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MOLLY MISSES NAINAI

In the painterly art, Molly is shown wearing winter gear as she drags a suitcase in a moonlit snowy landscape. When her mother catches up to her, Molly agrees to return home but tearfully admits she misses her Nainai. “Molly’s grandmother has always been right next to Molly,” the gentle narration explains. We see a toddler-aged Molly and Nainai, portrayed with bright, softly blurred layers of colors in their apartment in China. Chen marks all the milestones the two shared. “She was here” when t

MISBELIEF

Duke psychology professor Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, Payoff, and other books, begins by chronicling how he was accused of being a shill for big pharma and the “Deep State” for supporting Covid-19 vaccination. Why him? The conspiratorial echo chamber, he notes, searches high and low for heretics, aided by “technology, politics, [and] economics.” The technology is beyond individual control, the politics and economics thorny, and the battle against what Ariely characterizes as m

THE HORSE

“Please,” whispers Al Ward, “please give me the strength to pull the trigger and let it be over.” Al isn’t contemplating suicide. An old horse has wandered into the abandoned Nevada mining camp that Al calls home, and he wants to put it out of its misery. The camp belonged to his late great-uncle Mel, who mined it for years with no success. Al would stay there and dry out whenever the excesses of life as a journeyman guitarist and songwriter became too much. But now the horse, scarred and bleed

THE MANCHINEEL

Elyse Santiago is a beautiful young woman with a traumatic past. Having killed the man who sexually abused her by feeding him toxic sap from the manchineel plant when she was 12 years old, Elyse now shares her ongoing fascination with all things botanical with her devoted base of Instagram followers. Her best friend, Stella, whose abusive husband died of a heart attack and left her a wealthy widow, throws a house party and introduces her to Ben Deluca, a talent acquisition lawyer who sees showb

THE GRIFFIN'S EGG

Phoebe, who’s 10 or 11 years old, is playing with her late Grandpa’s cape among the trees when she meets a goblin who introduces himself as Gnish-Gnash. He explains he’s on a mission to protect the only griffin’s egg in existence. Phoebe doesn’t know what a griffin is, despite her vast knowledge of wildlife, and she soon discovers why: Gnish-Gnash is from another realm called Lerch Hollow, full of different groups of magical creatures who don’t all get along. Lerch Hollow is being terrorized by

WACI! DANCE!

“On the morning of a hot summer day, / you heard the powwow drums over the hill.” The parent and child journey until they reach the site of the powwow. The mother unwraps the child from a cradle board, and the two participate in the sacred community ceremony. Infused with Indigenous joy, the narrative combines stylized text told from the perspective of the mother addressing her child, Lakota words, and vivid images. Cultural touchstones, including ribbon skirts and beaded hapans (moccasins), ar

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

THE FIRE KING

Castien Varic is a Stormless—a person born without magical abilities. On the continent of Auris, this puts him at a disadvantage: The crystal-wielding Summoners are able to call upon the powers of the seven Tempests in battle, but Castien is forced to rely on his skills with a bow. He is in a particularly tricky spot at the moment, since one of his friends, the Summoner Ilyana, turned out to be a spy and assassinated Castien’s liege lord, the king of Arvendon, Avenos Titansworn. Now, Castien is

SECRETS OF THE SUN

The afternoon before her wedding, novelist and essayist Yoshikawa learned that her father, Shoichi, had died. Though he was plagued by a heart condition for years, the author focuses mostly on his bipolar disorder, alcoholism, gambling, and abusive outbursts. A Japanese immigrant to the U.S. in the wake of World War II, Shoichi was a respected fusion energy scientist. Just as the technology fell short of its promise to revolutionize energy, Shoichi, too, failed to live up to his own predicted p

SOUL MASTERS

Dr. Mayela Lehman has been experiencing strange visions featuring a dark, mysterious man. They feel like almost like memories, though they can’t be—perhaps the visions have something to do with the grief she still feels over the death of her husband. Mayela is an entomologist, and after a day of gathering native bee samples, she likes to stop by her friend Joni’s café for a cup of coffee and pin her finds. One day, while she’s impaling insects in her booth, a man walks into the café: “Standing

LIFE CLUES

“What is true for children is true for all of us,” asserts the author, the co-creator of the Blue’s Clues franchise as well as the creator of the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and Super Why! children’s television shows. In this book, Santomero outlines 20 “life clues,” concepts for adults to ponder while relating how these principles were weaved into her programs. A protégé of Fred Rogers, Santomero starts things off with Life Clue #1, “I Like You Just the Way You Are,” discussing how the vener

THE FUTURE LIES

After her father’s death, Juniper sets out for Denver. She arrives injured, repressing the traumatic events that claimed her sister and left Juniper pregnant. Her entry into the city disrupts the Network, the all-pervasive artificial intelligence that oversees humanity’s degradation. The disruption allows Calvin (avatar name: Doc) to abscond from the deadly, immersive video game that he and others play for extra privileges and the entertainment of the masses. Freed from his gritty gilded cage,

PEOPLE WHO LUNCH

Readers who hate their jobs and have reservations about capitalism will sympathize with the perspective in this collection of essays. Melbourne-based writer Olds began these pieces on an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Her main interest was in “post-work polyamory,” an idea that’s “premised on and committed to anti-capitalism” and seeks to “abolish the need to work within exploited waged (and unwaged) relations in order to survive.” In the introduction to this U.S.

LOST KITES AND OTHER TREASURES

Years ago, Franny Petroski’s mom, Mia, left her to be cared for by her maternal grandmother. But now Nana has broken her leg and can’t get around without assistance. Twelve-year-old Franny could use some help—or even emotional support—from her best friends, but Lucy Bernal’s family is moving back to London, and Ruben Yao is busy befriending school loudmouth Tate. Enter Uncle Gabe, Mia’s estranged brother, who moves in for a few weeks to help. While he’s there, he starts telling Franny about Mia

LOVE NOVEL

In an urban apartment complex, a husband and wife are fighting again. He’s an unemployed writer and Dante fan, trying to protest government corruption. She’s an actress, now home with the baby. “Words, words, words,” he screams. She slams a door, waking the child. “There was no one to turn to for help, for support, for some understanding or a grain of optimism, because like they said on the news, and like he always claimed too, it will only get worse…” She’s right. Things do get worse. Yet out

COUNTDOWN

In early November 2023, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was revoking its ratification of the 1996 global nuclear test ban treaty. In this astute assessment of the current situation regarding nuclear weapons, Scoles, a contributing writer at Popular Science and author of Making Contact and They Are Already Here, offers a must-read overview of America’s nuclear arsenal, emphasizing the technical details of keeping it up to date in the absence of testing, along with efforts at avoiding catast

CLARION CALL

Neve and her girlfriend, Alexandria, have made it back to Newgrange Harbor, Massachusetts, after traveling through the Gate that Neve has spent her life protecting from the monsters that try to pass through it. But Aodh, her antagonistic cousin, has followed her—and even worse, her sisters are stuck on the other side. Neve isn’t supposed to get back any memories of her previous lives until she turns 18, but they’ve started trickling in anyway, making her more confused than ever about whom to tr

SELF-PORTRAITS

Born in 1909 to a powerful, landed family in Aomori prefecture, Dazai lived a rambunctious socialite’s life—one marred by quarrels, suicides, adulteries, and addictions. He survived the communal traumas of World War II and the atomic bombings before dying, by suicide, in 1948. All this is summarized neatly in translator McCarthy’s introduction, where he praises Dazai as “the one Japanese author who consistently turned out entertaining and worthwhile literature…when the entire nation was toeing

THE END OF THE WORLD

In a distant-future dystopian world, fate pushes together black-market recycler Mica Stone and cyborg “mod” Animkii. Mica has somehow escaped captivity from the After Cult, a group convinced that her dreams harbor the portal to another world. Animkii has inexplicably lost her link to the vicious ruling Technocrats who modified her, freeing her of their mind-control and flooding her with pre-mod memories. She becomes infected by “pseudo-metal” biosteel, which consumes her body like a parasite, i

VAL VEGA: SECRET AMBASSADOR OF EARTH

Sixteen-year-old Valeria “Val” Vega lives with her mother; her brothers, Miguel and Timoteo; and her uncle, Umberto Olmeda, a diplomat who’s often away traveling. When Umberto dies unexpectedly and mysteriously, Val and her family are plunged into grief. Then, Umberto’s colleagues Johnny, Wasala, and Pash-Ti, drop another bombshell. Umberto wasn’t an ordinary diplomat, they explain—he was Earth’s ambassador in an intergalactic council—and before he died, he’d named Val as his successor. Val soo