Seventh-grader Charlie Gold at six feet two would be perfect as center for the school basketball travel team but at tryouts the 13-year-old’s anger gets the better of him and he’s subsequently cut. He and his older sister Cecilia who works and takes classes at St. Hildegarde’s University are no strangers to hardship; they’ve lost both parents and are barely scraping by in their grandmother’s old house. Things get worse for Charlie when the incident at the tryouts becomes a viral video that earns him online trolls’ unfounded ire. On the plus side he’s soon earning cash at St. Hildegarde’s where he takes calculus and begins tutoring older full-time students. The university’s new coach is impressed by Charlie and Charlie’s best friend Jalen’s scrupulous tracking of college basketball players’ stats on spreadsheets. But an unexpected snag further complicates the boy’s life. Michalowski’s young endearing hero suffers familiar troubles—he stands in the shadow of his late father a “basketball legend” and he doesn’t fit in at his middle school or at St. Hildegarde’s. The grounded narrative is often relatable as Charlie’s mistakes are understandable and the online hate he gets is sadly realistic. Despite Charlie’s woes he leads a largely feel-good story buoyed by its warm cast of characters—Cecilia acts as Charlie’s parent a job she takes on with love and apparent relish and Charlie willingly hands over his tutoring revenue to help pay bills and saves the rest. Other standouts include the fiercely loyal Jalen and Zoey the coach’s daughter. The author imbues the novel with a winning positivity as Charlie fights to maintain “poise” (a lesson from his father) and looks for the best in both people and unpleasant circumstances.

This ranking of hockey greats—another in a series by sports news outfit The Athletic—is entertaining and aggravating as any list of its kind should be. It’s essentially a contest for second place. The authors called this “our NHL 99 project.” That’s Wayne Gretzky’s jersey number. He’s the no-brainer pick for the top player in hockey’s “modern era” which began with NHL expansion in 1967. It’s a timeframe that results in major gaps. Gordie Howe who scored more goals than all but two players while playing into the 1980s is excluded because his finest seasons were pre-’67. This is like omitting Charlie Chaplin from a list of great filmmakers because his best movies weren’t talkies. Surely there’s a way to grandfather in an all-timer who played until he was a grandfather. Each player who made the cut gets a chapter by an Athletic writer. The sharpest of these show that certain players weren’t just successful—they changed how hockey is played and perceived. After Stan Mikita used a bent stick blade to put unusual movement on his shots other players followed; goalkeepers complained and the NHL made a consequential rule change. Börje Salming and Jari Kurri a Swede and a Finn respectively withstood what Gretzky calls “extra hacks and whacks” disproving the myth that Europeans couldn’t hang with rugged Canadians. Solid essays on Tony Esposito and Patrick Roy trace developments in goalkeeping techniques and equipment. Several chapters are awash in cliched prose and unenlightening quotes but a few mindful that this isn’t a high-stakes endeavor find spots for irreverence. Chris Pronger apparently annoyed that he’s 35th on the list swears at The Athletic reporter bearing the news. In retirement the combative defenseman worked in the NHL’s player safety office—“the hockey equivalent of a hacker hired to lead operations for a digital security company.”

Letters sent home to family members from someone far away can provide great insights into how immigrants adapt to a new country or culture. British historian Das’ book uses these and other documents to tell the stories of how immigrants to England in the 16th and 17th centuries found their new homes and how those leaving England encountered their own new worlds. This often charming and insightful collection takes on both serious and mundane issues: Bring “two little wooden dishes to make up half pounds of butter” a Flemish hatmaker writes to his wife as she prepares to join her husband in London. The English he tells her use “all pigs fat.” About 30000 of the hatmaker’s fellow Protestants across Europe joined him in England during this period driven by “forces of confession conquest and commerce over which they had little control.” These displaced persons moved into the unknown sustained by hope that “the future however uncertain was still worth moving towards” and that perhaps among the lard there might be a pat of butter. On the flip side those receiving the displaced persons are also in a state of “unknowing” a destabilizing feeling that can bring with it hostility suspicion and fear. Sometimes the presence of the “mobile stranger” is seen as a threat to a community or nation. “In such cases” the author writes “mobility becomes not a vector of hope but a trigger for violence.” For example a brief but violent riot on Easter Sunday in 1517 was sparked by a sermon condemning the “aliens and strangers” who “eate the bread from the poore fatherless children.” Meanwhile English Catholics no longer at home in England were fleeing in opposite directions—some to other European countries some to American colonies. As for any parallels to our time Das writes that the stories she includes “are not instruction manuals for the present….All they reveal is that these questions are neither new nor settled.”

In 2013 McPheely cofounded Base an executive assistant company she ran as CEO for more than a decade. The business succeeded well beyond her initial dreams but she also struggled to balance increased work demands with helping her husband raise their three kids. And while she kept telling herself the overburdened work hours were “only a season” the season never seemed to end. The sweet spot of work-life balance “was always in sight but never truly within reach.” In this handbook for the professionally exhausted McPheely draws on her own mistakes as well as solutions she discovered through experience in maintaining a high-performance leadership position without burning out. Divided into three parts the book begins by emphasizing that the way Americans work is an inherited system that “has been running largely unquestioned for over two hundred years.” While the Protestant work ethic certainly fosters an innovate gritty approach to work it also has instilled into Americans the idea that work is more than just a mere economic tradeoff. Reflecting on this culturally ingrained work ethic the author notes her previously held belief that hard work was also a signal of virtue and of the strength of her character. She therefore took on unmanageable workloads not only for the good of her company but because of an internalized notion that avoiding work would reflect negatively on who she was as both a CEO and a person. Part two offers a theoretical framework for work comparing it to the respiratory cycle. Like breathing per the analogy work should follow a rhythmic flow where we take in tasks but also experience the relief of completing them or letting them go. Unfortunately too many workers are stuck on the inhale phase as they continue to take in more without letting anything go. According to the author we need to stop and either hold our breath (focusing all our undivided attention on the most important tasks at hand) or exhale recognizing the time to move one when something is finished or is no longer best served by our involvement. The final section offers a new systematic framework for approaching what work to take on that is built around five principles that include identifying trusted support maintaining clear rhythms and fostering intentional systems and thoughtful use of technology.

A personal work that blends personal anecdotes from McPheely’s own experiences as a high-stakes business leader with pragmatic advice the volume ends with an impressive array of what it calls “Practical Tools for the Exhale.” These include self-assessments to gauge if an unforeseen work problem is “catastrophic” that needs immediate time and attention or if it’s something that can wait advice on how to audit one’s personal calendar and prompts for personal reflection. Its engaging informative writing style is accompanied by ample illustrations diagrams and charts. At less than 200 pages the book offers a concise informational narrative that makes for a relaxed read—ideal for its audience of overstrained workaholics­—and makes a compelling argument against embracing a form of workplace endurance that takes on more work than any single person should have.

Meet Theia! Named after the “extremely extraordinary” Greek goddess of light the chipper orange planet recounts the origins of the solar system. Back then Earth was “a great big fiery ball of molten rock” much like Theia. In fact the two quickly became “besties”…until the momentous day when Theia caught in Earth’s gravity helplessly crashed into her BFF and was obliterated. Most of Theia was swallowed up by Earth “but the rest of me was catapulted into space along with the broken pieces of Earth” to become—the moon! Theia’s collision tipped Earth’s axis (“Sometimes one part of Earth leans toward the sun getting more light and warmth. That’s what you humans call summer!”) resulting in the four seasons. The seasons enthusiastically introduce themselves as Theia explains how Earth developed life. A concise summary a list of “Space Facts” information on the discovery of Theia and a list of “Big Questions Scientists Are Still Asking” conclude this dynamic epic. An exuberant tone enlivens this thorough accessible introduction: Sassy personable Theia refers to her namesake deity as a “proper butt-kicking goddess” and dubs herself the “super-awesome lost planet of the solar system.” With cinematic flair the narrative zips along its abundant art dominated by hot red oranges set against cool blues. Though the personified astronomical bodies wear smiling faces the science is otherwise accurate.

Fans of The Last of Us will find much to like in this tale of dystopian deprivation in which a woman named May and her 10-year-old child Davis who has high support needs are hunkered down in a Connecticut library eating canned beans and stale crackers after a massive outbreak of the White Lung virus decimated the population and caused infrastructure breakdowns. May addresses her husband Pat who left his family when Davis was still a toddler. “I thought you were coming Pat. I know you only said you’d try and I also know better. But I kept hoping" she says worn out from foraging for scarce supplies and exhausted from coping with Davis' unpredictable and often incomprehensible behaviors. As time passes May finds it more and more difficult to know definitively who might be a member of a group like the Ghosts vigilantes commandeering old school buses as their headquarters. Even after a rough-edged man calling himself Bird prods May into trying to reach a community called Beacon Village she remains wary as Bird attempts to coax Davis out of his well-loved routines: “He's got to learn” Bird says taking the boy out to gather firewood. Once the ragtag trio encounters a Beacon Village scouting group at an abandoned hotel May faces Holly a community Warden who feels Davis has been indulged. “There is no path forward where he does not endanger us” she says without a flicker of sympathy. Author Maupin is excellent at describing post-event workarounds like May discovering an unopened jar of peanut butter or Bird finding a bunch of wrapped tampons. Some of the late plot twists feel as frantic as Holly’s attempts to maintain hierarchy. However Maupin shows the deep bond a mother has to create in parenting a neurodiverse child as well as how far that mother has to go to both protect and nurture the child. Davis may have limited verbal ability but he's fully human capable of connection and eminently worth saving.

Austen’s invitation to afternoon tea at Chawton Cottage—in the form of a handwritten note—implores the recipient to “come with an open mind and a readiness to engage in a few puzzles ciphers and mysteries.” At tea Austen explains that since you have “no ties to our tangled social circles” she can trust you to discover the truth. She provides a questionnaire to assess your sleuthing style eight puzzles labeled “Teacup Mystery” as warm-ups and advice for solving the 24 short mysteries that follow. There are six each for Pride and Prejudice Sense and Sensibility Emma and Persuasion. In each of these small dramas something has gone awry and the mishap must be sorted out through the application of logic. The authors introduce particulars of Regency life as clues for solving each mystery for example listing popular dance tunes or the contents of reticules. This content makes for an entertaining introduction to Austen’s best-known characters and closely observed world although neither Austen nor her body of work are introduced separately from the narrative which may limit engagement among readers who are unfamiliar with her. Some solutions appear upside down in the text following the warning “spoilers ahead” while an answer key for other puzzles appears at the end.

As in Spartacus (2013) and Pontius Pilate (2017) Schiavone concisely depicts a figure “hidden in shadow” but “connected to crucial events in Roman history.” Challenging some modern historians and ancient sources poisoned by prejudice against an ambitious non-Roman woman he insists on Cleopatra’s substantial intellectual and strategic impact on Antony especially. He takes as keys to understanding this complex personality her relations with Julius Caesar and her vision of an Alexander-inspired empire to rule. The queen’s story is inextricably intertwined with Rome’s history and much of the book is devoted to Caesar and Antony’s complicated military and political maneuvers. Inevitably despite Schiavone’s efforts to make the most of few sources the men take center stage. Although he provides extensive source notes he still must conjecture and speculate on much but he does so persuasively. For instance writing of Cleopatra that she “sensed” a situation he makes a good case for the thoughts and motives he projects onto her. Schiavone blames Antony’s military failures entirely on his “ineptitude as a strategist” detailing the Roman’s indecision poor planning and military and political blunders while exonerating Cleopatra from the Actium debacle. The author’s style retains its formal flair: He observes of Caesar and Cleopatra that “The hummings of the heart were always subordinated in both of them to the logic of ambition and power—or rather to the projection of the self into the space and time of the immortal.” The multiple power-hungry Ptolemies the many figures of the republic-to-imperium transition and the intricate military maneuvers risk occasionally losing lay readers though overall the picture is clear. Schiavone’s stated aim “combining powerful interpretation with the joy of storytelling” largely succeeds.

Fia Ives’ magic is “rather fickle” and ever since her mother’s death their spellshop has gone quiet much like Fia’s life. Until the night she breaks into the Thistledown archives seeking a spell strong enough to lead her to her mother’s missing spellbook. Unfortunately Fia is accused of stealing a powerful grimoire from the archives and using it to unleash curses all over town. Needing time to clear her name she advertises for a helper at the shop and Penbrook a cursed young man around her age from the wealthy Madbury family applies. Thanks to magician Penbrook’s presence the spellshop draws in customers—and Fia doesn’t feel alone anymore. But she’s determined to find the grimoire and use it both to prove her innocence and save Penbrook from his curse. Along the way Fia discovers that people aren’t always who they seem and sometimes ordinary moments are the most magical. This beautifully written coming-of-age story with leads who are cued white poignantly explores loss and self-discovery. Quirky lovable Fia is filled with grit and determination while handsome Penbrook is clever and amusing; their relationship will steal hearts. The quick pacing and intricate narrative puzzle with its web of connections will keep readers turning pages.

Noor pats her drum—“TAP! TAP! TAP!”—as “she sits and waits for a familiar sound to ring in the night.” Soon “GONG! GONG! GONG!” It’s the Storyteller calling Noor and her neighbors to gather. “Night after night” Noor perches at his feet as the Storyteller entrances crowds with his “colorful characters” and tales weaving “proverbs and funny riddles.” One night Noor “pats out a tune. TAP! TAP! TAP!” She unspools a folktale of her own her whispering voice a beacon to her growing crowd. Like the practiced Storyteller young Noor animates lively tales of “majestic animals and characters in sparkling clothes” as she joyfully conveys a captivating tale rivaling the griot’s. Giles’ marvelously detailed and expressive illustrations of both animals and humans who all have dark brown skin curve and sprawl across spreads of elaborately layered digital collages of printed paper and textiles reminiscent of Ekua Holmes’ textured work. Cool jewel tones pop against the nighttime setting while stylized and symbolic art elements capture the excitement place and magical possibilities of this tale. Share alongside Evan Turk’s The Storyteller (2016) with drum taps to draw a storytime crowd of your own.

Since 1932 finds her employers—author Agatha Christie and archaeologist Max Mallowan—off on another trip Phyllida the housekeeper at Mallowan Hall is free to respond to an urgent call on behalf of Emily Hartparker whose wedding dress no longer fits properly because her Indian nuptials two months ago to Dr. John Bhatt were swiftly followed by another family development that’s welcome but awkwardly premature. Finding some material to insert in the seams of Emily’s dress calms the newlywed’s fears and prepares her for the obligatory English ceremony which goes off without a hitch despite the presence of actor Heath Blanton the great-nephew of Emily’s widowed aunt Lady Artemis Coatesworth along with both Lily Wentworth and Tibby Blanton Heath’s first and second wives. It’s not until several hours after the final vows that Lily’s beau overbearing Lincoln Yates is clubbed to death by a candlestick in the Coatesworth chapel. Serenely confident in her detecting chops Phyllida ignores Scotland Yard’s Inspector Cork and circulates among the guests plying them with questions under the dubious authority of Lady Artemis who’d sighed “If only there’d be a murder that I could investigate!” Though Phyllida’s efforts aren’t enough to prevent a second murder her famous boss kept offstage for most of the story turns up just in time to provide some helpful insights help rescue a third intended victim and announce that one of her own finest whodunits whose title Cambridge’s own broadly hints at will be based on the case.

Confined to desk work and going stir-crazy FBI agent Scarlett Payne thinks she might have finally caught a break when someone claiming to be Santa Claus sends a cryptic riddle to her office and the star atop the tree at Rockefeller Center explodes. When a second letter addressed to Scarlett arrives and threatens the well-being of attendees at New York’s biggest holiday to-do Santa Claus Con she realizes they’re mere days away from a national disaster. Worse still the only person who can help is her former rival—and love interest—Nathan Lambros. Nathan has spent years undercover and is ready to turn in his badge when Scarlett convinces him to attend Santa Claus Con disguised as the big man himself. While Scarlett and Nathan’s romance plays second fiddle to the mystery they’re trying to solve (which is delightfully reminiscent of the Sandra Bullock movie Miss Congeniality) the chemistry between them is undeniable. Flashback scenes are interspersed throughout helping to flesh out their relationship and clue readers in on what drove them apart in the first place. Scarlett and Nathan might both claim to hate Christmas but the holiday cheer is unavoidable and begins to rub off on them as old feelings are rekindled as the agents work together to catch the Santa Claus Con culprit before they strike again. Scarlett and Nathan’s interplay is particularly delightful driving home the point that sometimes absence really does make the heart grow fonder. Jessen’s writing gets stronger with every novel and this time she’s created a charming romance that can be read at any time of year despite its wintry setting.

Rajan presents her subject as someone who loved to race—not only with her feet about the streets of her village in southern India but in her mind too as she solved her older brother’s division homework at age 3 and counted while watching her Amma (mother) flip and fold savory dosas for lunch “111 times!” After she proved at age 6 that she could remember the order of a shuffled deck of cards after one glance her father took her on the road and she went on to perform lightning calculations and feats of memory before crowds across India and beyond. Adding only a bit more detail in an afterword the author lightly sketches out the rest of Devi’s long career as a writer and public figure but highlights the self-confidence that allowed her to shrug off persistent accusations of cheating and also to deny that she was more than just (as she was often dubbed) a “human computer.” That strength of character comes through clearly in Prabhat’s warmly hued illustrations as Devi goes from counting groups of livestock and villagers in childhood (readers are invited to count along) to racing assuredly through increasingly long strings and jumbles of numbers as an adult colorful sari floating behind.

Shalhoub the much-admired character actor may never have had a finer cinematic moment than in the 1996 film Big Night at whose center is the fantastic concoction called the timpano “a monumental labor-intensive deeply ceremonial stuffed pasta.” He doesn’t offer the recipe which belongs to costar/director/writer Stanley Tucci. One of nine siblings clamoring for food in his Green Bay Wisconsin childhood though Shalhoub was plenty well-fed by his mother for whom “food was devotion” and he’s deeply generous with recipes from her kitchen—recipes that alone are worth the price of admission. With that cookbook ranging from perfect pancakes to the green-bean-forward Lebanese dish Loubieh bi Zeit (“I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes your new go-to—a quiet Mediterranean diet workhorse you return to again and again”) come other narratives. One charmingly is his account of annual family reunions in Door County Wisconsin where each person takes turns doing the grunt work of prep and washing but also stars as a chef for a meal “orchestrating a meal for a crowd that ranges in age from toddlers to octogenarians—an army with appetites that expand mysteriously in the presence of communal tables.” (His title comes from the family’s shared playful farewell after a week of “deeply serious and absolutely cutthroat cribbage players” and way too much food.) Along the way Shalhoub offers sometimes arch observations on the art and craft of acting—be warned that one should never cough during one of his stage performances—as well as some pet peeves (don’t put short things on a refrigerator’s tall shelves don’t condone creamed spinach). Minor kvetching aside though his fine book overflows with love of family food and art.

Objectively speaking the British-born director Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) wasn’t a classically beautiful man. What better way for an insecure filmmaker to live out a fantasy of being dashing and debonair than through his leading men especially two universally beloved gents? Such is the premise of this intrepid offering from Segaloff who admits in his introduction to trafficking in a bit of psychological speculation for which any sporting Hitchcock fan should say “Please do.” Segaloff devotes chapters to each of the eight films—four apiece—that Hitchcock made with fellow Brit and avatar of suave Cary Grant (1904–1986) and embodiment of American integrity James Stewart (1908–1997). For each film Segaloff implicitly asks and answers the question “Why Grant?” or “Why Stewart?” and “Why one and not the other?” (For example although Stewart desperately wanted to star in 1959’s North by Northwest Hitchcock gave Grant the job.) The appeal of casting Stewart? “It was this image as the stable Everyman that Alfred Hitchcock employed and exploited” four times. The appeal of casting Grant? He was Cary Grant! There’s definitely content here that finesses the book’s subtitle (“In directing Stewart to romance [Kim] Novak as he had told Grant to romance [Ingrid] Bergman and to romance [Grace] Kelly Hitch was in effect directing his proxies”). But at some point while enjoying Segaloff’s deep dives into the particulars of each picture (source material budget salaries and so on) readers may develop a sneaking suspicion that the book is essentially biographies of eight bang-up Hitchcock productions packaged with short-form bios of their director Grant and Stewart. From this sleight of hand readers suffer not a whit.

Born Sakae Matsu’ura Frank the son of a samurai is highly educated and speaks excellent English when he immigrates to Alaska in 1901. Sensing that his life there is threatened by false suspicions he flees eventually winding up in the frontier town of Okanogan in the middle of Washington state. Frank was introduced to photography back in Japan and his dream is to emulate his idol Alfred Stieglitz who pioneered photography as an art form. To keep body and soul together he does all sorts of menial work always uncomplaining and faces the daily vituperation and humiliation that was inflicted upon many Asian immigrants in that time and place. Before leaving Japan Frank was diagnosed with consumption; he breaks his resolve to remain unpartnered when the beautiful and wise Noriko—the woman he was betrothed to back in Japan until he broke it off when he got the diagnosis—arrives in town: “having seen Noriko again a woman I had once promised to marry I felt my solitude like a knife in my ribs.” After many setbacks Frank finally establishes himself in Okanogan as a successful photographer. Noriko observes that as a portrait photographer he is better—more sensitive and penetrating—than the revered Stieglitz. The consumption finally claims Frank a man who never quite realized his own impact and worth in 1913. Frank emerges from the narrative as a total human being—intelligent wise humorous and above all principled. He’s always strenuously wrestling with his conscience trying for example to reconcile his Christian faith with his service in the Sino-Japanese War. In an appended note Sato explains how the book came to be and reveals facts about the real Frank Matsura. While the author notes that Noriko is a fictional character he admits that after Frank she is his favorite and readers will likely feel the same as she returns to Frank’s life as his godsend of a lover.

Plagued by guilt over her friend Nami’s death Adia is determined to resurrect him. Balancing her responsibilities at the Academy of Shamans with being an outsider among the “spoiled talentless conceited” students—who have now labeled her “Kelbara the Killer”—is no easy task for an orphan from a lowly background. Adia makes a deal to try to bring Nami back to the realm of the living but she finds that it costs more than she bargained for. As she starts to feel her powers diminishing (and learns from Headmaster Mbari that the gods are struggling too) Adia uncovers more mysteries about her family and her homeland the Swamplands of Zaria. Topping it all off she meets with a huge obstacle in the form of Liam the recently imprisoned brother of her friends Mimi and Rusty who’s missing part of his soul. Will she be able to travel through realms to save Nami as well as her magic and that of the Alusi guardian gods? Or will Adia finally succumb to perils and powers stronger than she is? Hendrix delivers with this instalment bringing gripping plotlines and fast pacing that will keep readers glued to the pages as they follow Adia on her race against the clock. Themes of familial tension friendship betrayal identity sacrifice and spirituality are threaded throughout.

In Bethington Ohio “boys will be boys” is the rule of law. Ava Germaine learned that quickly. After publicly calling out the blatant misogyny she witnessed she was silenced in a cruel humiliating attack that she doesn’t remember—though two of her classmates do. Now an outcast she spends her free time working alongside the gruff enigmatic Widow Zedeker at Restoration Acres a wildlife refuge where she’s regularly reminded of nature’s harsh side. Micah Harding the sheriff’s son was there the night of the attack but he can’t decide what to do with his guilt and shame; acting on it would lead to scrutiny of his own behavior. Hailey Wagner—pretty conniving and dirt-poor—is willing to do anything to suppress the truth that threatens her relationship with her rich boyfriend Ethan Brimley. Meanwhile strange events begin to occur at Restoration Acres: Ava discovers a mysterious egg at the preserve and feels compelled to nurture it unaware that whatever is growing inside has been waiting a very long time to appear. Alternating viewpoints build suspense while showcasing three distinct sharply observant voices each grappling with the sexism misogyny and class tensions that define Bethington. The mounting tension pays off in a grisly explosive finale. The predominantly white-cued cast underscores the book’s focus on systems of power that flourish in insular small towns.

After he’s framed for the theft of the Scroll of Heaven Li Jun along with his former Iron Core school rival Yin Yue and the two Eastern Aspects Water and Lure vow to recover it and prevent a war between East and West Longhan. As they follow the thief’s trail Jun experiences the reality of existing in the shadow of his identical twin Sai who’s now the respected High Keeper and Guardian of the Scroll of Earth. Jun’s introspection is grounding and realistic as he analyzes his failures as Guardian his struggles with emotional maturity and his sense of self-worth—in contrast to his brother’s success. While the plot is fairly straightforward the explorations of destiny true strength and the power of using one’s voice to persuade others are gripping. Similarly the depiction of competing ideologies which could bring about a devastating war between the East and West or conversely a peaceful reunification is humanized through the twins and older adult characters General Cobu and Tether. The romance plotline takes a backseat to a focus on Jun’s bond with Sai as well as his friendships with Yin Yue and Ren for whom he still harbors tender feelings. If the wrap-up is a bit too tidy returning fans will nevertheless be pleased.

Edited by Fort this compendium of writings by and about Nobel Prize winner Ernaux combines what Ernaux calls “autosociobiography” with thoughtful responses to her work by academics translators directors actors and critics. Previously unpublished journal entries reveal her reflections on writing and family success and fear of failure. “After each success” she admits feeling “overcome by deep disgust exhausted to the point of tears.” Love sex and death recur as themes: She calls her mother’s death “the first great sorrow of my life.” Confronting her own mortality when she was diagnosed with breast cancer she writes that death “has always been present in my life the bombings tetanus when I was five finding out about my sister’s death the moles removed when I was sixteen during the summer that I thought were cancerous two bloody holes dark around the edges on these breasts now under threat.” Several pieces including a few interviews consider particular books or the development of her craft. Writing for her “is a slow searching a desire to grasp and understand reality and also to bear witness.” Travel is one way to bear witness and her travel journals show her to be an acerbic cultural critic. America’s “ideology in all its violence and falseness…is the mirror image of the USSR.” In Romania she feels despondent surrounded by American consumerism—Coca-Cola and Marlboro ads. Although growing up she longed to travel in Korea she admits “exoticism wears me out.” Ernaux’s varied pieces serve as ample evidence of her power as a writer: “I want my words to be like stains mute and heavy that we can never manage to tear ourselves away from.” Illustrated with photographs and drawings.