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BINDING 13

Beautiful, waiflike, 15-year-old Shannon has lived her entire life in Ballylaggin. Alternately bullied at school and beaten by her ne’er-do-well father, she’s hopeful for a fresh start at Tommen, a private school. Seventeen-year-old Johnny, who has a hair-trigger temper and a severe groin injury, is used to Dublin’s elite-level rugby but, since his family’s move to County Cork, is now stuck captaining Tommen’s middling team. When Johnny angrily kicks a ball and knocks Shannon unconscious (“a so

RADICAL EMPATHY

The book opens with the O. Henry Prize–winning “Marital Problems.” An unnamed narrator and her husband, Victor, search for a dead bird their daughter has entombed within Victor’s estranged late father’s binocular case, while Victor rages over the incompetence of their contractor and the narrator distracts herself with sexual fantasies (both about the contractor and about her friend, a single mom). This story is a knockout—its characters are brilliant, their relationships meticulously muddled by

KEYANA LOVES HER FRIEND

The protagonist, whom readers may remember from Keyana Loves Her Family (2022), is excited: Her best friend, Nia, who moved away last year, is back in town. Keyana has big plans for Nia’s visit. She’s hoping for the “biggest, most spectacular sleepover ever,” which will include activities that the two have enjoyed together in the past, such as bike riding. Nia has her own plans, however: She’s bringing a scooter instead of a bicycle and has arrived with a new hairstyle and different interests.

BLACK RIVER

A young woman is brutally killed on the campus of Prince Albert, a private boys’ boarding school in suburban Sydney. She's assumed to be the latest casualty of the Blue Moon Killer, who’s currently at large. This victim is Marguerite Dunlop, daughter of the school chaplain and a recent graduate of a neighboring girls’ school. Reporter Adam Bowman, an alumnus of Prince Albert, is sent to cover this hot story with orders to stay out of the way of his brash colleague “Beat-Up” Benny Diamond, who’s

YOU KNOW BEST

The author describes her book as “an invitation to curate the best version of yourself while building influence in fast-paced organizations.” The text is organized into four sections outlining a total of 10 rules and accompanying skills to achieve such curation. Each chapter begins with a vignette from the career of a fictional character named Madison Hopeton, described as “fictional accounts of real events that have happened in the workplace.” Dawkins covers the necessary abilities to “read th

DINOSAURS LIKE BANANAS TOO!

One night, a boy named Logan gazes out the window and wishes “he had someplace exciting to be.” Suddenly, he’s shaken out of his reverie by a T. rex hatching under his bed. Already raring to go, the small dinosaur beckons Logan to follow him, and the pair travel down a “slide of tangled twisty straws” that takes them to a jungle in the boy’s closet, complete with a dancing monkey. After that, the two find a whale singing in the bathtub and a bear painting on Logan’s bedroom-turned-cave walls be

THE ROCK OF ARLES

This is likely the first book authored by a geological formation, in this case by the plateau of limestone on which the French city of Arles stands. That, at least, is the explanation put forward by Klein, the author of Cigarettes Are Sublime, who jokingly claims that the Rock narrated the story of the town's history to him—in French, which the author then transcribed and translated. It’s a clever, inside-out technique that allows for a certain amount of speculation, as well as some clever bant

WHERE TO START

This offering from a major U.S. mental health nonprofit offers teens an overview of psychological concerns, explains what can be done to address them, and provides self-help tips. An opening list of ways to use the book details its flexibility and adaptability. Next, there are four main sections: The first describes major types of mental health disorders and includes a self-assessment; the second supports readers in reaching out to parents and caregivers; the third is a guide to professional su

THE HONOLULU SITUATION

Jefir Zaqq lives a simple life in Taboor City, Zazaristan, a (fictional) Islamic nation in Central Asia that’s experienced dizzying shifts in political fortune. Jefir sells melons with his brother, Rahim, but lands himself in trouble one day when he’s stopped at a checkpoint by Bashir Hallazallah, a powerful warden looking to shake him down. Jefir attempts escape, and in the process stabs Hallazallah’s son with a corkscrew, which proves fatal. Now Jefir’s life in Zazaristan is in danger, but wh

ALL GOOD IN THE HOOD

Mom, Dad, and Big Bro are ready to walk to the center of town for the big celebration, but the narrator, Lil’ Bro, feels more comfortable and safe at home. Reluctantly, he joins the family and slowly begins to come out of his shell. He wants to play basketball, and with Big Bro’s encouragement, the other kids let him play. When the ball flies into the street, Big Bro pulls Lil’ Bro out of the path of a truck just in time. At the park, the celebration is noisy and overwhelming, but Big Bro helps

OF LOVE AND PARIS

In his latest homage to Paris, Baxter, who has lived there since 1989, celebrates the city’s indelible association with love, sometimes blissfully romantic, sometimes madly obsessive. Paris, he writes, “has advertised itself as a venue for the exploration of passion in all its forms and its capacity for exaltation and despair.” In a series of brief essays, he chronicles liaisons from Napoleon and Josephine’s to his own marriage to Marie-Dominique Montel. Despair certainly characterized several

INSIDE THE COMPOST BIN

In this handy guide for would-be garden composters, general directions for creating and using compost paired with illustrations that teem with tiny soil residents are followed by even more explicit procedures and advice featuring ingredients and temperature charts. In the appealing pictures, a light-skinned parent and child with large, shiny eyes tend to a small, leafless tree, which plainly “needs love,” by filling up a nearby bin with organic detritus that is attacked by armies of small, wrig

APPLE BLACK ORIGINS

In the kingdom of Youta on the Eden Continent, 13-year-old Willow Wantmore, a Black girl with vitiligo, dreams of joining the Youta Guild, but her tribe faces discrimination. Her estranged sorcerer father, Uzoh Olaocha, bestowed upon her a coveted and rare Golden Wand named Novajinx that she uses to keep her pale locs tied. Just as Willow achieves entry into the Guild, her life is thrown off course when she unexpectedly finds herself on a quest with Uzoh’s sworn adversary, Gideon Banburi, a Bla

TRAITOR'S RUN

Stevenson’s far-future SF series opener focuses on evil space invaders who happen to be human—an order called the Hegemony, which arose in the aftermath of a traumatic but victorious (though scarcely described in any detail) interplanetary war. Hegemony policy assures the safety of humankind by incorporating spacegoing alien civilizations in what is supposedly a protective alliance akin to the storied Federation of the Star Trek franchise. In fact, the oppressive arrangement subjugates and weak

DISCIPLINE

Spark’s fifth novel opens on a Maine island in 2018 as an art appraiser named Gracie Thomas steps off the ferry, ready to be picked up for the last leg of her journey to the home of a collector who’s hired her to set the value of an important trio of paintings by the painter J. Morrison known as the Triplets. The ferry terminal clears out, her ride does not materialize, there’s no cell service, and suddenly the wintry weather is life-threatening. Chapter 2 leaves Gracie by the side of the road

NOAH'S NOT SO SUPER SUMMER

Twenty years after the “Super phenomenon,” when the antibiotics used to treat a lethal stomach parasite that infected much of the world’s population had unexpected DNA side effects, Lincoln City is filled with mutated animals and superhumans—some of them heroes and some of them villains. Twelve-year-old Noah Reagan, a regular human, has big plans for his summer break: avoid the school bullies and take part in the “Summer with Supers Youth Program.” Off to a bad start, with the bullies after him

I AM ON THE HIT LIST

In September 2017, Gauri Lankesh, a self-described “activist-journalist,” was killed at her home in Bangalore. Her assassination sparked protests and drew international attention to India’s rising culture of intolerance. Following years of reporting on southern India for the New Yorker and New York Times Magazine, Romig uses the story of Lankesh’s life and work, her murder and its investigation, to track India’s risky path from the “world’s largest democracy,” known for its religious plurality,

SCHOENBERG

In the prologue, Sachs, a music writer, Toscanini biographer, and educator at the Curtis Institute of Music, states explicitly that he aims to offer a "succinct interpretative study" of Arnold Schoenberg's life and work, not a full-scale biography or complete theoretical analysis. He includes basic biographical material such as Schoenberg's birth (1874, in Vienna), escape from Nazi Europe to America in 1933, and death in Los Angeles in 1951. Although Sachs presents a basic chronology of the com

WORDS LINED UP

The core theme of this poetry collection is identity; in a poem titled after the first-person singular, “I,” the speaker concludes “I am/ Just…I.” The poems leading to this revelation trace the speaker’s quest to find out who he is, who he is meant to be, and who he is meant to be with. The speaker is biracial, with “the white side/the black side,”and his experience of identity is one in which he tries to reconcile his two lineages and reckon with what it means to be a biracial man in America.

MURDER IN AN ITALIAN VILLAGE

To the Positanesi, Bria Bartolucci, who grew up in neighboring Ravello, might as well have been from Australia. But when her husband, Carlo, announced he was buying a bed-and-breakfast in the seaside town, Bria was swept up in his enthusiasm for the unexpected but welcome adventure. Now, a year later, Bria’s on the verge of unveiling Bella Bella, although without Carlo, who was killed in a plane crash. Her determination to open despite her loss is a tribute to her love for Carlo and her desire