The DesertersMathias Énard, trans. from the French by Charlotte Mandell. New Directions, $16.95 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-0-8112-3901-1
This brilliant interlocking diptych from Énard (Compass) begins with a soldier emerging from a battlefield into a nightmarish future. What has become of the world is a mystery, as is the identity of this haunted survivor. The answers may lie in a conference celebrating the work of the late ... Continue reading »
A Thousand Natural ShocksOmar Hussain. Blackstone, $27.99 (352p) ISBN 979-8-212-97913-9
Hussain debuts with an unconventional thriller that powerfully probes questions of family, death, and memory. Dash Hassan wants to forget everything. A reporter for California’s Monterey Coast News, he’s abusing a cornucopia of prescription pills in an effort to permanently erase his trauma... Continue reading »
House of Frost and FeathersLauren Wiesebron. Harper Voyager, $19.99 trade paper (512p) ISBN 978-0-06-337149-1
Wiesebron debuts with a remarkable high fantasy as thoroughly Slavic and delightfully alive as the building that lends it its name, an orange-shingled house on chicken legs. When orphaned Marisha comes upon the house in the Severny city square, it can only mean the koldun, or witch, Baba Zima is in ... Continue reading »
BehoovedM. Stevenson. Bramble, $19.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-250-37508-7
Stevenson’s wonderfully whimsical romantasy debut takes readers on an entertaining ride through a fairy tale–inspired fantasy land. As the “flower of Demaria,” 25-year-old Bianca was raised to value duty above everything else and has been expected to compensate for her hobbling gastrointestinal cond... Continue reading »
Gilt FrameMatt Kindt and Margie Kraft Kindt. Dark Horse, $29.99 (216p) ISBN 978-1-5067-4594-7
Harvey award winner Kindt (the Mind MGMT series) collaborates with his mother, Margie Kraft Kindt, on this charming cozy whodunit that builds an intricate case around the murder of a Parisian antiques dealer. Amateur sleuths Meredith “Merry” Pearson and her nephew Sam have a knack for stumbling onto... Continue reading »
Viscera: Eight Voices from PolandEdited by Mark Tardi, trans. from the Polish by Malgorzata Myk et al. Litmus, $22 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-933959-83-2
This luminous bilingual anthology features eight contemporary women poets from Poland: Anna Adamowicz, Maria Cyranowicz, Hanna Janczak, Natalia Malek, Joanna Oparek, Zofia Skrzypulec, Katarzyna Szaulińska, and Ilona Witkowska. The opening “Cantata” section presents selections from each, displaying t... 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 »
Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End SlaveryRichard Kreitner. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $32 (416p) ISBN 978-0-374-60845-3
In this riveting study, Nation contributor Kreitner (Break It Up) profiles six American Jews who participated in antebellum debates about slavery, shedding light on how sparring over the issue shaped the history of American Judaism just as much as individual Jews influenced the out... Continue reading »
Fat + Flour: The Art of a Simple BakeNicole Rucker. Knopf, $35.00 (224) ISBN 978-0-593-80178-9
Rucker (Dappled) serves up a droolworthy “celebration of the unadorned joy that mixing these two simple ingredients together can bring.” Her innovative, fuss-free approach to baking relies on the cold butter method, a vintage “reverse creaming method” wherein butter is mixed directly into t... Continue reading »
Islam: A New History from Muhammad to the PresentJohn Tolan. Princeton Univ, $29.95 (296p) ISBN 978-0-69126-353-3
Historian Tolan (Faces of Muhammad) traces in this vibrant and sweeping survey the 1,400-year evolution of Islam. Stressing Islam’s conceptual unity (“we are one umma”) and diverse reality, he tells its history by stitching together the stories of key figures. Among them are Um Waraqa, a wo... Continue reading »
Catch!Trish Cooke, illus. by Ken Wilson-Max. Charlesbridge, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-6235-4622-9
A game of catch turns into a daylong attunement practice in this playfully conceptual picture book from Cooke (The Magic Callaloo) and Wilson-Max (the Wonder Kids series). As Mom and Kiona play on a sunny afternoon, the child appears eager to participate, standing with arms outstretched to ... Continue reading »
PREVIOUS GENRE
