The single-minded Zora Ravenal joined the Crimson Army to destroy her people’s greatest enemy. The Empire doesn’t just threaten the Commonwealth; its biggest figureheads are directly responsible for Zora’s most devastating loss. To take revenge she argues her way into becoming a Knight Mage with the power to protect her loved ones and stand up to the Commonwealth’s most dangerous foes. Unfortunately the trial she willingly subjects herself to doesn’t go as planned and in the aftermath Zora is unexpectedly saddled with custody of her personal nemesis the Royal Mage. Tarantula an assassin with a notorious temper is newly collared to prevent him from using his magic. He blames his predicament on Zora even as he is the only one skilled enough to help her hone her new power. These enemies will need to spend every waking minute in each other’s company then sleep in the same room. The terrible forced proximity forges a twisted new connection closer to mutual obsession than blazing malice. The first installment of Mas’ duology blends fantasy and contemporary storytelling including modern and archaic language a talking animal sidekick and a strange Mist that adversely affects technology. Mas overstuffs the novel with worldbuilding and the pace dithers in the first half. At first Zora and Tarantula’s enemies-to-lovers arc feels juvenile but eventually more compelling emotional layers erupt. Mas holds back her most significant narrative twists until the very end. Those reveals when they finally occur lay the groundwork for a more promising sequel with both of the book’s morally complicated leads on a level playing field as the stakes threaten to become world-ending.

An advent calendar hangs on the wall: “The doors are fun to open. What could it be?” Decorations toys clothes even food. It’s always a surprise. But no matter what’s inside the refrain is the same: “Oh I love traditions with my family!” The first-person narration is mostly a list of the found items with some repetition reminiscent of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The charmingly rustic digital illustrations depict different families diverse in terms of race and type as the days progress along with the items listed in groups of four. The depicted doors are symbolic since most of the presents could never fit inside them (like a baby doll or roller skates). Upon reaching the 24th night the text repeats the entire list with close-up images (perhaps so that very young readers can go back and spot ones they didn’t catch before). “Now all the doors are open and you waited patiently….” At last a pale-skinned Santa arrives bearing gifts on Christmas. The emotional beats of this little book are all ones of joy and wonder while the practical beats center on opening presents (so many in fact that not much patience is required). The book is best used as a game itself spotting all the items in the illustrations along with an elf character hidden in each scene.

Julie wakes one morning to the “BANG / CRASH / BOOOOM” of the Chinese opera “thundering from the TV” while Poh Poh practices her sword dancing. Julie has so many questions. Over egg tarts in Chinatown Poh Poh spins stories of growing up in China where Cantonese opera performers frequented her father’s tea house. When her father stopped paying her school fees—“There’s no use educating a girl. You’ll be married off soon enough”—she found nurturing teachers among the performers. At last she joined them on stage after intensive training with her sword; she recalls how as a performer she could be “commanding brave and bold—things I could not be in my real life.” But bold she was eventually traveling to the other side of the world and escaping the “sky demons dropping bombs.” Safe from war she built a life in Gun San (as many Cantonese people referred to North America) that eventually allowed Julie to “learn to read and write and dance and sing and dream.” Hune-Brown’s upbeat affectionate picture-book debut is rooted in a CBC Radio documentary she made about her grandmother. Lowe’s vibrant illustrations rendered in pencil watercolor and Procreate extend the text with enticing details: family photos favorite ducks both plushy and real and identifiable Toronto.

Nearly a century of German political and social shifts are translated into human experience in Sacks’ new novel starting with a 1933 prologue introducing young Klara von Arnsberg—“Narrow all over sharp at the edges. Hard a little cruel”—the daughter of a wealthy industrialist family. Klara’s betrayal of Max her “clever and kind” Jewish friend is just the first in a parade of horrors and harshnesses that will characterize this and subsequent generations featured in the ensuing 10 linked stories. “Rubble and Ruin” introduces Dorothea and Elsa a pair of hungry and poor sisters in postwar Berlin taking care of Dorothea’s baby Oskar the product of rape by Russian soldiers. Klara and Max reappear here too revealing details of Max’s survival and Klara’s marriage to a brutish Nazi officer. Oskar’s adult life alongside a Turkish guest worker is explored in “Two Lives” and in “Children of the Revolution” Armin one of Klara’s grandchildren endures a miserable childhood in the 1970s his feckless parents dabbling in drugs and subversive politics. There’s a pattern of unhappy children and unfeeling parents like Ingo in “New Skins” whose East German Stasi officer father denounced his own brother and Ursula a wartime friend of Klara’s in “The Fire” whose father showed her no warmth while fondly recalling his time as a concentration camp guard. Klara’s “stone-cold heart” and reprehensible murderous past recur frequently her shadow falling over later stories featuring immigrants and the return of right-wing politics. Klara’s personification of the ills of the past and Sacks’ tendency toward the simple binary in her characters diminish the book’s impact while Berlin is evoked as a flawed melting pot.

In this debut personal finance book Herriot introduces readers to the concept of “time freedom” the idea that wealth doesn’t mean accumulating enough money to retire early—it means securing sufficient income and savings combined with control over work scheduling to allow one to move between periods of work and periods of leisure instead of enduring many years of toil followed by late-in-life relaxation (“it’s about shaping how your time unfolds on your terms not constantly negotiating between the push and pull of work and life as if they were separate forces”). The author explains what time freedom looks like in different contexts (such as Herriot’s family’s commitment to a multigenerational tradition of summering at a Wisconsin lake) before guiding readers through the process of applying the framework to their own needs and interests. The author coaches readers on using their values to shape their spending rather than relying on strict budgeting working within the limits of their “money personalities” (and building new entrepreneurial or frugality skills as needed) and balancing savings and investments to meet financial needs. Herriot counsels readers to use their skills and connections—often those developed through a more traditional career path—to create a flexible business that ebbs and flows often on a seasonal basis to help them balance work and play throughout their lifetime. The author makes a persuasive case for reevaluating the traditional retirement structure and offers a compelling framework (the Time Freedom Formula: “Lifestyle Expenses = Investment Income + Flexible Work”) for developing a new lifestyle vision. The book’s financial guidance is generally solid encouraging prudent behavior and minimal risk-taking in pursuit of an enjoyable life. While the book doesn’t address the broader structural challenges of 21st-century employment formats—Herriot focuses on individual rather than policy solutions to the problems of unfulfilling work and inadequate leisure—readers with entrepreneurial leanings and skill sets that can be profitable outside of a salaried context will find both inspiration and actionable advice in these pages.

When the cub first peeks out of her den the world outside feels overwhelming. But with her mother’s gentle encouragement she swims in icy water dives below the surface evades killer whales and even briefly ventures out on her own. All along the way the mother polar bear reminds her cub “You can do anything.…I’m right here beside you.” Theirs is a world of wintry white making all colors appear especially vibrant and bright by contrast. Tiny bits of grass and flowers are a visual surprise; another scene depicts the northern lights spectacular across the night sky. The off-white color of the bears helps them stand out from the snow. Lambert makes excellent use of viewpoint shadow and layering from a lovely bird’s-eye view of the narrow waterways to the appearance of depth in the water. These compelling images will keep readers turning pages following along with the polar bear cub’s journey. The story’s theme—that a parent’s love is safe and empowering—is familiar but deeply reassuring and heartfelt to little ones and their caregivers alike.

Neiman the director of an international public think tank called the Einstein Forum continues the probing cultural critique begun in her Learning From the Germans (2019) and Left Is Not Woke (2023). Appalled by President Trump’s “ideas that are destructive enough to warrant the word evil” she proposes a return to “universalism.” In the wake of Hannah Arendt’s conception of fascist evil as a “failure to think” she argues that “not malice but vacancy marks the worst form of evil.” In seven ruminative chapters she pinpoints some of the causes for the current state of affairs in the United States: market fundamentalism and its focus on the accumulation of wealth as well as the elevation of power over law. At the same time Neiman also excoriates the adherents of “identitarian” politics or wokeness: “We must face the consequences of the liberal/left hesitation to use moral language.” The author effectively challenges American self-boosterism (“every survey of wealthy countries shows the U.S. behind on any measure of well-being”) and convincingly defends Enlightenment thought. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” was she points out that of a benevolent God not that of the capitalist market regulating itself. But her attack on wokeness mirrors all too familiar right-wing talking points neglecting the fact that competence—which she claims should be “the first criterion for appointments”—is more difficult to attain for disadvantaged members of society. Similarly support for transgender rights might be less the product of niche tribalism than the desire to allow the pursuit of happiness for everyone. Neiman movingly evokes Albert Einstein’s democratic socialism as a model for moral renewal today but does not reveal how her readers numbed by daily government spin might go about implementing it.  

Kat a strong-willed teenager sees the escalation of armed conflict in real time as tanks begin rolling into town broadcast on news channels. She heads to a community shelter as bombs start to drop. Schools close supplies are rationed and citizens depart by choice or force. Just as Kat’s family is attempting to leave soldiers abduct her father. Kat stays behind in hopes of saving him instead of following her mother and sister to safety. Falling into the stoic strained rhythms of life under siege she watches soldiers pillage homes neighbors struggle to survive and buildings burn. Violence and destruction are unpredictable and ubiquitous yet even children must press on. The story’s nonspecific setting demands that readers acknowledge just how quickly these actions could unfold anywhere. Kat’s eventual happy ending is a welcome if implausible narrative relief but even she admits “when I close my eyes I’m often back in the city with bangs and explosions and things shaking.” Kat has pale skin and dark hair; most of the city’s residents are pale-skinned. Rigano’s paneled illustrations buzz with detailed comic-book intensity skillfully immersing readers in Kat’s reality.

Alice Kaplan is looking forward to finishing her studies at Cornell University when her father’s sudden death forces her to stay in New York City and help her mother. Hoping to make her name as a journalist she joins the staff of a feminist newspaper. Her assignments along with her debates with other staff members draw her into the most important political and artistic movements of the late 1960s. She meets poet Audre Lorde and feminist Gloria Steinem and she attends the protest before Richard Nixon’s inauguration. Alice’s consciousness is raised; friends and acquaintances help her understand structural racism and homophobia as well as the horrors of the Vietnam War and the injustice of the draft. Meanwhile her personal life is tumultuous—her college boyfriend Pete turns out to be a rat; her oldest friend Darlene falls in with some criminals; and she struggles to forge an adult relationship with her mother. At home and out in the world Alice must absorb these new experiences and decide what she stands for as a writer an activist and a woman. Her journeys through the counterculture are thorough and illuminating; she engages with the major political movements of the day via lively characters who clearly articulate their travails and aspirations: “If you swallow tyrannies day by day” Lorde says “you sicken and die.” The novel is especially adept at outlining the challenges of intersectional feminism and identifying the misogyny embedded in the antiwar movement and leftist politics. Halter’s depictions of abortion and rape culture are refreshingly frank and realistic and all too timely. The depiction of the era does lack some hoped-for sensory detail; the dialogue can read as flat and pro forma in contrast to the depth of Alice’s character and her evolving inner life.

A nauseating wannabe influencer in the toxic manosphere Brodie Hendren uses the money he makes from credit card fraud and selling Nazi memorabilia to stalk his ex-wife. Meanwhile two thieves who became the closest thing to sister and brother in a foster family turn into adversaries of peak criminal acumen executing competing heists for pricey collectible stamps. The sister now calling herself Grace Latimore made it out of foster care by learning high-end robbery skills from her older boyfriend a corrupt cop. Years ago she extracted an especially valuable watch from a theft to cover the share that boyfriend took from her—the same watch her brother Adam Garrett was sent by his own crime boss to seize. Now Adam pays off his underworld debts by working surveillance for an unlicensed private eye: sometimes on honest investigations sometimes on scams. Motivated by a mix of vengeance and family ties Adam launches a search for Grace. This forlorn history adds a depth of motivation rarely seen in such precise heists. Grace hoping to have finally found a safe place to land works as the assistant in an antique shop putting to legitimate use all the valuation skills she learned in cat burglary. But the antiques dealer has her own fears and secrets. As all the expertly detailed crimes converge there are high stakes in cash and human lives on the line.

Three decades before The Pitt became a critical darling and a hit with viewers another hospital-themed drama aired the first of what would become more than 300 episodes: ER created by physician and novelist Michael Crichton with Steven Spielberg among its producers. Journalist Rice’s oral history of the series drawn on archival interviews as well as her own conversations with more than 60 people involved in the show begins with the show’s genesis as a screenplay that Crichton sent to Spielberg where it languished in a file before being read by television executive Tony Thomopoulos who convinced Crichton to rework it as a pilot. Casting followed with George Clooney and Anthony Edwards joining early and Julianna Margulies agreeing to star in what she thought would be one episode (her character was originally supposed to die in the pilot). Don Ohlmeyer head of NBC’s West Coast division hated the pilot but after test audiences reacted rapturously at two screenings relented and television history was made with viewers tuning in en masse to the show that earned its bona fides with the help of physician writers. Rice’s book is structured cleverly with some chapters centered on a particular theme—the show’s title sequence camera work Clooney’s penchant for pranks—and others dedicated to single episodes of the show. The latter sections are fascinating peering into some of the series’ most memorable installments including “Motherhood” which was directed by Quentin Tarantino and “Ambush” the ambitious live episode that was filmed twice to accommodate different time zones. It’s disappointing that Rice doesn’t have much to say about the show’s final four seasons—after actor Noah Wyle (now star of The Pitt) departed—but overall this is an entertaining history of an iconic series.

Clad in a street-cool outfit (blue sweatpants black T-shirt beneath a sleeveless undershirt and a plaid shirt knotted at the waist) a golden retriever–ish pooch struts confidently center stage demonstrating a series of dance moves. A white dog with floppy ears and tan spots wearing leggings and shorts waits in the wings gazing admiringly. Perfectly poised Dog One bops blissfully; Dog Two is tentative and striving but Dog Two’s steps pass muster and the newcomer shimmies more assuredly. “Step!” “Step! Kick!” “Step! Kick! Spin!” “Step! Kick! Spin! Slide!” A list of action words in large serif text colorful and edged in white each enthusiastically punctuated by an exclamation mark grows by one on every page. Most are four-letter one-syllable words—turn drop worm—accompanying the dogs’ body poses. The stakes rise with more complicated words: shimmy robot and even moonwalk. And finally “Freeze!” Newly independent readers might find it a challenge to follow all these steps and still focus on deciphering the words but they’ll find it an enjoyable ride all the same—and might be inspired to act out some of the moves.

Why is the sky blue? The more accurate question is: Why is the sky violet? The answer: “The atmosphere scatters violet wavelengths even more than blue just beyond what the human eyeball can see. Ask a spider or another creature with superior eyesight and the sky is assuredly violet.” So write Tyson and Walker in this absorbing and sharply designed volume that collects 5000 enlightening facts about the universe. Tyson and Walker the host and senior producer respectively of the podcast StarTalk collaborated on an earlier book To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery (2023). Their new collaboration is bursting with insights—often quite funny—that will spark the imaginations of readers young and old; one can eat it up in a long sitting or sporadically thumb through it and be dazzled by its revelations and colorful images. One of the bulleted entries for instance concerns the star that keeps us all alive: “The sunlight warming your face today started as photons in the Sun’s core when Neanderthals were still around.” The book begins with Earth then expands its focus to the solar system the Milky Way and beyond. The authors’ analogies make the facts memorable: “If the Sun were the size of a hot tub Earth would be the size of a sesame seed.” Also: “If we filled a giant balloon with all the water on Earth it would stretch 860 miles in diameter.” Some of the facts are hard to fathom: “A black hole with Earth’s mass…would have a radius of just nine millimeters.” And others are sobering statements about our changing world: “On a perfectly clear dark night in pristine conditions you could see about 6000 stars.” Today because of light pollution “Most people see less than 200 stars. Some may only see a dozen.”

Nat a little boy with light skin and brown hair lies frustrated in his bed. No matter how hard he tries he just cannot fall asleep. When he steps into the hallway and discovers his game controller tossed on the floor a flashback returns him to the events of earlier that night. His parents had urged him to go to bed but he refused to put down his video game and an over-the-top tantrum ensued: “My answer is NO! It’s MY controller. I WANT ONE MORE HOUR!” Ashamed Nat goes back to his room and tries to calm himself with deep breaths. (“If I think hard I can work out a plan. How to apologize? How to be kind?”) He begins to work on an endearing arts and crafts project to make things right with his family. Dorman’s cartoony illustrations are wonderfully detailed and deftly capture the emotional world of a young child. The rhymes are also a treat melodic and engaging to read: “Crumpling his blanket and kicking the floor Nat knew he just couldn’t sleep anymore!” The book offers young readers an accessible and appealing entry point for learning how to reflect on actions self-soothe and make amends.

The young Wake didn’t travel much as one of nine children but when opportunities arose in college he made the most of them. Many years after the travels took place Wake brings readers the tale of his travels around the world starting in 1976 when he had his first hitchhiking adventure to Yosemite Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Throughout the years he was present for Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee in London traveled around post-Mao China shortly after it had opened up to tourists and visited the Philippines during the “snap election” between Ferdinand Marcos and Cory Aquino. Aside from that he visited the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador spent a Christmas in Thailand celebrated the first night of Ramadan in Indonesia and camped on the beach in Greece. Wake includes everything you could want in a travel memoir: glimpses into many different geographic places and cultural differences a narrator who makes connections with people in the places he travels to and a healthy dose of good luck that allows him to be in significant places during their most memorable historical moments. While hinting at other adventures this memoir is focused on the travels that brought the author to significant political events around the world often by chance. Wake presents a unique blend of optimism deification gratification a strong belief in self-ability and “being blessed by glorious serendipity” that brought him to each place at just the right time: “The best discoveries the deepest mysteries and the most memorable adventures always come from the people I meet while getting to and from the must-see sites.” Wake delves into each adventure in its fullest learning languages meeting people participating in local cultural events and creating memories to last a lifetime.

In 2009 Alexander (The Light of the World 2015) read her poem “Praise Song for the Day” at President Obama’s first inauguration. As she recalls in her new book she was feeling inside her the spirit of writers living and dead including “old Walt Whitman.” Poetry sends “signals across vast distances” asserts Alexander repeating a line from a poem written by Muriel Rukeyser in 1967 when the nation was riven apart by the Vietnam War and the struggle for civil rights. To Alexander today’s “growing authoritarianism” is equally worrisome: “The way out of this wood is not yet clear to me.” Still her book—part memoir part manifesto—remains optimistic. She claims that American history has always had built into it the promise of freedom as well as its brutal denial; we must activate the former and unite against the latter. Founded on the repression of Black people the United States has also produced the likes of Prudence Crandall who ran a school of Black girls in the 1830s; and Bree Newsome Bass who in 2015 climbed up a pole at the North Carolina statehouse to remove the Confederate flag. In 11 essays Alexander meanders from her undergraduate days at Yale to her present work at the helm of the Mellon Foundation; however the initial focus on poetry sometimes disappears. Twelve artworks provide a subtle commentary on her narrative although one longs for more context on them. For Alexander it is up to readers to connect the various “signals” her volume offers. The most moving sections are dedicated to her late Eritrean husband the painter Ficre Ghebreyesus whose love for his family she evokes with tenderness. The final essay lists ways in which readers may become “justice warriors” ranging from the expected (“Find courage”) to the unexpected (“There should always be salad with dinner”). To imagine “a new world” we must understand that the political the private and the public are intimately meshed.

Eighteen-year-old Ethan’s older brother Brody drowned in Corpse Creek four years ago. But his hometown of Bleak Haven is cursed and Ethan is convinced Brody’s death was no accident. Brody loved swimming in the creek and in the aftermath of his death Ethan tested the water seeking answers but found nothing abnormal. When he gathers at the creek with friends on the anniversary of Brody’s death—even though his dad told him not to go there again—Ethan hears Brody’s voice and sees him beckoning. Suddenly Ethan who presents white is hearing voices and seeing shadowy figures. He investigates a 1994 case of a child who apparently drowned in the creek but was later found unharmed and becomes convinced there’s a way to bring Brody back. As his hold on reality wavers a terrified Ethan faces Brody’s demand of “a life for a life.” This third stand-alone series installment returns readers to Bleak Haven for a tense thriller that leaves readers wondering if Ethan is imagining things or if there really are supernatural forces at play. Ralph explores grief in depth particularly through Ethan’s strained relationships with his father and concerned supportive friends. The pacing is steady throughout most of the book but it comes to an abrupt and ambiguous conclusion.

George Washington founded the village that bears his name in the foothills of the Blue Ridge of Virginia naming its three main streets yes “Main” “Middle” and “Gay.” Writes O’Connell “He did not know that two hundred and thirty years later those rather unimaginative names would acquire more nuance.” A child of the D.C. suburbs O’Connell like everyone else in the region calls the town Little Washington—everyone that is save the mayor who railed at O’Connell when he erected a sign for the Inn at Little Washington: “The name of this town is Washington! We’re not going to allow you to change the name of our town.” A free gourmet meal greased the skids. O’Connell writes affectingly of growing up gay and coming of age in the 1960s when stigma and illegality still attached to his sexuality. He escaped into the Virginia woods joining an intentional community and avoiding the Vietnam draft by openly confessing to being gay telling the examiner “You made the rules….I’d be glad to help out by sewing buttons or something but you’ve banned us.” O’Connell writes of earning his keep by doing yard and handyman work for the archconservative editorialist James Kilpatrick whose wife learning of his gift for fine cooking asked him to make dessert for a soiree. He “showed up the next night with three beautiful crème caramels in ring molds garnished with local sour cherries”—and thus a catering business and later a Michelin three-star restaurant were born. O’Connell is gracious and generous even in dark moments where he recounts a legal battle with a partner that nearly took the Inn down and his narrative like a good meal ends contentedly: “I’m in the place where I belong. I have discovered who I am.”

Women have frequently been barred from participating fully in theological and ecclesiastical life notes religious studies scholar Du Mez. They have not been excluded from American consumer culture though which has led to their being “less invested in maintaining theological boundaries.” This consumer culture comes in many forms from dolls to books cosmetics and self-help fads. One form is alluded to in Du Mez’s title: In the early 1900s an Iowa woman Bessie Anderson Stanley won a magazine contest on the theme of success: “The person who achieved success Stanley wrote was one who ‘has lived well laughed often and loved much.’” All these decades later Du Mez writes the online retailer Wayfair has more than 56000 “Live Laugh Love” items for sale. From Erika Kirk’s sequined pantsuits to tradwife TV shows and home-goods emporia like Utah’s Ballerina Farm from Aimee Semple McPherson to Phyllis Schlafly and Michelle Bachman women have Christianized politics commerce and culture. One notable player little known these days was Henrietta Mears a Zelig-like character whose disciples over the years included the founders of Young Life and the fundamentalist church that private citizen Ronald Reagan attended. Mears convinced Billy Graham to evangelize and crusaded against homosexuality feminism and anything short of worship of the free market. Somewhat amusingly many of these entrepreneurs plagiarized from one another when marketing an endless series of manuals for Christian wives most of which demanded submission and providing husbands with gratification on demand: “A wife who failed to satisfy a husband’s sexual needs committed the ‘sin of selfishness’ and the price would be husbands who were ‘carnal nasty and insulting.’” With twists such as Amish fiction the scrapbooking craze and entrenched Christian nationalism all this remains very much with us today.

Sixteen-year-old Nópika “Nokes” Lasley is 6 feet 2 inches tall and aspires to play hockey in the Olympics. Her mother who died when Nokes was 5 was “a mix of Native American and First Nations descent” but her white father has raised her apart from her mother’s relatives insisting that she embrace whiteness. When her father who struggles with alcohol abuse is arrested for murder Nokes is sent into the foster care system where she learns that people aren’t always what they seem. Nokes runs away to the home of Luke Janner a family friend in Minnesota who coaches a university-level women’s hockey team: “I needed a savior and he was all I had.” But when things don’t go as planned she wrestles with choices about confronting her past and her mother’s community. Van Brunt whose father was an enrolled member of the Colville Tribe has written a fast-paced novel that moves back and forth in time gradually revealing what Nokes is running from. Although at times the language is clunky and the interior monologue doesn’t feel authentic to the teenage voice the technical hockey writing is strong and the story excels in character development.