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EVERYBODY'S FAVORITE

Stone, a freelance humor and finance writer, introduces her debut essay collection with a piece about who she was in 2004, “on the cusp of puberty, preparing to plunge into a lifetime of deep, sweaty self-hatred.” She named her prepubescent shame and anxiety Madison, described as “a phantom formed by everything I’d never be” whose message to the author was, “Everything about you is wrong and gross, and everyone can tell.” The author recounts making a list of her failings, such as “cavernous por

BRIGHT STARS OF BLACK BRITISH HISTORY

The author notes that from the first century, when the Romans conquered Britain, Black people have fought to create better lives for themselves and the world around them, their collective efforts making space for future generations to thrive. John Blanke was a royal trumpeter in the Tudor court who negotiated his salary by boldly petitioning Henry VIII. Olaudah Equiano, a formerly enslaved man who eventually bought his freedom, “practically invented the book tour” after publishing his autobiogr

HOW DOES OUR FOOD GROW?

Widdowson’s lively scenes of smiling, racially diverse people cultivating or shopping for brightly colored foodstuffs create a positive mood for this international survey, but the written portions are lacking. Not only does Jorden dangerously assert that “All berries are yummy AND good for your brain” and, nonsensically, that “Corn has ‘ears’ but it can’t talk,” her unrhymed side notes include hard-to-answer questions like “How many different kinds [of apples] have you tried?” (no examples are

PERCEPTION

In the opening pages, Minda Blake, a psychic known as a “remote viewer” for a black ops government contractor, uses her ability to dig up a mysterious gold artifact in the deeply religious Dutch Reformed part of Michigan. Almost immediately afterward, she passes out, later realizing that a colleague wanted the fragment and tried to kill her. After recovering, she resolves to find the golden object and take it to the media, even if her employer will hunt her down and, in the best-case scenario,

THE CIRCLE OF WILLIS

Readers meet Leotie “Leo” Lightfoot when Ray Shipworth, an EMT, finds her passed out alone in an abandoned “party” warehouse. She was left there by her loser boyfriend, Jake. Ray gets her stabilized and to the hospital. Meanwhile, Ray is planning to propose to his airhead girlfriend, May, when she dumps him. (May and Jake deserve each other; it’s a pity they don’t get together.) Ray joins the Army and spends one tour in Iraq and another in Afghanistan. He comes home almost irreparably shattered

EVIDENCE!

Behind every great scientist is evidence. When cholera broke out in London in 1854, most people blamed the “bad, smelly air” for the rapid spread of the disease. The English physician Dr. John Snow had a “bold hypothesis.” He had noticed that cholera’s symptoms included vomiting and diarrhea, so the cause was likely what the victims had ingested rather than something airborne. All he needed was evidence! With expert pacing, Hopkinson sets up Snow’s story as a medical mystery and a race against

ENOLA'S BEST FRIEND

Enola, a tiny tot with a wavy mop of brown hair, loves visiting Grandma Mimi. Grandma Mimi is the most easygoing, fun grandmother ever. She creates a blanket fort for Enola to sleep in, serves the best snacks, and even has an adorable pup named Hoagie. For lunch one day, Grandma Mimi makes hot dogs. Enola has never had one. Unfortunately, she can’t eat it, because, as she observes, using a child’s logic, it is “perfectly friend-shaped.” (The hot dog has a squiggle of mustard and a tiny smile.)

BUT YOU HAVE FRIENDS

In 2018, after her friend Charlotte died at 34 following a long struggle with depression, McKenzie began making sketches of her memories of their time together. “I was worried I might forget things without having her there to remind me,” she writes, clarifying that the book is not a biography of her friend but rather the story of their friendship. McKenzie and Charlotte became fast friends in high school, where they bonded over their love of music, goofy humor, passion for writing, and feminism

STORY OF THE EVERYTHING, THE NOTHING, AND OTHER STRANGE STORIES

Translated from Hungarian, this unique picture book consisting of short stories challenges young readers to think outside the box and ponder the nature of the world we live in as well as the limitless opportunities of the worlds we don’t. Each tale starts off with the time-honored “Once upon a time” and is accompanied by a dreamlike collage illustration. The first half of the collection features existential stories that focus on “nothing,” “anything,” and “everything,” while the second half con

A VOICE OF HOPE

Writing in oratorical language, Salomon begins with her subject’s childhood in Mississippi, where “hate ran as deep as the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers,” but the love she received from her aunt and grandmother “flowed stronger than hate and river currents.” Young Myrlie showed the strength of character necessary to confront white bullies and later to keep marching for both racial and personal justice when her first husband, Medgar Evers, was killed; ultimately she achieved the latter in court i

TWENTY SQUARE FEET OF SKIN

“To consider my tattoos we must first consider skin. Skin is our barrier against the world, enveloping our body so that we won’t lose our precious water and evaporate like dew.” So writes Baxter, the author of The Coolest Monsters and Farm Girl, at the beginning of this poetic study of the marks carried by human bodies, from the hair on our heads to the blisters on our feet. Each essay probes a different physical manifestation of human life—both pain and promise—and how we work to distract, def

MAKING IT IN AMERICA

There aren’t many success stories in 21st-century American manufacturing, but Slade, a journalist and bestselling author of Into the Raging Sea, has found one: an apparel firm called American Roots, founded by idealistic Ben and Whitney Waxman. They were determined to compete against cheap imports while paying their workers at good rates and with union benefits to make vests, shirts, and hoodies. When the pandemic hit, the firm pivoted to produce face shields and other protective equipment, rec

A VILE SEASON

After Count Lucian Cross is driven from his castle by vampire hunters, Vrykolakas, the god of vampires, turns him back into a human as part of a revenge plot. In his mortal form, Lucian, who’s cued white, can compete in the “marriage games” and court the future duke, all the while secretly sussing out which of the noteworthy families of the men and women also in the competition have connections to the monster hunters. If he’s successful in his tasks, Lucian will be rewarded with the return of h

HIS STUDY IN SCANDAL

In the second School for Scoundrels novel, Alexandra, dowager Duchess of Chelmswich, is finally ready to claim her independence. Enjoying a sexually fulfilling night with a stranger feels like a good start. When she later learns that Theo Osborne is the man chosen by the current duke—her stepson—for her debutante daughter, Harriet, it’s an unanticipated complication. Wealthy, self-made Theo had planned to marry up the ranks in keeping with his adopted father’s wish. But a final night of enjoyin

THE UNIFORM

When readers meet Alfie Baliato, the central character of this poignant, powerful novel, it’s 1968. He and his fellow New York City police officers are charged with ending the student antiwar protests at Columbia University—a task that many cops see as an opportunity to inflict pain on those they see as pot-smoking, overprivileged hippie college kids. Mixed with the white cops’ anger is intense racism and a lurking fear of the well-armed Black Panthers, who are part of the protests. As Alfie wa

A BOOK OF NOISES

An inelegant, if precise, title does little justice to a book packed with inestimable beauties, piquant facts, cacophonous din, startling conjecture, and unexpected connections among the human, animal, and inanimate worlds. Henderson, the author of The Book of Barely Imagined Beings and A New Map of Wonders, does not refer to “noise” as disagreeable sound alone. Far from it. He presents a series of fascinating entries across four harmonious categories: “geophony” (sounds of the earth), “biophon

TWO NOVEMBERS

How might the speakers of Shakespeare’s poems have dealt with the advent of antidepressants amidst their romantic tribulations? What planes of desire and yearning might Twitter or dating apps supplant for John Keats? For the author, a poetic form “forgot by all not taking English Lit” becomes a 21st century catharsis, diary, and confession. In these sonnets, Achilles records a year of emotional turbulence stemming from a romantic and sexual attachment to her physical therapist that ended poorly

THE KINGDOM OF HATCH

Arlo Hatch is a lawyer specializing in business litigation. Though his love for Stella, the daughter of one of his clients, is a bright spot in his life, Arlo is disenchanted with his career and yearns for a change. After Arlo is unsuccessfully mugged, Kostya Kozlov—a former client who was recently released from prison—benevolently takes the mugger (named Mikey) under his wing and tasks him with serving his wife, Elena, divorce papers. Both Arlo and Kozlov are in the employ of Pasha Pavlov, a R

WEST HEART KILL

Young private detective Adam McAnnis, a Vietnam veteran through whose "sad and wary" but amused eyes the story is told, has been hired by one of the guests at the club's annual Fourth of July gathering to investigate a possible plot against that guest. Until a female guest is found dead in the lake, an apparent suicide, there's no indication of anything untoward going on, except for some pot smoking and the adulterous couplings in two designated rooms in the clubhouse (in one of which McAnnis i

A SONG FOR AUGUST

August Wilson (1945-2005) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, just as World War II was ending. His father, a German immigrant, abandoned the family; his mother, a Black woman, earned a living by cleaning houses. August learned to read at an early age; he loved words and their musical sounds but struggled in school, where racist white students bullied him. He worked tirelessly on a history report on Napoleon, but when the teacher refused to believe August had written the paper, he stopped goin