Divided IslandDaniela Tarazona, trans. from the Spanish by Lizzie Davis and Kevin Gerry Dunn. Deep Vellum, $16.95 trade paper (180p) ISBN 978-1-64605-314-8
Mexican writer Tarazona’s inventive English-language debut follows an author whose consciousness splits into two separate realities. The break takes place after the unnamed protagonist, who is grieving her mother’s recent death and whose brain feels as if it’s full of stalactites, is found to have a... Continue reading »
Assassins AnonymousRob Hart. Putnam, $28 (320p) ISBN 978-0-593717-39-4
A legendary assassin joins a support group of murderers hoping to cure themselves of their addiction to violence in Hart’s nail-biting latest (after The Paradox Hotel). Mark, who works under the moniker the Pale Horse, has kept his murderous impulses in check for months, but his progress is... Continue reading »
Midnight RoomsDonyae Coles. Amistad, $28 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-322809-2
Coles astounds in her atmospheric gothic debut set in Victorian England. Orabella has never been expected to amount to much due to her lower-class background and biracial (half-Black, half-white) identity. When her white uncle, who took her in after her parents’ deaths, accrues a massive gambling de... Continue reading »
The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to LoveIndia Holton. Berkley, $19 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-593-54728-1
Putting a tongue-in-cheek twist on the enemies-to-lovers trope, Holton (The Secret Service of Tea and Treason) opens the Love’s Academic series on a gloriously madcap intellectual adventure tinged with a hint of whimsical fantasy. In 1890s England, socially awkward bluestocking Beth Pickeri... Continue reading »
Brittle JointsMaria Sweeney. Street Noise, $20.99 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-951491-26-0
Cartoonist Sweeney debuts with a candid portrait of life with a disability, drawn in delicate brushstrokes and natural colors. Born in Moldova in 1994, Sweeney showed early signs of Bruck syndrome, which causes fragile bones and joint contractures. After her birth parents place her in an orphanage, ... Continue reading »
Fugitive/RefugePhilip Metres. Copper Canyon, $22 trade paper (144p) ISBN 978-1-55659-669-8
The powerful sixth book from Metres (Shrapnel Maps), who is of Lebanese descent, confronts the trials of the present moment—including forced migration, climate change, and nationalism—through his family’s migration story. Metres wields poetic forms (among them odes, sonnets, and prayers) to... Continue reading »
The Long March HomeMarcus 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 »
Meet the Neighbors: Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human WorldBrandon Keim, illus. by Mattias Lanas. Norton, $29.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-324-00708-1
Science journalist Keim (The Eye of the Sandpiper) investigates what animals think and feel in this bracing inquiry. Pushing back against the long-held scientific consensus that animals lack consciousness, Keim notes studies indicating that many birds model their nests on others they have s... Continue reading »
The Levantine Vegetarian: Recipes from the Middle EastSalma Hage. Phaidon, $39.95 (272p) ISBN 978-1-83866-764-1
Hage (The Lebanese Kitchen) extols the vegetarian bounty of the Levant in this appealing collection. The region is known for its vegetable sharing plates, but Hage goes well beyond mezze. A brunch chapter includes muffin-style buns—made with a batter that incorporates cooked, soaked, and gr... Continue reading »
Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American ChurchEliza Griswold. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30 (352p) ISBN 978-0-374-60168-3
Pulitzer winner Griswold (Amity and Prosperity) delivers a riveting chronicle of the fracturing of a progressive Christian church during a period of social and political turmoil. In 1996, “hippie church planters” Rod and Gwen White founded the Circle of Hope church in Philadelphia as an alt... Continue reading »
The GaleMo Yan, adapted by Guan Xiaoxiao, trans. from the Chinese by Ying-Hwa Hu, illus. by Zhu Chengliang. Simon & Schuster, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-66593-062-8
At seven years old, a child goes for the first time to collect satintail grass with their grandfather, Yeye, in this picture book debut from Nobel laureate Mo Yan, adapted from a short story of the same name. A low mist hangs over the quiet journey as the pair make the long trek to a familiar meadow... Continue reading »
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