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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

LOOK

The premise of this book is that contemporary people have lost the capacity for mindful observation of the world around them. As an entrepreneur, corporate consultant, and instructor at the New School, Madsbjerg teaches people how to take note of phenomena that we often fail to recognize as important—if we even see them at all. Using Wittgenstein as his guide, the author argues that it’s only through paying attention to what happens in the background that we fully understand what’s happening in

THE WAR CAME TO US

It is easy to think about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in terms of geopolitical maneuvering and armchair commentary. The value of this book is that it demonstrates the real toll in lives lost and broken. Miller is a journalist who writes for a number of publications, but he has a deep connection with Ukraine, going back to a stint as a teacher in the Peace Corps. He emphasizes that the invasion is merely the latest chapter in the long story of conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and he delves

NERO

To borrow a philosopher’s phrase opining on another era, life in ancient Rome was nasty, brutish, and short—and being on top of the heap didn’t seem to help much. In the year 37 CE, the brutal Emperor Tiberius is dying. Agrippina is related to him by marriage and has a young son, Lucius, who will one day become known as Nero. Sit back and enjoy—or cringe at—this bloody tale that is littered with the bodies of the powerful, the ambitious, and the innocent. The story roughly follows Agrippina and

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

THE COLLECTED REGRETS OF CLOVER

When she was 5, Clover witnessed her kindergarten teacher’s collapse, and then, when she was 6, her parents died in an accident while on vacation in China. Taken in by her maternal grandfather, she moved from Connecticut to New York City, where he raised her lovingly, if in some isolation. Now 36, she still lives in her grandfather’s West Village apartment, though he’s been dead for 13 years; works as a death doula; and counts as her only true friends her pets and her 87-year-old neighbor. Her

MELVILL

“Call me Herman.” Such a commandment could come from only one writer, Herman Melville, who stands at the center of Fresán’s narrative. Occupying much of that space, too, albeit in sometimes spectral form, is Melville’s father, Allan Melvill (the -e a typo that his son, the victim of a bureaucrat’s pen, stuck with, even as, later in the novel, he notes ruefully that his obituary in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, where several of his stories appeared, will render his name as Henry). Allan, born to a

BONESMITH

In the Dominions, smithing makes and breaks nations. Long extinct ghostsmiths raised the dead, recently eradicated ironsmiths mined too deeply and rediscovered those undead revenants, and in the wake of that cataclysm, the bonesmiths, who utilize dead bone to fight the dead, rose. Impetuous Wren, an heir to the House of Bone, makes bad decisions in hopes of holding her father’s attention. As a result, she’s exiled to the Border Wall that holds back the dead—only to make another bad decision and

REBEL BICYCLE CLUB

First, though, Nessa and Demelza—with Demelza’s goose, Captain Honkers, and the ancient severed head of Penfurzy knight Sir Calenick, met in the previous episode, in tow—must fetch the cup from the reclusive Lady of the Lake, escape a mob of shocked villagers after new kid Nessa slathers the jam on her scone after rather than before the cream (an unpardonable breach in Cornwall), break into a barrow hidden beneath a closed and creepy theme park, rout a trio of pesky boys, and like challenges. T

PILIPINTO

The author was born in the Amazon in 1955 to American evangelical missionary parents Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, whose lives she detailed in her previous book, Devotedly (2019). This memoir for children details her time as a child in Ecuador, which included a family tragedy when she was still an infant. Shepard tells the story in the third person, narrating the first several years of her life. Her parents mainly worked with the Quechua people, but they were intrigued by the Waoroni people, who ha

ALL SYSTEMS WHOA

Abby’s Mami and Papi are renowned scientists on the Oasis, and now that it’s Career Day, Abby feels the pressure to live up to their example. “I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. I don’t even know what I’m good at,” Abby laments to friends Gracie Chen (who presents Asian) and Dmitry Petrov (depicted as light-skinned and cued as Eastern European), who seem to have their own futures all planned out. As Abby shadows various adults on the space station, learning about what they do, she m

PENANCE

True crime has become such a ubiquitous genre over the last 10 years—through podcasts, television, and nonfiction books—that it’s now fodder for fiction. Clark, who was recently named to the Best of Young British Novelists by Granta, approaches the genre with both a critical eye and an instinct for the lurid. The novel is framed as a nonfiction account of the brutal murder of a teenage girl by three of her classmates, written by disgraced tabloid reporter Alec Z. Carelli, who has unethically ti

FIX AND STITCH

Squirrel neglects to prepare for winter. But unlike Aesop’s lazy grasshopper, he is motivated by benevolence or perhaps by the need to be needed. Though Squirrel, an expert tailor, has a plan to build his winter home, he is willingly deterred when his many friends successively need help. Fox has a torn coat; Porcupine would like to cover her spines to make hugs possible; a floral coverall could mask Skunk’s stench; Rabbit has no way to corral her kits. Squirrel, conscious of the shortening days

SLEEPERS

Centuries from now, mankind wages war against the alien Flock, fearsome, saurian creatures (flightless but with vestigial wings and avian culture) wielding superior technology looted from other civilizations they defeated. After billions of casualties, the “birds” surrender when the more creative (and desperate) Homo sapiens invent Homo eximius, alias HE: “enhanced humans for military use...Special Forces players who had volunteered for physical upgrades.” Once seemingly unstoppable, the Flock

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