TwistColum McCann. Random House, $28 (256p) ISBN 978-0-593-24173-8
National Book Award winner McCann (Apeirogon) offers an intriguing story of a journalist sent to report on the complex work of repairing the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. Anthony Fennell, 48, a struggling novelist and heavy drinker, flies to Cape Town to board a cabl... Continue reading »
Saint of the Narrows StreetWilliam Boyle. Soho Crime, $28.95 (448p) ISBN 978-1-64129-640-3
Boyle (Shoot the Moonlight Out) delivers his most ambitious novel yet with this extraordinary crime saga set in the working-class neighborhood of Gravesend, Brooklyn. The story opens in 1986, with 28-year-old Risa realizing she’s made a tragic mistake by marrying Saverio “Sav” Franzone. Sav... Continue reading »
Blood on Her TongueJohanna Van Veen. Poisoned Pen, $17.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-72828-157-5
Van Veen’s stunning sophomore outing (after My Darling Dreadful Thing) is gothic horror for the ages. In 1887, Sarah finds a body in the bog surrounding her husband’s isolated mansion in the Netherlands and develops an obsession with the corpse that transforms into a mysterious illness. Wor... Continue reading »
Never Gamble Your HeartLindsay Lovise. Forever, $17.99 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-1-5387-4055-2
Lovise’s scintillating second Secret Society of Governess Spies Victorian romance (after Never Blow a Kiss) reintroduces Perdita’s Governess Agency, a front for an all-female spy ring set up by a mysterious figure code-named the Dove. After Frankie Turner’s younger sister, Fidelia, goes mis... Continue reading »
Ultra Heaven Keiichi Koike, trans. from the Japanese by Ajani Oloye. Last Gasp, $24.95 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-86719-929-1
Koike (the Heaven’s Door series) brings readers into a dazzling, drugged-out cyberpunk future in the first English language translation of the series widely regarded as his masterpiece. Cub, a stubble-faced junkie who escapes his grimy apartment through daily drug trips, is a typical citizen in a Bl... Continue reading »
Something About LivingLena Khalaf Tuffaha. Univ. of Akron, $16.95 trade paper (82p) ISBN 978-1-62922-273-8
The brilliant third collection from Tuffaha (Kaan and Her Sisters), who is of Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian descent, evokes the weight of a homeland’s genocide, but is equally about the joys of heritage and the righteous pursuit of justice for one’s oppressed brothers and sisters. She ... Continue reading »
The Long March HomeMarcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee. Revell, $26.99 (400p) ISBN 978-0-8007-4275-1
In this tour de force from Brotherton (A Bright and Blinding Sun) and Lee (A Single Light), four friends’ lives change irrevocably when America becomes embroiled in WWII. In 1930s Mobile, Ala., preacher’s son Jimmy Propfield shares an idyllic upbringing with childhood sweetheart Cl... Continue reading »
Mornings Without MiiMayumi Inaba, trans. from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori. FSG Originals, $17 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-374-61478-2
In this soulful account, Inaba (1950–2014) recounts her 20-year relationship with her cat, Mii. After finding an abandoned kitten on a Tokyo fence one evening, Inaba impulsively decided to take it home with her. “Maybe it was because my defenses were down,” she writes. “I set off walking without a s... Continue reading »
We the Pizza: Slangin’ Pies and Savin’ LivesMuhammad Abdul-Hadi. Clarkson Potter, $32.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-593-79640-5
“This book is a testament to the creative output Black people give birth to, time and again, in the midst of oppressive machinations,” Ajima Olaghere writes in the preface to this powerful debut from restaurateur Abdul-Hadi, who was on house arrest and wearing an ankle monitor when he launched Phila... Continue reading »
Aflame: Learning from SilencePico Iyer. Riverhead, $30 (240p) ISBN 978-0-593-42028-7
Novelist and essayist Iyer (The Half Known Life) shares in this luminous account the lessons that more than 30 years of visiting a Benedectine monastery in California have taught him about silence. Convinced by a friend to visit the retreat in 1991, he describes it as less a place of solitu... Continue reading »
Me and Other BunniesMo Willems. Union Square, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-4549-5149-0
Via anthropomorphized rabbits who represent the words me, you, we, them, and us, Willems (Are You Big?) movingly explores themes of individuality and belonging. Throughout the visually straightforward work, what distinguishes the terms is a willi... Continue reading »
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