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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

HOUSE OF FLAME AND SHADOW

When we last saw Bryce Quinlan, she was escaping an attack from the all-powerful Asteri, the despotic rulers of the planet Midgard. Bryce manages to leap through a portal and finds herself in the Fae’s original home world, where the Fae she meets are recognizable to her, but also somehow more powerful than the Midgardian Fae, who live under the Asteri thumb. These new Fae don’t fully trust the strange woman who appeared in their world out of thin air, and Bryce doesn’t have time to convince 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

ROGUE JUSTICE

Last time out, Keene, a Black woman in her late 20s who worked for loose cannon Justice Howard Wynn, who’s White, used damaging information he had gathered before falling into a coma to help force the semi-Trump-ish President Brandon Stokes (a reviled authoritarian wannabe but one with a deep intellect) at least temporarily out of office, as his Cabinet used the 25th Amendment to sideline him. Now, on the eve of Stokes’ impeachment trial, Keene stumbles on what turns out to be a revenge plot to

THE NOTEBOOK

British publisher and diarist Allen brings his love of notebooks to a lively, wide-ranging history of bound blank pages. Notebooks, he writes, “interest me as a technology that has had tangible effects on the world around us.” The author started keeping a journal in 2002: “Writing a diary made me happier; keeping things-to-do lists made me more reliable (which in turn made those around me happier), and I learned never to go to a doctor’s appointment, or a meeting of any kind, without taking not

BLUE RUIN

Kunzru’s seventh novel is narrated by Jay, who in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic is in ill health, getting by delivering groceries in upstate New York. His route takes him to an estate that’s coincidentally occupied by Alice, a former flame, and her husband, Rob, Jay’s one-time art school rival. Alice is disinclined to bring him into their pod for fear of infection—or of stoking old drama—so instead hides him in a barn while his health improves. In the weeks that follow, Jay recalls th

WHO GOT GAME?

The author positively pours out facts and anecdotes about lesser known, or at least less celebrated, “batters, buzzer-beaters, and record-breakers”—from tributes to the early barnstorming “Black Fives” and Wataru “Wat” Misaka, the NBA’s first non-white player, to accounts of Scott Skiles’ 30 assists in 1990 and Bernard King, who came back to finish a Hall of Fame career after shattering a knee. Despite noting that basketball is enjoyed across the world, “from Boston to Barcelona to Beijing,” he

THE WHITE BONUS

Award-winning journalist McMillan, author of The American Way of Eating, combines investigative reporting and memoir in a penetrating look at the material advantages of racial privilege. “For a very long time,” she writes, “I thought race and racism ‘happened’ only to people who were not white.” Using her own family as one example, and profiling four others, she investigates the impact of whiteness on individuals of different generations, from different parts of the country, who have one thing

LAWYER NATION

Since colonial days, the legal profession has been proud of “its role in the founding of the republic, the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, and the defense of democracy and the rule of law.” Today, however, the profession faces an “an existential crisis” on which “the American democratic experiment hinges,” writes law professor Brescia, author of How Cities Will Save the World. According to multiple studies, the legal system that helped create what can be called the longest-running democratic

PLAYING WITH WILDFIRE

Early on, a woman named Gretel—the closest thing to a central character you’ll find here—explains her situation: “I live on the evacuation perimeter of what is now Colorado’s largest wildfire, which has been burning for months.” That she does so as part of a grant application—the text of which is one of several found documents included in the book—is an early indication that this novel isn’t a simple narrative of humanity at the mercy of a changing climate. Later, Pritchett includes the text of

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

COURAGE, EVERY DAY

Tomorrow marks a momentous occasion for an East Asian–presenting child with pale skin and straight black hair: a musical performance in front of a crowd of people. “But there are thousands of butterflies fluttering in my tummy,” the child tells us. White-outlined butterflies surround the youngster. “I believe in you,” Papa says as he hands the protagonist a violin. “Have courage.” But what is courage? Papa catalogs many different types of bravery, from saving the day to making small but meaning

QUIET...

Although the late author wrote the poems in this book between her diagnosis in November 2010 and her death just even months later, their subject matter spans decades of her life. Reflecting on her youth in “Phyllip, the boy next door,” she muses, “We used to have such dreamy dreams.” “Our Lady of Angels” hints at her being a victim of bullying in a parochial school. She recalls moving from Chicago to Berkeley, California, as an adult, where “everything was a first.” “Augenblinck” consists of sn

AMSTERDAM ASCENDANT

It’s 1572 and the Netherlands are under the control of Catholic King Philip II of Spain, who is out to bring the Dutch to heel and beat back what he sees as Calvinist heresy that has taken root. The story proper opens dramatically with Maarten van der Voort and the Sea Beggars, essentially privateers, capturing a Spanish warship, which sets the tone for the next several years of back-and-forth fighting. Philip sets up a version of the Inquisition in Amsterdam, but eventually the Calvinists prev

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

BROTHERS

Slate, author of Colored Cosmopolitanism and Lord Cornwallis Is Dead, worshipped his older brother, Peter, “my best friend and the closest thing I had to a father.” As an adult, the author realized that Peter would always be a mystery to him not just because of their seven-year age gap, but also because of the different experiences race imposed upon their lives. The brothers shared the same White American mother, but Nico’s father was White, Peter’s Black. Slate’s maternal grandparents at first

SMALL-GIRL TONI AND THE QUEST FOR GOLD

Small-Girl Toni is certain that stories—her stories—can change the world. Many adults in her predominantly Black community disagree, but Small-Girl Toni does what real-life Morrison will become known for when faced with doubt from critics—she tells stories anyway. Like stories about treasure in her town to draw her siblings into a hunt. The foursome pick blackberries as they search for doubloons in lonely Ms. Solomon’s backyard; they offer to walk Widow Sersee’s dogs in the hope the canines wil

A FATAL ILLUSION

Keira and Sebastian Gage have a well-founded reputation as private inquiry agents. So when Sebastian’s father, Lord Gage, is attacked in Yorkshire in 1832, they rush to his side along with their baby daughter, Emma; a small entourage of trusted servants; and Sebastian’s half brother, Lord Henry Kerr, whom Lord Gage has never acknowledged. Indeed, Lord Gage is a difficult, secretive man whose relationship with Sebastian is not an easy one for myriad reasons, including the elder Gage’s numerous a

OF PAINT AND PANCAKES

Jane McCorvey is an educator at prestigious private school Coolidge Academy, and a former athlete in her 20s with plenty of liveliness and optimism. Then one of her second-grade students, Erin Gustino, has a terrible biking accident; she suffers a brain injury that requires emergency surgery. Fortunately, it’s successfully performed by neurosurgeon Mike Silvers. Later, Erin’s affluent parents, Paul and Kelly, worried that Erin hasn’t psychologically recovered from her trauma, recruit Jane to he

FAMILY PACK

Having just survived a major battle to save humankind inCure(2022), Luna Auber,an inexperienced 20-something werewolf, is settling back into life at home in Camden, New Jersey. She spends her days working at Bizcocheria, a bakery she loves, spending her lunch hours with her newly lycanthropic boyfriend, Javier, and being mentored via Zoom by Birger, a librarian for The Lycanthrope Society (TLS), a group that “believes that humans and shapeshifters were meant to share the planet and allow one an