After five happy years of marriage Eliza Talbot suddenly becomes a widow in her 30s. She’s coerced into therapy by Virginia her annoyingly impeccable mother-in-law. Eliza becomes increasingly vexed by Virginia’s meddlesome antics which include uninvited appearances at the cottage that Eliza shared with her deceased husband Joseph in the village of Dunsbury England. She’s also irritated by Virginia’s self-appointed role as makeover coordinator for Joseph’s rose garden. The unsavory contributions of the Casserole Brigade headed by nosy neighbor Mrs. Clark intensify Eliza’s frustration—and complicate her digestion. Her therapist Dr. Joyce seems just as unhelpful when she advises her to write letters addressed to Joseph. But soon Eliza writes: “Since you died I have become a collector of platitudes.” She manages her animosity toward everyone in her life through an imagined connection with Hilda a spider and her actual friendship with Eleanor a fellow support-group dropout. As Eliza’s “Dear Dead Husband” letters accumulate she moves toward reconciliation with her high school best friend Caz and a possible romance with Eleanor’s adult son David. Although the cause of Eliza’s sudden character growth toward the end of Young’s novel remains ambiguous her achievement of emotional equilibrium is effectively foreshadowed in her letters’ evolving language: “No one wants witnesses when they’re gathering the sad pathetic remains of their life off a heap on the floor. That is private.” Eliza’s pursuit of self-reliance as she struggles to evade Virginia and the Casserole Brigade makes for a rapid page-turner. While a few awkwardly coined polysyllabic words (platitudiest fakeiarrhea Halloweenafication) slacken the pace the upbeat humorous tone promises a satisfying conclusion.

The collection opens with “And Her Name Was Ralph” a story about a person whose name and life subvert gender roles: By the age of 10 the titular protagonist is helping her farming family by operating plows and harvest machines. At 18 she meets a city boy named Alford—known as Six—and during their first conversation over a motorcycle she decides she will marry him. At 20 during World War I she feels rage at a recruitment sign that reads “BE A MAN AND DO IT. UNITED STATES NAVY RECRUITING STATION.” She wants to enlist and becomes a worker at a munitions factory. Soon after Ralph and Six return home from their wartime activities they wed. The one thing she can’t seem to subvert is her inability to conceive. One day to Six’s shock she comes home with a baby from the Salvation Army’s home for unwed mothers bringing the child Faye into their lives without discussion. Years later during World War II Six prepares to enlist with Ralph’s support only to discover a painful sore beneath his tongue. He has cancer; three months later he’s dead. The story continues to explore Ralph’s life beyond grief but rather than leading to a sharp twist or discovery the work chronicles Ralph’s acceptance of a life well lived. Eventually she lies down “satisfied with her thoughts” and passes away in her sleep. That same straightforward clarity shapes the collection’s darker looks at humanity. “The Hero” opens with the line “I killed someone then lied about it to everyone.” The unnamed narrator an investigator hunts a 19-year-old criminal Darrell “Skatch” Mangrum who’s participated in a wave of robberies of Virginia tourist shops. After a confrontation the narrator mistakes a hairbrush for a gun and shoots Darrell. The guilt costs him his career—he drinks himself out of a job—and his marriage. He attempts to take his life after his ex-wife calls to say she’s getting remarried and he survives a hospital stay. A later twist reframes the killing within larger events and while the story nods toward redemption and acceptance at the end the narrator pays a karmic cost.

In other stories a divorced father reconnects with a woman from his study abroad years in Italy and a workaholic doctor is consumed by a mysterious years-long chemistry project hidden in his basement lab. The subjects have no connection aside from the universal truth that the characters are all bound by life itself. This universality creates depth but it’s the crunchy prose that creates the satisfying tension (“I prefer the company of dogs over humans. I’m not saying dogs are perfect but let’s face it we humans have a long way to go”). The various narrators throughout the collection personalize each story with varieties of dry wittiness: “She reasoned her version of the truth was like taffy—it could be stretched and pulled in either direction but it was still taffy in the end.” That logic characterizes the collection as a whole; it’s elastic engaging and honestly reckons with humanity’s flaws distortions and charm.

In a small mountain town in Georgia Harold Jeffers—best known among the drunks and delinquents as “Moogie the Shark”—makes a living loaning money to “deadbeat borrowers” who “wouldn’t be let in the back door of a bank.” Being the brains behind the operation Moogie employs carefully selected muscle: young men with no past or future willing to force borrowers to pay up by any means necessary. Moogie and his team abide by some simple rules (“If you follow them you’ll be fine. If you don’t well I’m sure your parents will miss you especially since they’ll never know where you went and why you didn’t say goodbye”): look out for one another and stay silent about what goes on now and forever. When Bud Boyer Moogie’s newest protégé falls hard and fast for the police chief’s daughter those rules are tested beyond any limit the team is prepared for. Rothman writes with bracing intention and conviction. His knowledge of the subject matter—the novel is half crime thriller half legal drama—is thorough and it is clear from the way each chapter seamlessly blends into the next that he knows exactly where each character plot point and storyline will eventually end up. The characters are both objectionable and lovable; with names like Moogie Malone Bud and Biggers they may initially sound like types from any generic mob drama but they prove to be complex and captivating and readers will likely find themselves rooting for them every step of the way as they pursue their questionable goals. The author has crafted a swift and seductive tale that will delight any fan of mobster stories.

A man facing divorce in the American South suffers a tragedy when his son dies by suicide. Rocked by the death and the dissolution of his marriage he decides to travel to exotic locales around the globe. It’s unclear what his name is but some details suggest his character especially memories of an old friend named Berry. The story grows weirder (possibly involving shape-shifters) as the protagonist travels further both inwardly and outwardly. The man has a relative’s trunk containing a journal or some sort of travel writing describing the relative’s time in Istanbul (when it was still called Constantinople); in this relative’s story the narrator finds some kind of solace. (A sample of the syntax: “When I begin to decipher what I found in the relation’s trunk what slowly began to replace the child.”) It’s clear the man likes being a southerner (“What Southerner won’t dream of warm sun in December?”) and the text does include some brief moments of lucidity but the overwhelming majority of the writing is inscrutable: “We no longer wore masks and our visitation relaxed I glad the company the weather making ME think of global ice-cream visita a porch what was a porch I knew she wanted to ask vista visits mister?” There may be something of a story somewhere in the book but Singletary has cloaked it in so much incoherent blather that it is impossible to find. There’s certainly a great deal of energy in the writing the frenzied and experimental formatting is unique and there’s definitely no other book around quite like this one. Even so reading this requires too much effort and offers little reward and it is unkind to ask readers to attempt it.

Rockefeller Center archivist Roussel is well situated to explore the famous photograph “Lunch on a Beam” as a work of art a work of commerce and as strategic impassioned propaganda. On September 20 1932 a photo was taken of 11 ironworkers on an I-beam smoking talking and eating 850 feet above Rockefeller Center with New York City spread out below. Also known as Lunch Atop a Skyscraper the photo first ran in the New York Herald Tribune. Roussel feels it is “among the most famous photographs ever made.” The center was designed by a committee of architects and financed by John D. Rockefeller Jr. at 30 Rockefeller Plaza on Sixth Avenue. In the spring of 1930 during the Depression buildings were purchased and torn down providing work for thousands. In January 1932 construction of the RCA Building began. When the building had a topping-out ceremony in September 1932 many photos were taken including the famous choreographed beam photo by Roussel conjectures photographer Charlie Ebbets. Rockefeller liked the idea of art and decoration in the center especially sculptures and murals done by outstanding artists. It would reflect his own social and spiritual values. An exception was a mural by Diego Rivera featuring Lenin which was destroyed. The author describes dangerous jobs undertaken by workers especially the ironworkers who molded 75000 tons of structural steel. Some fell to their deaths. Roussell reveals that another photo was taken with the 11 men holding out their hats. She details her extensive research trying to identify the men including insightful profiles of a number of mostly immigrant Mohawk and Kahnawake ironworkers and interviews with relatives who provide enticing information. Sadly she notes Black workers are missing from the story because unions did not admit them.

Reporters are always on the hunt for a good story even while on vacation. Dallas TV journalist Vicky Robeson is ostensibly on a two-week break in California but thoughts of work are never far behind. Recently promoted to news director she’s waiting to hear from the higher-ups about her proposed budget which is coming in the face of network cuts. When she visits Bakersfield her ulterior motive for her holiday is to find out if her sister is still alive. They were separated during a California wildfire when they were very young and their parents perished—Vicky never knew if her sibling survived. (“She’d never found anyone who knew any details about her parents. Or her younger sister. But she’d kept looking kept following up on leads however unlikely they might be.”) Working with Susan Winslow who singlehandedly runs a newspaper in the town of Isabella and her teenage niece Chrissy Vicky finds her search complicated by a reunion with Pete Harris her former flame. This would be a lot for anyone to take on but Vicky remains determined and focused even as she navigates the complex emotional terrain of dealing with her ex-boyfriend and the possibility of reuniting with the sister she hasn’t seen in decades. When the trail leads to the gates of The Colony an insular fundamentalist compound located in the middle of a national forest and presided over by the ruthless and violent Richard Hart Vicky’s investigation takes a dangerous turn. The novel lays out its twisty plot cleanly and efficiently though the revelations are somewhat muted. Moving along at an engaging clip the narrative tends to favor plot over characterization. Readers may feel like the complexities and complications of family work religion and relationships are waiting to be explored more deeply.

In Yangon Myanmar a country ripped apart by a coup 12-year-old Vika is arrested alongside his father for the crime of sharing poetry. News of Vika’s arrest reaches Kae Zhang the fearless founder of the Geneva-based human rights organization Article 5. Kae and her diverse team of driven workers each with personal experience of global displacement and discrimination set to work on the tricky logistics of getting Kae into Myanmar to negotiate Vika’s release. With the help of her mentor the crusty and brazen Reinhardt Allen Kae and her number two Anan set off for Thailand where they begin a dangerous journey across the border into Myanmar. Reinhardt engages a trusted guide named Champo and secures a meeting with a colonel who may be willing to negotiate—but only on his terms. As Kae moves through a shifting landscape of dangerous jungles decimated villages and unjust courts Vika’s freedom seems to move ever further out of reach. Enemies soon appear on all sides—even back in Geneva where the rest of the Article 5 team members start to feel the reverberations of their dangerous fight for the young boy’s life. Lovett and Schultz map familiar espionage tropes onto well-rendered real-world struggles; realistic fights for dignity and justice drive the action. The authors’ depictions of Myanmar—and of the terror imposed by its military rulers—feel both chilling and authentic beginning with the assault on Vika’s shop where “terror lingered in the air an acrid burning smell.” Kae is an admirable hero with a compelling balance of impressive credentials and relatable insecurity. (She displays plenty of wit as well: “I just channel my inner Sisyphus” she says to explain her perseverance.) The cast of secondary characters at Article 5 is equally engaging; the team members are distinguished by vivid personalities and layered backstories. The shared histories and subtle shorthand between them hint at a whole world of fascinating previous adventures and ones to come as the series progresses.

He has no idea where his brother Sidney Bosco has gone—with Kilt’s share of stolen money—and following his “rebirth” even more miseries await Kilt who’s mauled by a lion. Passed out on his wandering mule he’s found by Bonnie Grace a 13-year-old Indigenous girl who nurses him back to health when not being brutally abused by the owner of the cabin in which she’s staying. Kilt rescues her from her circumstances but not before taking care of her abuser with his ever-active Luger which along with a copy of Moby-Dick is his prime possession. Flash back to 1912 Minnesota where Benjamin a sweet but passive 10-year-old who quit school after second grade cleans a barroom in exchange for a place to sleep—until he’s trained by a charismatic bank robber Nick Mercy as his getaway driver. Before fate catches up to Mercy he mysteriously urges Benjamin to head to Black Elk Montana where there are “nothing but answers” waiting for him at the Triple Nine Ranch. Its high-minded owner Royal Wainwright proves to know all about Benjamin. The promised answers are about the boy’s mother (who recently killed herself) the father he never knew and his never-seen half brother. Partly told in retrospect by the aged Bonnie this is a raw biblically heated tale about generational trauma the possibilities of redemption and predetermined fate. With its parade of blood-spattered victims its philosophical ponderings (“things evolve solely for the outcome of their own destruction”) and fiercely lyrical depictions of the American West (“the limbs of ponderosa bejeweled and frosted like enormous sticks of rock candy”) this is country noir at its grimmest while at the same time channeling hope. Its intensity never lets up.

Mina Murray lives with her yoga teacher mother in London Georgia a touristy town built around an impressive mythology of vampires human sacrifice and a snake-filled lake. With best friend Jackie Seward she creates the Lore Club to investigate London’s idiosyncrasies. The club members discover a pattern of sinkholes appearing before people go missing. Mina awakens the morning after a new sinkhole opens up with a strange bite mark on her wrist. When the body of a local resident is found drained of blood and classmate Buddy Swales goes missing the Lore Club plus Mina’s love interest Jonathan Harker must uncover London’s secrets in time to save Buddy—and the town itself. Mina has OCD and is adopted; she grapples with and explores both aspects of her identity through therapy and in her relationships with family and friends. Unfortunately the pacing in Dale’s young readers’ debut is sluggish throughout the first two-thirds making the later more exciting chapters feel rushed. The romance between Mina and Jonathan smolders and the plot threads are satisfyingly wrapped up although the ending hints at more adventures. An obvious nod to Bram Stoker’s seminal work this novel has engaging facets but falters thanks to uneven execution. Jackie is Black and Indian American and has ADHD and white-presenting Mina’s friend group is broadly diverse.

It may seem an impossible task to convince white Southerners living in poverty—without adequate health care or affordable housing—that they benefit from white privilege but Howard has spent a lifetime challenging entrenched fallacies and formidable foes. A lifelong activist and professional community organizer Howard feels a deep connection with the working poor the chemically addicted and the chronically ill because she writes “I am a working-class white Appalachian.” This compassionately told memoir traces the author’s trajectory from a chaotic childhood in a struggling working-class family in rural Kentucky to a career spent fighting for racial and social change in leadership roles with community organizing groups. The story is most vivid in her account of growing up on her grandparents’ tobacco farm with a mother who worked as a grocery clerk and a father who was a strip miner with weaknesses for alcohol and cocaine. He could turn violent on a dime. “Seeing men with guns in their hands was as common as seeing the sun rise and set each day” Howard writes. “It was just another way we marked time.” But her father had a keen mind was a voracious reader and had strong liberal leanings which informed Howard’s moral compass. She was in the seventh grade when she led her first protest against a school lunchroom monitor who refused students refills of water. Howard’s career took her to Florida West Virginia and back to Kentucky with various organizations and along the way she risked repeating family history by drinking herself into oblivion. A mental health treatment program and AA helped save her from depression after her father’s death.

The Margini can’t afford the fees required for them to become apprentices in one of the guilds that dictate access to skilled work and education in the city. When clockmaker Maestro Giuseppi who refuses to join a guild arrives in town with his daughter Stella Vale at last has the opportunity to learn a trade. But violence against the guildless grows until the only option is for Vale and their community to begin fighting back. The community of the Margini is aspirational and supportive full of aid amid their hardship. But the story while providing a worthwhile lesson in the importance of organizing lacks engaging character development. Vale and Stella form a fast friendship but readers learn little about them beyond their desire to fight for what’s right. The world of Siannerra remains a highlight however: It’s rich lived-in plausible and filled with culture. Bi’s artwork is detailed vibrant and immensely visually appealing. Seeing the ways in which the underclass gets by an element that’s often forgotten in fantasy stories is worthwhile. Vale is nonbinary and has light brown skin and a mop of black hair with an undercut. Stella is pale-skinned and freckled with red hair. The supporting cast is diverse in appearance.

Professors Amelia Tarrant and Caleb Sterling have been soulmates since they met as children at boarding school—he an orphan she the neglected child of indifferent academics. They grew up together and became historians together. But double standards plague even the zany magical universe they inhabit and a stray moment of platonic touching sets tongues wagging. With Amelia’s job always at risk in a sexist academic environment she and Caleb decided to act like enemies so no one realizes the strength of their attachment. Pretending to hate each other is wearing on them however and the magical disruptions that accompany their “spats” increase when they’re assigned to visit a country house to catalog antique enchanted objects. Accompanied by a giggly secretary and a hulking security officer Amelia and Caleb try to discover why artifacts keep disappearing and what precise power lies in the ordinary-looking spoon that keeps appearing in Amelia’s vicinity. As in Holton’s earlier novels set in a fantastical 19th-century Britain the book is replete with Oscar Wilde- and Alexander Pope–style irony and goofball scenes with comic characters in a faux-gothic setting. This is also a satire of university culture highlighting the emotional and professional labor forced on women in academia who are mocked for being both too competent to be likable and too feminine for true intellectual work. The dual points of view Caleb’s consistent support for Amelia and a secret society of exasperated older women all help counter some of the bitterness of that inequality. The couple’s abiding love and their fake fighting complicates the usual enemies-to-lovers narrative and might appeal to fans of Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry. There’s no explicit sex but some passages are steamy enough to show that even professional thinkers do more than lecture.

Set in 2014 the story begins in Marquette Michigan after a small meteor falls to Earth. When advertising exec Carole Veilleux—unknowingly infected by a tick days earlier—bites bakery owner Booker she begins a chain reaction that spreads the strange contamination (the “mind-merge thing”) throughout Marquette and eventually all over the world. Billions of people become part of the hive mind: Booker’s preteen child Layla who wants to transition to a boy; autistic cop Lana Lannister; 61-year-old Jewish doctor Evelyn Schlapp who’s having an affair with her rabbi; and more. Within weeks the people of Marquette were “reindeer herders in Sápmi Scandinavian furries with mixed fursonas. They were the Bajau Darat forced out of the sea to live a sedentary life they were Lego designers Maasai Kazakhs Swiss bankers and snake milkers. They were David Bowie. That was really… cool.” Even hate-filled people like neo-Nazi thug William Willoughby find themselves seeing the world through more compassionate and accepting eyes. Suddenly everyone knows everything about everyone else. Humankind becomes collectively more intelligent more understanding. Months pass and humans make jaw-dropping scientific and societal advances. But what would happen if the hive mind suddenly disappeared and the world’s populace was forced to return to living with only their individual thoughts and limited knowledge? The speculation surrounding the planet’s organisms (humans animals plants etc.) being part of a massive hive mind is intriguing particularly as it deals with issues like racism sexism and systemic discrimination. The potential is there for some brass knuckles-to-the-skull revelations but the payoff is decidedly underwhelming: “The best people could do was to try and make [the world] a tiny bit better.”

Eleanor Newton wasn’t able to be with her grandmother three years ago when she died alone in the hospital during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. The loss lingers especially because Grandma’s ghost appeared to Eleanor soon after her death cryptically declaring “I’m early.” Trapped at home in lockdown and anticipating Grandma’s return Eleanor recalls that “The world outside shrank. The world inside grew to fill the space that remained.” New neighbor Justin Fletcher an 11-year-old from Greenwich who reads Black helps white-presenting Eleanor break out of her shell. One day while visiting a newly uncovered Roman mosaic of Orpheus and Eurydice beneath the London Bridge Tube station Eleanor and Justin are alone when a wall gives way water fills the tunnel and they drown. They find themselves in a forested underworld facing a forked path. Eleanor’s route ends at Eventide House a seemingly idyllic boarding school that’s shrouded in mystery. Her efforts to uncover Eventide’s secrets only lead her deeper into the afterlife’s many-layered strangeness. While the story imagines one child’s encounter with death it also powerfully captures the existential feeling of loss and unreality associated with the pandemic isolation. The dreamlike settings and Eleanor’s expressive narration lend the story a gentleness that makes its challenging premise memorable and emotionally manageable.

Twelve-year-old New Yorker Ria Bailey who has a “not-in-the-picture-at-all British dad” and a Bengali Indian mom is about to start middle school with her best friends Ghanaian immigrant tech genius Miracle Owusu and athletic Irish and Mexican American activist Annie Hernandez. When Ria’s art historian mother a vocal advocate for repatriating looted artefacts is pushed to resign from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Ria faces the prospect of leaving the only home she’s ever known. The plot thickens when a ruby resembling one stolen from the museum arrives at their apartment along with a cryptic message. Worried about Ma’s possible involvement Ria and her friends plot to return the ruby during their school’s annual museum sleepover. But their attempted reverse heist meets with unforeseen complications. They also encounter Zakir a mysterious—and distractingly cute—boy. Before long Ria and friends are racing through the city dodging menacing strangers meeting a tech billionaire and unmasking a long-hidden conspiracy. A brisk pace and well-developed characters enliven this adventure that celebrates the diverse immigrant communities that keep New York thriving; a supporting cast of helpful uncles and aunties from different communities aids the girls in their adventures. DasGupta deftly weaves themes of cultural identity and history into a fun contemporary storyline that explores the impact of colonization and capitalism on the Global South. Some suspension of disbelief is required but the story builds to a satisfying finale.

Meg’s return to Adirondacks Bible Camp in upstate New York comes with much excitement about reuniting with longtime friends Kayla and Nicole and seeing her crush red-haired blue-eyed Danny. But camp also comes with increasing frustration about the rigid rules and strict purity culture expectations set by both her parents and the camp leadership. Her work waiting tables is hard in many ways despite the perk of a room that’s nicer than the campers’ cabins. Though her job often places her in close proximity to Danny she knows that she isn’t supposed to be thinking about romance. Still she can’t seem to help it. As Kayla and Nicole follow their own paths Meg who has black hair and light rosy skin struggles with self-doubt and searches for answers to the complex questions she’s beginning to have about her faith and future. She finds refuge in her love for drawing and texting with Britnee her friend from home who moved away. Meg’s experiences with religion family and self-definition are sympathetically told and well supported by the gentle illustrations and soothing color palette. Engaging flashbacks rendered in monochromatic blue panels add context and depth. This leisurely story creates plenty of space for readers who may be on journeys like Meg’s to ponder and reflect without offering oversimplified answers. The supporting cast is racially diverse.

When she was growing up writes Machado Venezuela regularly held elections with peaceful transfers of power and enjoyed a degree of prosperity greater than many of its Latin American neighbors thanks to abundant oil. That changed when Hugo Chávez came to power in 1999. He “began by focusing on controlling the judicial system” replacing longtime jurists with his lackeys and enriched himself while immiserating his people. The universities were islands of resistance she writes but now “even private universities…have been compromised by the regime.” Despite winning election to Parliament she had to fight to take her place there and when she ran for president she was cheated out of victory by Chávez’s successor Nicolás Maduro. She also won the Nobel Peace Prize (which she later gifted to President Trump who is not mentioned in the book). Machado’s “manifesto” is a brief set of principles most unobjectionable on their face: “Our individual liberty will forever be fully realized within a Venezuelan ecosystem booming with liberty. …The people of Venezuela deserve a duly elected government that maintains the will and capacity to guarantee the safety of every citizen.” She remains out of power for all that Maduro having been kidnapped by the U.S. but with his lieutenant installed in his place. Machado’s book certainly gives insight into her antisocialist views and the agenda that might follow should she in fact take office one day but the book is a bit of a hodgepodge—a chronology a little autobiographical essay the manifesto itself and testimonials by various opponents of the regime—that seems done in a hurry.

Bartov a Brown University professor of Holocaust and genocide studies offers a frank sure-to-be-controversial analysis of Israel’s past and present arguing that the country has “engaged in systematic war crimes crimes against humanity and genocidal actions” in Gaza in response to Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 2023 attack. The native Israeli and Israel Defense Force veteran’s conclusions arise from historical research personal observation and scrutiny of international law. His years in the IDF had him question the role he and other soldiers were playing in Gaza. “I saw firsthand the poverty and hopelessness of Palestinian refugees eking out a living in congested decrepit neighborhoods” he writes. “For the first time I understood what it meant to occupy another people.” Visiting in June 2024 he notes “the utter inability of Israeli society to feel any empathy for the population of Gaza.” He links this to Israel’s earliest days. Had the nation adopted a constitution and “a bill of rights for all human beings” he writes “the creeping racism of Israeli society might have been tempered.” He asserts that the country has “abused” its “status as a unique state rooted in a unique Holocaust” which frees it “from the constraints imposed on all other nations.” Bartov worried that “the exclusion and violent domination of Palestinians” will trigger Israel’s “implosion” means to “contribute to an opening of minds.” Most explosively he claims Israel has become “the best excuse for antisemites everywhere” its “addiction to violence and oppression reliance on great powers and financial clout and constant harping on the horrors of the Holocaust as an excuse for untethered violence against Palestinians” provoking “horror and disgust.” Bartov writes that Israel is “in multiple senses my home and my homeland.” Poignantly however he now feels “increasingly estranged from it. It seems to be a different strange and threatening place whose people including some of my friends have been transformed perhaps irretrievably.”

A conservationist Horn accompanied George Schaller on expeditions to India where “locals still sought his guidance on how to resolve life-or-death conflicts between humans and wildlife—pressed into closer proximity there than anywhere on Earth” and to the Arizona-Mexico border where President Donald Trump’s border wall threatens the region’s jaguars. Horn was not the first to watch Schaller at work: He taught Jane Goodall how to study primates mentored big-cat biologist and writer Alan Rabinowitz and guided Peter Matthiessen across the Himalayas in search of the elusive snow leopard. Yet by Horn’s fluent account Schaller prefers the company of animals to people a preference perhaps born of a fraught early life his father a German diplomat during the years of the Third Reich his mother an American bullied for his mixed parentage throughout his childhood. Horn has a biological explanation: Zoologists recount that play is essential to socialization and Schaller grew up a loner with a deep connection to animals and not people. “Trying to safely navigate a world that fears you…is almost like dropping into another species” she writes. His alienation was science’s gain. Studying animal populations in nearly three dozen countries he contributed immeasurably to our understanding of animal societies and minds (“Lions possessed theory of mind: the ability to inhabit the perspectives and intentions of others and anticipate their responses”). On top of that he was an alpinist of distinction who wrote photographer and mountain climber Galen Rowell “has spent more time in remote Asian mountains than any mountaineer I know.” Now 92 Schaller is of a kind who will not come again Horn argues—for instance in his knowledge of animal signs which has been made obsolete by both technology and the disappearance of so many species.

Wildly prolific in both poetry and prose Pessoa (1888-1935) (The Complete Works of Álvaro de Campos 2023 etc.) wrote pseudonymously as a network of fictional writers and the translation and collation of this multifaceted oeuvre is the subject of a new publishing project by New Directions. In 1928 Pessoa explained that his “heteronymic work is done by the author outside his personality” and compared his varied bibliography to the “sayings of characters in any of his dramas.” This bilingual collection compiles all the work of “Ricardo Reis” a neoclassical Whitman-esque odist in search of transcendental epiphanies. The poems trace a philosophical quest toward recognizing the power of the present and a belief that those who look toward the future (or the afterlife) are doomed to unfulfillment. “Be fully yourself today” he urges in one poem “don’t wait. / You are your life.” Let us be what we are” he writes in another. Despite each poem striving to reach this same sense of enlightenment they rarely feel redundant and instead recapitulate like a recurring motif. Classical imagery courses through imbuing the poems with Dionysian ecstasy. “Happy the man to whom life kindly / Granted a knowledge of the gods” he writes in one poem “So that like them he could see / In the earthly things among which he lives / A mortal reflection of immortal life.” An illuminating section of prose concludes the volume including curious prefaces written by Reis for Alberto Caeiro another of Pessoa’s heteronyms. Here Reis writes of his intentions to usher in a “lucid re-visioning of the gods the rebirth of ancient beliefs which the whole troop of false Christian gods and saints had buried.” In this marvelous introduction to Pessoa’s multitudes readers will find a wealth of material to explore among the subversive paganism of Reis’ odes.