“There may be no creature on the earth that has captured the human imagination more deeply than the house cat,” writes YouTuber Hannah Shaw, who posts as Kitten Lady, in her introduction to this charming survey of felines in art. The fascination with cats traces back to antiquity, when they were seen as symbols of the divine, and continued through the centuries, with knickknacks like the grinning, wide-eyed Kit-Cat Clock, an “icon of twentieth-century industrial design” created by Earl Arnault to cheer up customers during the Great Depression, and the silly feline meme sensations of the 2010s (think Grumpy Cat). The book ranges far and wide, its juxtapositions sparking unexpected resonances. For example, the cat in a painting by 17th-century Dutch artist Clara Peeters, poised to disrupt a display of fish, has a cocky power similar to the subject of the psychedelic 1980 painting “Big Cat” by American folk artist Nellie Mae Rowe, which appears on the facing page. The editors corral work from a broad selection of artists and countries, and captions provide welcome background, especially for oddities like the feline-shaped swimming pool at Miami’s Fountainebleau Hotel, or the cover of jazz musician Charles Mingus’s cat toilet-training guide. As whimsical and amusing as its subject, this offers plenty for cat people to paw through. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Committing—to a relationship, a job, or a personal goal—is less a sacrifice than a means of working toward purpose and mastery, according to this energetic debut program. Former Olympic gymnast Johnson and ex-NFL player East argue that despite modern society’s obsession with endless choices, the ability to stay dedicated offers many benefits: creating “calm” by freeing up cognitive energy for meaningful pursuits; facilitating personal growth; transforming effort into mastery; and strengthening relationships. They offer practical frameworks for identifying worthwhile commitments and setting oneself up to carry them out by finding good mentors, building positive habits, and implementing accountability systems. Johnson and East’s guide is buoyed by their upbeat tone and ample anecdotes of their devotion to their sports (Johnson writes movingly of her thousands of practice hours before a single high-stakes Olympic performance), though the reliance on personal examples may frustrate readers seeking a research-based framework or broader applications. Still, it’s a convincing case for staying focused in a culture preoccupied with keeping options open. (June)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

The emergence of nouvelle cuisine in 1970s France heralded not only a shift in taste but also the rise of the celebrity chef and of cooking as a competitive cultural sport, according to this immersive account from food writer Barr (Ritz and Escoffier). Spurred by the creative freedom of New Wave cinema, early risk-takers like pastry chef Michel Guérard were eager to “cook in a way that made sense of the present.” Other chefs followed suit, leading to the establishment of L’Association de la Grande Cuisine Française, where culinary insurgents gathered to promote nouvelle cuisine and land lucrative sponsorships. The multipronged narrative also follows conservative Le Monde food critic Robert Courtine, who fought back against nouvelle cuisine by highlighting restaurants that offered more traditional menus (which, in an ironic feminist twist, were often helmed by women chefs, leading to women’s rising prominence in the French food world); as well as upstart press agent Yanou Collart, who, grasping that money could be made “at the nexus of press, glamour, and post-1960s French pop culture,” promoted nouvelle cuisine to America. Barr’s raucous account is peppered with food wars (the chefs frequently plagiarized one another’s dishes); dark pasts (Courtine was a Nazi collaborator); and dismal selling out (Collart paved the way for a mediocre French restaurant at Disney’s EPCOT theme park). The result is a savory recreation of a seminal food scene. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

The story of the diaper in America is a “profound” tale of “stratified access to basic human needs,” sociologist Randles (Policing Not Protecting Families) reveals in this illuminating study. She begins with a historical overview of diapering in the U.S.—as women entered the workforce in greater numbers, she notes, disposable diapering became the norm. But families in poverty often can’t afford disposable diapers’ high prices, and assistance programs such as SNAP don’t cover them. Drawing on interviews with financially struggling mothers and leaders of diaper banks, Randles shows that an extensive amount of extra labor, which she calls “diaper work,” must be undertaken by caregivers who can’t afford diapers, including keeping meticulous count of the diapers on hand, tracking funds down to the penny, finding innovative ways to stretch and supplement when supplies run low, making often long treks to diaper banks to fill in the gaps, and skimping on food for oneself to afford diapers. Elsewhere, Randles considers the pros and cons of cloth diapering as an alternative, noting that it often carries stigma for poor families. Randles balances hard facts with empathetic inquiry into the system that keeps people down: “diaper need and diaper despair are neither happenstance nor inevitable,” she writes, but “the result of deliberate... policy choices.” This casts an urgent spotlight on a dire injustice. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

A martyred opposition leader embodies the snuffed-out potential of a free Russia in this labyrinthine debut history. Journalist Fishman recaps the career of Boris Nemtsov, a physicist turned prodemocracy activist who served in Boris Yeltsin’s government and was briefly seen as Yeltsin’s likely successor. Nemtsov, Fishman contends, championed a “peoples’ capitalism” against both communism and the corrupt capitalism of billionaire oligarchs, but the Yeltsin-era program of free-market reforms that Nemtsov spearheaded did little to alleviate Russia’s 1990s economic crises. After initially supporting Putin’s presidency, Nemtsov founded a liberal opposition party and several protest organizations in response to Putin’s growing authoriatrianism; in 2015 he was assassinated by gunmen linked to a Putin ally. Fishman’s richly detailed view of Russian politics unfolds across cabinet meetings, bureaucratic intrigues, and the absurdities of the police state—“ ‘It’s nice that you are so human,’ ” a detective sharing a bottle of cognac with Nemtsov remarks after having ransacked his apartment—and his portraits of political figures are evenhanded: Yeltsin emerges as a smarter, more principled leader than his typical caricature as a shambolic drunk, and even the oligarchs have virtues. Nemtsov himself comes across as an idealistic man overmatched by intractable forces of economic inertia, corruption, and public yearning for a strongman. It’s an intricate, political cautionary tale. (May)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

“The financialization of nature is a dangerous development that surprisingly few know about,” warns Canadian environmental activist Barlow (Still Hopeful) in this astute treatise. Corporations have responded to the climate crisis, she explains, by offering carbon trading, wildlife conservation bonds, plastic offsets, and other methods of profiting from protecting nature. Barlow argues this “insidious new form of corporate plunder” permits continued pollution and habitat destruction by multinational corporations while taking resources away from Indigenous people and the world’s poorest countries. She describes, for example, how the oil companies Shell and TotalEnergies bought blocks of Peru’s Cordillera Azul National Park to “offset” their carbon footprints (the idea being that by paying to protect forests, which are critical for absorbing CO2 emissions, they are compensating for their greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere). However, the project resulted in the displacement of the Kichwa tribe and continued deforestation in the park, all while the companies continued to release massive amounts of C02. Barlow thoroughly describes the flaws with this approach to conservation, but her solutions, such as economic justice reforms and granting rights to rivers and other elements of nature, feel far-fetched. Still, this is an important call to protect the planet’s natural resources. (May)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Essayist and editor Pfau debuts with an elegant and smart collection exploring the role of gay uncles in queer culture. Inspired by his formative relationship with his gay uncle, Bruce, Pfau considers the prevalence of the “trendy portmanteau” guncle and questions why uncles are the family members most often associated with “queer men’s tutelage” (he speculates that it’s because of their tendency to be unmarried and childless and their “oblique and versatile” relation to younger generations). He reflects on spending much of his childhood listening attentively to Bruce’s stories and taking notes, and seeking as an adult to emulate Bruce’s confidence and charm. Such efforts include cruising in a bathhouse, serving as a nude model for a photographer, and taking his therapist to a leather bar to overcome his anxiety about flirting. Elsewhere, Pfau explores the avuncular nature of intergenerational male friendships in queer communities and the way that heroes—for Pfau, the artist Robert Rauschenberg—support the development of queer identities. Pfau seamlessly blends memoir with art and literary criticism, and his eloquent prose and wit make this stand out. He is a writer worth keeping an eye on. (May)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Gold, a PhD candidate in classics at the University of Oxford, debuts with a breezy overview of the women of ancient mythology. Understanding historic portrayals of womanhood, she argues, enables people to reclaim these stories to “empower women today.” Organizing the characters into seven archetypes—Homemaker, Virgin, Warrior, Femme Fatale, Witch, Madwoman, and Monster—she explores how their meaning has shifted over time, with those more antithetical to previous standards of womanhood often praised as heroic by contemporary feminists. For example, Medusa, the snake-haired monster who could turn men into stone with her stare, was once the embodiment of “an imagined threat to male domination,” but has become a feminist icon and the “ultimate subversion of the male gaze,” Gold says. The sorceress Circe has often been viewed as a spiteful, scorned woman, but modern interpretations, including Madeline Miller’s 2018 novel, Circe, depict her as a complex character with needs and desires that have gone unmet. On the other hand, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and crafts, has been a feminist figure for centuries, but in ancient myths, Gold explains, she punished women who didn’t conform to standards of femininity. Nuanced and enlightening, this succinctly relays the origin stories of contemporary empowerment symbols. Ancient mythology buffs and feminists will find much of interest. Illus. (May)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

A piano prodigy singing gospel tunes in her family’s Motor City church evolves into one of the jazz world’s most innovative (and misunderstood) composers in this thrilling debut reevaluation of Alice Coltrane’s career. Rewriting the record of an artist better known for her marriage to John Coltrane than her innovative compositions, music writer Beta traces how Alice’s musical style mixed her early mastery of gospel and classical music with the hard bop of the 1950s, and took on a world-music flair after she met John in 1963 and became the pianist in his quartet. The Coltranes’ marriage is described as a remarkably spiritual partnership, with their shared fascination with world religions spurring them to draw on ancient Indian and African instrumentation for a loose, atmospheric sound that set them apart from other jazz musicians. After John’s death in 1967, a grieving Alice put out record after record of ethereal compositions, including 1973’s Lord of Lords, and experienced a late-career spiritual metamorphosis, christening herself Swamini Turiyasangitananda and building an ashram outside of Los Angeles. The author scrupulously mines archival materials and interviews to probe the complex web of spiritual and religious influences that shaped Alice’s music, and vividly describes her ebullient live performances and ecstatic worship at her Agoura Hills ashram. It’s a music biography par excellence. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink

Cronin (Osaka Modern), a professor of Japanese studies at the College of William & Mary, delivers an astute translation of four essays by Japanese novelist Tanizaki (The Makioka Sisters). Forced to relocate to the Kansai region of western Japan after Tokyo’s Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, Tanizaki shares his observations of everyday life, from clothes and temperaments to architecture. “Hanshin Observations” recounts the culture shock he experienced riding Osaka’s public transit. For Tokyoites, public interactions with strangers are seen as impolite and are nearly nonexistent, but Osakans are simply “shameless,” he alleges, noting that they allow children to urinate and even defecate on the train. Written later during his stay, “At Okamoto” finds Tanizaki inspired by his new surroundings and attempting to write poetry. He grows to admire the region’s slow pace, especially its old neighborhoods, which resemble those of his childhood. In the title essay, Tanizaki analyzes Japanese aesthetics, arguing in favor of the beauty of shadows and darkness over artificial light prevalent in Western culture. He feels conflicted when building his new home, caught between the convenience of electric appliances and the refinement of traditional interiors. Throughout, Cronin preserves Tanizaki’s original style and rhythm by retaining his long, unbroken sentences. The result is mesmerizing. Photos. (May)

Reviewed on 03/20/2026 | Details & Permalink