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Florence Knapp. Viking/Dorman, $30 (336p) ISBN 978-0-593-83390-2
Knapp’s intriguing and nuanced debut comprises three alternate story lines for a British family. After giving birth to a baby boy in 1987, Cora goes to the registry office to record his name. Her abusive husband, Gordon, wants the baby named after himself, her nine-year-old daughter thinks Bear woul... Continue reading »
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Andrey Kurkov, trans. from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk. HarperVia, $28 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-335233-9
Novice Ukrainian police investigator Samson Kolechko scrambles to track down his missing fiancée in Kurkov’s extraordinary sequel to The Silver Bone. In post-WWI Kyiv, sensitive Samson’s new job gives him a solid chance of surviving his “restless, dangerous, and hungry” era, but his empathy... Continue reading »
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Christopher Golden. St. Martin’s, $29 (304p) ISBN 978-1-250-28591-1
Golden (The House of Last Resort) showcases his gift for eerie scene setting in this outstanding horror novel with an unusual location: the Christabel, a partially sunken freighter off the Texas coast that’s overrun with vegetation. The mangrove trees that make up this “floating fo... Continue reading »
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Karen Booth. Afterglow, $15.99 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-335-57498-5
Booth (Swap and Smell the Roses) delights with a deliciously spicy sports romance. In Austin, Tex., Mia Neal has managed to turn her obsession with Formula 1 racing into a podcast, Not So Fast, which is rapidly gaining fans largely thanks to her snarky coverage of British driver Xander Bish... Continue reading »
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Alison Bechdel. Mariner, $32 (272p) ISBN 978-0-0632-7892-9
In this self-deprecating and delightful graphic novel from Eisner winner Bechdel (Fun Home), an archly fictionalized Alison finds herself flummoxed by commercial success. After her memoir, Death & Taxidermy, is adapted as a prestige show on a streaming platform, Alison and her part... Continue reading »
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Jaime Gil de Biedma. Fonograf, $18.95 trade paper (184p) ISBN 979-8-987-58905-2
This exquisite dual-language edition of Gil de Biedma’s selected poems reveals the voice of a preeminent poet of mid-20th-century Spain. Gil de Biedma (1929–1990), a closeted gay man and left-wing intellectual who worked as a business executive, lived most of his life under the conservative dictator... Continue reading »
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Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee. Revell, $26.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-8007-4275-1
In this tour de force from Brotherton (A Bright and Blinding Sun) and Lee (A Single Light), four friends’ lives change irrevocably when America becomes embroiled in WWII. In 1930s Mobile, Ala., preacher’s son Jimmy Propfield shares an idyllic upbringing with childhood sweetheart Cl... Continue reading »
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Samuel Marquis. Diversion, $34.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-63576-968-5
Marquis (Soldiers of Freedom), a descendant of the notorious pirate Captain Kidd, argues that his ancestor was scapegoated by a greedy English Crown in this riveting revisionist history. Drawing on a deep well of scholarship, Marquis aims to show that William Kidd, a Scottish-born, New York... Continue reading »
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Nicole Rucker. Knopf, $35.00 (224) ISBN 978-0-593-80178-9
Rucker (Dappled) serves up a droolworthy “celebration of the unadorned joy that mixing these two simple ingredients together can bring.” Her innovative, fuss-free approach to baking relies on the cold butter method, a vintage “reverse creaming method” wherein butter is mixed directly into t... Continue reading »
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Manvir Singh. Knopf, $30 (304p) ISBN 978-0-59353-754-1
New Yorker contributor Singh (Zoostalgia) brilliantly traces the evolution of shamanism across history. Exploring the practice’s psychological roots, he contends that shamanism answers a deep human need to manage uncertainty through its theatrical rituals, invocation of the superna... Continue reading »
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Kwame Alexander and Jerry Craft, illus. by Jerry Craft. Little, Brown, $16.99 hardcover (240p) ISBN 978-0-316-58268-1; $10.99 paper ISBN 978-0-316-59710-4
Alexander (How Sweet the Sound) and Craft (School Trip) emphasize the importance of nurturing creative expression and healthy competition in this meta illustrated collaboration. J Ennis— a talented cartoonist who loves creating comics for his peers (and the praise that comes... Continue reading »
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