drugs, and wrote furiously--one-act plays that were produced Off-Off-Broadway. Throughout Coyote, Dowling provides learned but never stuffy literary criticism of Shepard's works and film acting and blends this seamlessly with his discussion of the man's complicated, often dark life. Shepard's intense romantic relationships, for example, often overlapped. He temporarily left his young wife, O-Lan Johnson, for an affair with rocker Patti Smith, which was followed by a brief dalliance with Joni Mitchell, who nicknamed Shepard "Coyote" in her song about their fling. Shepard was still married to O-Lan when he fell in love with actress Jessica Lange, with whom he remained for almost 30 years.

Restless, troubled, and endlessly creative until his death in 2017, Shepard was a singular, fascinating figure. Coyote is a revealing and engrossing account of a brilliant life. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor

Discover: This exhaustively researched biography of iconoclastic American playwright and actor Sam Shepard is revealing and eminently readable.

Former NBC News reporter Char Adams delves into the history of Black bookstores in the U.S. in her fascinating, well-researched first book, Black-Owned. Adams examines the origins of Afrocentric and Black-owned bookstores; their social, intellectual, and communal functions; and the related political and financial difficulties of doing business.

Adams begins her narrative with David Ruggles, who sold antislavery literature and ran the country's first known Black bookstore in Manhattan in the mid-19th century. In subsequent chapters, Adams traces the shifting fortunes of Black bookstores through the eras of civil rights and Black power and up to Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement. Through in-depth interviews with booksellers, she creates striking portraits of iconic Black bookstores such as Drum and Spear in Washington, D.C., and Eso Won Books in Los Angeles, which provided models for future stores. Adams writes frankly about the hardships facing Black bookstores: overt racism, often including vandalism and threats; financial struggles, sometimes coupled with a lack of business knowledge; and intense competition from chain and online booksellers.

Alongside its discussion of these obstacles, though, Black-Owned celebrates the grit, ingenuity, and sincere commitment of Black booksellers to their shared mission to educate, encourage, and sustain Black communities across the country, even (and especially) when those in power have tried to stamp out Black pride and prosperity. Black-Owned is at once a historical and social record of a distinctly American phenomenon and a thoughtful tribute to the people who believe in the life-changing power of Black books. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: Journalist Char Adams celebrates the creativity, grit, and community spirit of Black bookstores in the U.S. in her thoughtful, well-researched first book.

Natan Last's erudite, thoughtful debut, Across the Universe, investigates the origins, cultural influence, and often tricky politics of the crossword puzzle. Spanning more than a century, from the first "Word-Cross" puzzles appearing in the New York World in 1913 to the proliferation of modern-day digital puzzles, Last's account explores the path crosswords took to become a well-established linguistic and cultural art form. Thoroughly researched and delightfully nerdy, this cultural history is packed with quirky personalities and bursting with cleverly constructed clues.

"The crossword has never been more popular, or more democratic," Last notes in his introduction. Last breaks his chronicle into three sections, asserting variously that "the crossword should be data" (where he delves into linguistics, history, commercialism, and the growing impact of artificial intelligence); "a soapbox" (which explores the political implications of certain words and clues that continue to evolve as the crossword evolves); and "art" (where he focuses on the presence and impact of the crossword on culture, with a showcase of puzzles constructed to please aesthetically as well as linguistically).

"Crossword puzzles are quantum, always two things at once," Last says, noting the crossword's surface appeal (dad jokes, puns, pop-culture references) and its deeper linguistic and political ramifications. Across the Universe is a linguistic treat for crossword devotees and anyone who loves a bit of witty wordplay. Last takes readers inside the world of tournaments, online competitions, and thoughtful debates about the form's future--never doubting that this puzzle, once dismissed as a momentary flash in the pan, is here to stay. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Discover: Natan Last's witty, erudite debut explores the history, politics, and cultural impact of the crossword puzzle.

Joining the ranks of books that plumb the depths of one venerated album is Alan Light's full-throated celebration Don't Stop: Why We (Still) Love Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, which asks a musical question: How the hell did the Mac do that?

As of 2023, Fleetwood Mac's Grammy-winning Rumours, which was released in 1977, was Spotify's most streamed album of the 20th century. Light, who has written a fleet of books with and about household-name musicians, lands on several reasons for the album's enduring success. There's the variety provided by three capable singer-songwriters, two of whom were women--a novelty on the 1970s rock scene. There's the allure of interpersonal band drama, which informs the songs' lyrics. There have also been regular Rumours boosts since its release, from Bill Clinton's use of "Don't Stop" as his 1992 presidential-campaign song to a skateboarding guy's viral 2020 TikTok featuring "Dreams."

Those Spotify listeners can't all be baby boomers. To find out why younger generations keep falling in love with Rumours, Light interviewed, among others, some 30 "post-millennials." While their arguments for Rumours don't depart radically from those of their elders, the younger interviewees put their own generational spins on the album's appeal (one says that the Rumours-era band dynamics recall "the Justin Bieber-Selena Gomez-Hailey Bieber triangle"). Don't Stop is a glorious medley of Rumours-related thoughts and trivia anchored by the down-and-dirty song-by-song assessment at the book's center. Light's affectionate homage is suited to both Rumours die-hards and the unconverted--presuming there are any out there. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer

Discover: Alan Light's full-throated celebration of Fleetwood Mac's Grammy-winning 1977 album, Rumours, asks a musical question: How the hell did the Mac do that?

Carry Somers is the cofounder of Fashion Revolution, an activist organization that advocates for social and environmental responsibility in fashion. In The Nature of Fashion, she brings readers on a journey through time that starts at the beginning of humanity's history of garment and cloth making and ends in Latin America in 2024. Somers also travels the world and highlights the many Indigenous peoples who first used the fibers and dyes that people still use and wear in the 21st century.

The Nature of Fashion is not a reference guide nor a straightforward history, but a poetic celebration of each culture and its contributions. Somers follows the strands through time as the first humans learned to make cloth out of bark and flax, to whiten their cloth in the snow, and to create language out of knots. In the 21st century, war, peace, and sustainability create the current state of thread, where humans are once again learning to coexist with the plants they weave and rediscovering their wisdom.

Somers transports readers, whether she is discussing Papua New Guinea in 30 CE or Brazil in 1870, or the multitudes of other times and places in The Nature of Fashion. She discusses how the color puce bewitched Marie Antoinette and her court, and when the English tried to stop the Irish from wearing yards of saffron yellow.

An excellent choice for readers interested in a deeper look at the way humans clothe themselves, The Nature of Fashion will fit in on any bookshelf containing Aja Barber's Consumed or Victoria Finlay's Color. Dense but engaging, The Nature of Fashion is a fashion history like no other. --Alyssa Parssinen, freelance reviewer and former bookseller

Discover: Spanning tens of thousands of years, The Nature of Fashion takes an enlightening look at the relationship between humans and nature told through cloth.

Kate Baer (What Kind of Woman; And Yet) celebrates the mundane and the miraculous in How About Now, her fourth collection of poetry. As in her past collections, she explores the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of modern womanhood. After all, she writes, "We can't avoid it:/ mothers, death, and poetry."

Reading these poems is like going to a wise older sister for advice and receiving guidance on how to pay attention to what matters most. When Baer's children call her out on her mistakes, she reminds them it's her "first rodeo," too. "My therapist asks/ if I'm going to make this/ into another poem," she notes while recalling the particular desperation of pelvic floor therapy after childbirth; if poetry is there, poetry is everywhere. An imaginary toast to a bride from her bridesmaid offers a poignant reflection on female friendship: "It's/ true there is a cost to this devotion,/ but I'll let you in on a little secret:/ there is very little women choose/ to keep from one another. How/ lucky we are to know a love like this."

How About Now honors exactly that kind of love, love that holds within it both immeasurable happiness and impossible pain. "What a privilege to... revel in the reminder that no matter its failing,/ there is something to be gained from the celebration/ of a tender and ordinary love." In each poem, Baer revels in these failings and celebrations, the tender and the ordinary. Individually, these poems recognize the complexities of daily life; as a collection, How About Now invites reflection on what makes that life worth living. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

Discover: This tender poetry collection explores themes of modern womanhood, reveling in and romanticizing the mundane and offering reflection and recognition.

Using only four words and various punctuation marks, journalist/author Bruce Handy (The Book from Far Away) and artist Julie Kwon (Pedro & Daniel) mesmerize young readers with a life-changing adventure in Balloon. A smiling, brown-skinned parent and exuberant child gambol through the park, so enthralled by the child's orange balloon that both miss the pigeons feeding in their path. The interrupted flock scatters in great haste, causing the child to let go of the precious orb. Ellipses turn the single word into a mournful wail--"Balloon..."--as it flies away. A green replacement is offered, an orange popsicle proffered, but neither is enough. While continuing hand-in-hand, the duo catches glimpses of the runaway balloon everywhere, but they're revealed to be a frisbee, a cap, a helmet, until something orange at an adoption event catches the child's eye. Cradling a soft, orange kitten, the lucky child quickly receives parental assent. "Balloon," the child says, "That's your name." The final spread showcases a peaceful bedroom at nighttime, kid and kitty fast asleep, that elusive balloon silhouetted against the full moon glimpsed through the window.

Kwon's pen-and-ink and digital illustrations give readers a technicolor tour of the park, lively with families, friends, vendors, performers, and passers-by of virtually every ethnicity, culture, and age. She adroitly captures subjects in motion: spectators filming performances on their phones; an entertainingly reappearing curious orange squirrel. Handy additionally appends a charming "sort-of-true story" of his own family's Balloon (a Siamese, not a ginger). Author and artist share whimsical, near-wordless wonder with audiences of all ages. --Terry Hong

Discover: Bruce Handy and Julie Kwon's almost-wordless collaboration about a buoyant day in the park is a delightful spectacle to behold.

Siblings Malka and Ezra try to make sense of the world following a cataclysmic climate event in R.M. Romero's incisive middle-grade cli-fi fantasy, The Tear Collector.

Twelve-year-old Malka and 10-year-old Ezra remember little of their lives before "the polar ice caps melted and caused the Flood." Malka can't remember anything from life on the Mainland, but Ezra has a "list of memories" that sadden him so deeply he keeps them secret: glimpses of his mother; "a cat the color of orange peels"; "the milky light of the Shabbat candles." Now, the children live on the Island with their Uncle Jonas. The family makes a living through barter: Uncle Jonas serves as town doctor and the children scavenge what washes up on the beaches. At the same time, a mysterious illness, the Sorrow, is causing people to slowly transform into "storybook"-like monsters, "too sharp in all the wrong places." Jonas believes that tears themselves might be the secret to cure the Sorrow, and so Malka becomes the Tear Collector, emotionally manipulating her neighbors so she can steal a tear or two. As Malka feels the weight of this task, she worries about Ezra, who is beginning to show signs of transformation.

Romero (The Ghosts of Rose Hill) builds a sorrowful yet still hopeful post-apocalyptic world using a cast of characters who find joy in life despite the unknowns. Their mutual care and understanding highlights how community is both possible and necessary in the face of despair. The Tear Collector handles climate fears with aplomb, answering the question "Is there still hope?" with a resounding "yes." --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer

Discover: R.M. Romero treats middle-grade readers to a gripping novel about hope beyond the end of the world.

In Confessions from the Group Chat, Jodi Meadows (Bye Forever, I Guess; the Lady Janies series) skillfully and authentically evokes the challenges of navigating a middle-school social life in the time of social media, when any misstep may be disastrous.

Thirteen-year-old Virginia has a prickly relationship with her three best friends. The group is at the top of the eighth-grade social ladder, but the roles within the foursome, at least on the surface, have some not-so-subtle delineations. There's the "queen bee," the "creative genius," the "mean girl with a heart of gold," and Virginia, who doesn't know where she stands (the "Cat Person"?). So, when Virginia is teased for her crush on an unpopular boy and she pushes back against the girls' bullying, it's no surprise that the fight blows up into a "toxic cloud of social disaster." Her former friends begin publicly posting screenshots of terrible things Virginia has written in their group chats about other people (leaving out their own hurtful comments), making her a middle-school pariah.

Meadows writes a protagonist who is not a straightforward victim--Virginia did contribute to the group chat, and she continues to be somewhat dishonest to protect herself and others. This choice reflects messy reality in an emotionally complicated novel that can be appreciated by middle-grade and YA readers. Fans of Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham's Real Friends series should find Confessions refreshing and suffused with the authentic, complex flavor of early adolescence. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

Discover: In a layered and highly relatable novel, friend tension and unhealthy group chats among eighth graders have destructive ramifications.

A seventh grader begins a nature journal as a way to connect with her dead mother and ground herself after a cross-country move in Winging It, a warmhearted and tender graphic novel from Allergic duo Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter.

Newly relocated multi-racial Luna is isolated in her Virginia home until a younger neighbor asks Luna to help her be a detective. Inspired by one of the only things she knows about her dead mother (that "she loved nature" and kept journals), Luna suggests they become "nature detectives" and start their own nature journal. Looking closely at the natural world unlocks a love of plants and animals in air conditioning-loving Luna, and soon she sets a goal to see the Luna moth for which she is named. As the months pass and the chaos of the real world--storms, injuries, and pure luck--interferes with her plans, Luna's determination doesn't flag but she fears she may not get her wish.

Lloyd and Nutter create a heartfelt exploration of nature and familial connection in Winging It. The narrative realistically and charmingly blends modern technology with a fondness for a material style of exploration: Luna has the freedom to wander without supervision but also uses her phone to take pictures she prints and adds to the journal. A jewel-toned palette allows Nutter to create an entertaining cartoon world with strong linework and exaggerated facial expressions while allowing for elegant, detailed depictions of plants and animals in close-ups of Luna's nature journal.

Winging It will likely set the hearts of young nature-loving readers and readers who love a slice-of-life graphic novel aflutter. --Nicole Brinkley, bookseller and writer

Discover: A girl connects with the world and her community through a nature journal in this tender, bright graphic novel from the creators of Allergic.

Compassion and acts of care drive the story in multiple-award-winning author Kate Messner's How to Save an Otter, the first in her charming new Wildlife Rescue chapter book series.

Ivy and her brother, Ezra, are "volunteer Critter Couriers for the local wildlife hospital." It is their "job" to pick up injured animals and bring them to the Florida wildlife hospital in their mom's minivan, the "Animal Ambulance." When Ivy, Ezra, and Mom (all depicted as white in illustrations) are mountain biking and find an injured river otter kit, they know what to do. But something about dropping this otter off at the hospital feels different to Ivy, "maybe because it seemed so small and alone." As Earth Day celebrations at school offer Ivy a chance to help fundraise for the wildlife hospital, she struggles to balance the many different things she wants to do--bake cookies, make posters, hold a towel drive--while worrying about the otter. Her new friends, family, school, and church community can all help the wildlife hospital, but what will save the otter?

Amusing titles for each short chapter keep the tone light, and Messner (The Trouble with Heroes), inspired by her own volunteer work at a local animal hospital in south Florida, expertly conveys the details of wildlife rescue. Messner gives readers easily digestible nuggets of wisdom, and her narrative naturally teaches children about the realities of animal care. Charming illustrations by Jen Bricking (The Memory Cake) help convey textual details and add tone, allowing for harmony between visual and textual narratives. All animals met in the book heal and are released back into the wild, making the Wildlife Rescue series an otterly inspiring gem for young animal-lovers. --Nicole Brinkley, bookseller and writer

Discover: The first book in the compassionate new Wildlife Rescue series about a family who helps injured wildlife is an otterly inspiring chapter book for animal lovers.