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EXTINCTION

What a glorious way to spend a honeymoon: Mark and Olivia Gunnerson go backpacking through the vast Erebus Resort in the mountains of Colorado, where scientists have “de-extincted” species like the woolly mammoth and other Pleistocene megafauna. Just watch the peaceful beasts at their watering holes. Behold the giant armadillos, and the indricothere that make mammoths look like dwarfs. The scientists have removed genes for aggression in these re-creations, so humans will be safe unless they’re

ROMAN STORIES

Lahiri’s third collection follows her Pulitzer-winning debut collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), and Unaccustomed Earth (2008), with novels and essays interspersed. In 2011, she moved from the U.S. to Rome, where she has become a prolific translator and editor in Italian, and like its immediate predecessor, the novel Whereabouts (2021), the stories in this book were written in Italian then translated to English. As a group, they evoke her new city from the perspective of an outsider loo

STARTER VILLAIN

Charlie Fitzer, a former business journalist–turned–substitute teacher, is broke and somewhat desperate. His circumstances take an unexpected and dangerous turn when his estranged uncle Jake dies, leaving his business—i.e., his trillion-dollar supervillain empire—to Charlie. Charlie doesn’t really have the skills or experience to manage the staff of the volcano lair, and matters don’t improve when he’s pressured to attend a high-level meeting with other supervillains, none of whom got along wit

WESTFALLEN

It all starts with a ham radio that Alice, Lawrence, and Artie fool around with in 1944 and Henry, Frances, and Lukas find in 2023. It’s late April, and the 1944 kids worry about loved ones in combat, while the 2023 kids study the war in school. When, impossibly, the radio allows the kids to communicate across time, it doesn’t take long before they share information that changes history. Can the two sets of kids work across a 79-year divide to prevent the U.S.A. from becoming the Nazi-controlle

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

ASH'S CABIN

Ash has always felt like an outsider, and ever since Grandpa Edwin passed away, that feeling of isolation has only gotten worse. Their parents haven’t fully accepted Ash’s recent name change or newly shorn hair, and school isn’t much better. When Ash learns that their family plans to sell Grandpa Edwin’s old ranch, they come up with a plan: to find Grandpa’s secret cabin in the woods and stay there—forever. They earn money, watch online videos to pick up survival skills, and buy food, gear, and

THE HUNTER

In fictional Ardnakelty, on Ireland’s west coast, lives retired American cop Cal Hooper, who busies himself repairing furniture with 15-year-old Theresa “Trey” Reddy and fervently wishes to be boring. Then into town pops Trey’s long-gone, good-for-nothing dad, Johnny, all smiles and charm. Much to her distaste, he says he wants to reclaim his fatherly role. In fact, he’s on the run from a criminal for a debt he can’t repay, and he has a cockamamie scheme to persuade local townsfolk that there m

LOOT

Abbas, the hero of James’ lively and symbolically rich third novel, is a poor 17-year-old artisan in Mysore in 1794 when he’s recruited by Tipu Sultan, the local ruler, to apprentice with Lucien Du Leze, a French clockmaker. Together they are charged with making an automaton of a tiger attacking a British soldier. The experience hones his carving skills, but just as importantly it introduces him to an intercontinental power play: Tipu, aka the Tiger of Mysore, is attempting to fend off an incur

RABBIT HOLE

Teddy Angstrom was 16 when her older sister, Angie, disappeared after sneaking out to a party. Afterward, everything seemed to fall apart. Now, 10 years later, her father has driven his car off a bridge, and Teddy and her mother are left to pick up the pieces. Cleaning her father’s things, Teddy discovers that he was deeply invested in the online community built up around Angie’s disappearance. What began as a daughter trying to close up loose ends in the wake of her father’s death slowly devol

NOWHERE AT HOME

“October leaves / pile up like scattered drafts of some design” the author writes in “Raking” as fall sets in, “aching on this byway to December...” Even so, he still has more in life to conquer, finishing the job with “my feet still two good inches off the ground.” The moodiness of academic life intrudes, as Poitevin, a mathematics professor, is annoyed by a shared office, pesky students, and Red Sox chatter in “Nostalgia for Quieter Times”; he longs for the halcyon days of grad school at the

FLAGS ON THE BAYOU

Seriously in debt to business associate Minos Suarez, Charles Lufkin rents him Hannah Laveau, an enslaved woman he’s recently purchased. Things don’t go well for either Hannah, whom Suarez unmercifully assaults, or Suarez, who’s found castrated with his throat cut shortly after Hannah parts company with him. Just as Hannah is haunted by Samuel, the son from whom she was separated during the bloody Union attack on Shiloh Church, Lufkin’s nephew, Wade, who volunteered as a medical officer on the

WHEN YOU GO INTO NATURE

From virtues such as patience, teamwork, and gratitude to life lessons such as learning to let go and expressing yourself, the points presented in this book are both important and apropos to our time, and they’re delivered without didacticism and wrapped in great facts about nature and wildlife. For example, nature can teach you to move slowly like a snail, not just physically but also when completing a project, eating, or spending time with others. Readers are encouraged to be strong but flexi

LEVINSON OF HARVARD

As the story opens in 2008, Philadelphia-based Mark Levinson is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, attending his 35th class reunion at Harvard. At the festivities, he meets Becca Wyatt, with whom he'd once had a brief but passionate fling. Their own personal reunion is an uncomfortable one, and she leaves him with a mysterious package that dovetails with his own project to chronicle his family history: Despite family lore, it turns out there’s no record of Mark's grandfather Michael Levinson ever hav

THIS IS NOT MY STORY

As the book opens, a brown-skinned boy is flying a spaceship, surrounded by green aliens in their own spacecrafts, but announces to the unseen author/narrator that this is the wrong story for him (“I definitely don’t believe in aliens”). The boy ends up on a blank white page, looking startled, while the narrator considers other potential roles for him, such as Cattle King Carl, “quickest wrangler in the West,” a dragon-slaying knight, the victim of a Transylvanian vampire, and a plant in a scie

BOG MYRTLE

Living together in a drafty house, pale-skinned siblings Beatrice and Magnolia are opposites in many ways. Short, wide Beatrice is happy and curious, whereas lanky Magnolia is cranky and tyrannical. One day Beatrice ventures into the nearby forest and meets Bog Myrtle, a giant, gray-skinned spider woman who’s deeply committed to protecting the forest and is known for turning people into flies and eating them. She gives Beatrice some of her magic silk. With the help of the spiders that live in t

TINY FOX AND GREAT BOAR

While exploring the forests and meadows, friends Tiny Fox and Great Boar meet and befriend a nymph who is looking forward to growing her wings. The next day the little bug gets her wish and flies off immediately, leaving Fox and Boar behind. Fox is miffed, but all is forgotten when the mayfly returns and immediately dies. Distraught, Fox runs from the shadow of sadness now chasing him. It’s only when Boar finds him and the two are able to talk about their feelings and the mayfly they loved that

INDEPENDENCE SQUARE

An acquaintance asks Renko to find his adult daughter Karina Abakova, who has “disappeared down a rabbit hole,” and Renko says he will search for her for no pay. Karina’s interests are music and politics, specifically the anti-government Forum for Democracy. The latter passion seems unwise, as “politics in Russia was for the corrupt, the brave, and the foolish.” Then an acquaintance of Renko’s is killed before they can meet, and the detective is assigned to find the man’s killer. Maybe a connec

BABY BABY BABY

When a baby starts to cry in the back seat, Mommy pulls over to figure out what’s going on. But after checking the diaper, the mirror, and the bottle, Mommy’s out of ideas. Back on the road, Mommy finally decides to try a lullaby: “So she sang sang sang / and to her relief relief relief,” baby soon falls asleep. Dee’s simple text features repeating words in every phrase, but many of them don’t have the same number of consonants, which makes the scansion feel off and the pattern of emphasis diff

THE GALACTIC ZOOKEEPER'S GUIDE TO HEISTS AND HUSBANDRY

The author’s debut novels’ title echoes The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but the prose is far more astringent, taking the form of the profanity-filled first-person narration of fiery redhead anti-hero Saffron Savage, an unhappy daughter of “hippie” parents in the far future, whose idealism inspired her to earn a fairly worthless “xeno-zoology” degree. Shouldering student-loan debt, Saffron spends eight years languishing in a lousy job on the tourist-trap zoo planet Hialeah. As one of the f

THE PURPLE PRESIDENCY 2024

The author observes that, contrary to popular belief, the ideological polarization that currently beleaguers the United States is not the historical norm; in fact, following World War II, the country leapt “from strength to strength,” and, despite genuine political disagreement, reasonable compromises and consensus among citizens were concretely brokered. However, this is no longer the case—today, the least temperate members of the citizenry elect the least moderate politicians, and deeply divi