Travel writer Pergament debuts with a cheeky love letter to the pleasure-filled lifestyle of Southern Europe, where there’s “less hurry, more tapas... less retirement planning, more pesto.” In brief sections, she breaks down the Mediterranean philosophy for living well, which involves creating a chic but timeless style (sunglasses, statement bags, clothes that suit the wearer rather than current trends), enjoying good food and wine without overdoing it, and generally slowing down to enjoy the little things in life. Other sections provide irreverent tips on makeup (eyeliner is a must, but wearing concealer is like “going to a wine tasting while you’re chewing gum”); exercising (indoor workouts are best, to avoid the perils of running across steep, cobbled streets); and traveling (“Pack light... even the biggest yachts are smaller than you think”). Pergament couples her own experience living in Italy, Spain, Greece, and France with bits of wisdom from Mediterranean locals for a spunky, early aughts fashion magazine vibe that’s complemented by vivid, witty illustrations from Mokshini. This delights. (May)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

A gentle elegiac tone pervades this stunning posthumous historical fantasy from multi–Hugo and Nebula award winner McIntyre (Dreamsnake), who died in 2019. In ancient Crete, Iakinthu, a former bull dancer, is at the apex of her second profession as chief diplomat-trader of her seafaring nation. To fulfill Minoan tradition, she must take her adopted son, Rhenthizu, to meet his birth mother in a faraway land no Minoan has ever visited, after which he will choose which woman to live with. Their epic journey plays out as a feminist odyssey through six distinctive and mostly matriarchal cultures, superbly constructed around permutations of myth and legend. McIntyre’s scene-setting is lush and immersive, and her finely drawn, women-led cast leaps off the page as they confront obstacles with wit and wisdom. This sensitive and captivating voyage of discovery is a fitting capstone to a remarkable career. (May)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

Elan’s magnificent debut traces the reverberations of a computer game on the work of late-21st-century ecologists and seafaring migrants in the distant future. In 1983, college student Becks grieves the loss of Ben, her computer programmer uncle who died of AIDS. As she digs through Ben’s possessions in her grandmother’s house, she uncovers an unfinished video game, Homebound, that he left for her, and she sets out to complete it, reveling in the material language of computer programming (“Words between people... is like a glaze over the realness of action and being.... But code is the doing, is the thing: words and syntax and rules creating their own world”). In 2086, UC Berkeley professor Tamar Portman, who inherited a copy of Homebound from her late mentor, makes the startling discovery that Chaya, a robot she built to study ecosystems damaged by climate change, has become sentient. Later, Tamar and Chaya play the game together, in which an astronaut is lost in space. In a third thread, Chaya sails north in 2586 with a group to a site where they believe a time-traveling spaceman will return to Earth. Elan intersperses the sprawling epic with fascinating ontological discussions on the nature of life (“You are a part of our collective intelligence, part of the great spiral of being,” Tamar tells Chaya). It’s a marvel. Agent: Julie Barer, Book Group. (May)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this refreshing debut guide, Maguire, creator of the Substack newsletter The New Fatherhood, upends traditional notions of fatherhood as a “side quest” to “life’s main plotline.” He lays out a philosophy that sees fatherhood as a chance to “be better: for our kids, for loved ones, and for ourselves,” suggesting, for example, that dads focus on managing their feelings rather than controlling their kids’ behavior. Doing so, he writes, makes it easier to navigate daily crises while modeling appropriate emotional responses for one’s children. Other chapters discuss embracing personal vulnerabilities, getting comfortable with not having all the answers, separating professional identity from self-worth, and even considering psychedelics like psilocybin as possible treatments for mental health problems. Maguire is a smart and self-aware guide, candid about personal challenges like his struggle with paternal postpartum depression, and full of practical tips for reframing tough situations. (Readers can get through tedious parenting tasks by reflecting that it might be the last time they’re doing it, which boosts gratitude.) This will resonate with modern dads frustrated with outmoded parenting advice. (May)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

Wall Street Journal editor Baer debuts with a labyrinthine history of Fidelity Investments. one of the world’s most powerful financial institutionsBaer recaps the company’s evolution from its 1946 founding in Boston by Ted Johnson, who pioneered mutual funds that let small investors buy into professionally managed portfolios of stocks and bonds. His son Ned took over Fidelity in 1972 and cultivated a vast new business in administering 401(k) retirement plans for millions of workers who constituted a gigantic pool of customers for Fidelity funds and other financial services. In more recent years, the company has innovated with zero-fee index funds and bitcoin investments. Along the way, Baer revisits company scandals, including traders’ acceptance of bribes from brokers they bought stock from and a convoluted familial succession melodrama. (Ned barred his daughter Abigail, a Fidelity executive, from replacing him, whereupon she tried to oust him from the company; the two reconciled and Abigail later became an effective CEO, Baer reports.) Baer argues cogently that Fidelity has been a leader in the democratization of Wall Street, but the narrative bogs down in eye-glazing details of mundane office politics. The result is an overstuffed and undershaped portrait of a Wall Street institution. (May)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

In the delightful final volume of Daws’s Mountain Man Matchmaker quartet (after Honeymoon Phase), the focus finally turns to perky Everly Fletcher, who, having successfully paired up her father and all three of her uncles, is now looking for love of her own. Unfortunately, her talent as a matchmaker doesn’t translate to her own romantic life, which sees her nervously discussing her pooping habits while trying to flirt. As she prepares to graduate from Dublin’s Trinity College and return to her Colorado hometown, Everly doesn’t expect to have her best friend Cliona’s surly twin brother, Conri “Wolf” Reilly, in tow. Wolf is a talented rugby player, but after getting into one too many fights on the pitch, no Irish team will take him. There’s a fledgling squad in Denver that’s interested, on the condition that he prove he can play nice with others. He recruits Everly to help clean up his image and, while working together at Everly’s aunt’s animal rescue, the pair let their guards down and fall in love. Daws delivers all the spice and raunchy humor that fans expect, coupled with touching displays of vulnerability. Cameos from past series leads add to the appeal. This is grumpy/sunshine done right. (May)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

Originally published in 2003, this deeply human story from Jeyamohan (Stories of the True) tells of slavery, religious hypocrisy, official corruption, and arranged marriage in 1991 Tamil Nadu. Perennially cash-strapped patriarch Pothivelu Pandaram puts on a pious face by working as a custodian at a Hindu temple. In fact, he makes his living from the horrific practice of breeding and trading a group of deformed people he and his associates call “items,” whose proceeds from begging on the temple steps he transfers to his own pocket. One has just given birth to her 18th baby, and he stuffs the pair and his other “items” in a van bound for a Hindu festival in the temple town of Pazhani. What unfolds there and back home is painful to read: Pandaram’s overseers regularly beat the beggars, the police abduct and rape one of them and leave her in the hospital with a broken spine, and Pandaram, who’s contracted a venereal disease, makes an ill-fated deal with another enslaver. When his plans to marry off his oldest daughter backfire disastrously, he unleashes his savagery on his own household. Yet the novel is eminently readable, thanks to the unsparing view not just of Pandaram’s cruelty but his folly, as well as the wit and wisdom of the beggars. Observing the festivalgoers, one says to another, “They’re going a-begging. Begging to the lord on the hill.... We beg these folks for money. And they beg the beggar God.” This is a masterpiece. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

This wild debut tell-all from former Infowars editor Owens recounts his destabilizing stint working under Alex Jones. Owens was already an Infowars fan when he was hired in 2013. Yet even with foreknowledge of Jones’s extreme personality, his first day was a surreal experience, from Jones’s uncomfortable overshares (“I bet you weren’t expecting to learn on your first day that it takes Alex Jones thirty seconds to take a shit”) to foreboding warnings from new colleagues (“You don’t want to make him angry”). What follows is four years of constant instability as Jones churns out paranoid content based on mundane observations like a low-flying plane (“This is 9/11 all over again!”) and sends the author on harebrained “gonzo” assignments, including infiltrating an NSA data storage facility and crossing the border into the U.S. dressed as an ISIS member. The book serves as a morbidly fascinating character study of Jones, who’s depicted as a volatile self-proclaimed “drunk” given to outbursts of violence (destroying an office watercooler with a kitchen knife; goading underlings into punching him, then punching back; shooting at staff during a video production). Even as Jones “seemed to be struggling with the nature of reality,” his employees affirmed his delusional theories—not out of true belief, Owens asserts, but fear of his retribution. It’s a riveting insider account of a deranged media ecosystem. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this incisive dual biography, historian Vinen (1968) paints British prime minister Winston Churchill and French general Charles de Gaulle as having moved along opposite trajectories. As Churchill grew into the indomitable leader who rallied Britain to persevere against the Nazis, de Gaulle’s wartime exploits were less glorious. Exiled to London and often sidelined by the Allies, he managed, through clandestine intrigues and a carefully cultivated aura of destiny, to position himself as France’s leader. The relative statuses of Churchill and de Gaulle changed drastically in postwar decades, however. Churchill’s second stint as prime minister in the 1950s was a study in fecklessness and physical decrepitude, in Vinen’s telling, while de Gaulle’s presidential term from 1958 to 1969 was a triumph: he presided over an economic boom; turned France into a modern, efficient technocracy; and faced down military revolts and assassination attempts to grant Algeria its independence. Vinen’s colorful portraits note resonances between the two leaders: both were conservatives and unreconstructed racists with theatrical streaks who grappled with imperial decline. But he depicts de Gaulle as the more perceptive and realistic statesman, ushering France into a less ambitious but prosperous and independent new dispensation while Churchill wallowed in nostalgia. The result is a fresh and illuminating reconsideration of two statesmen who helped build the modern world. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink

Debut author Averick sparkles in this empowering rom-com. Pre-K teacher and romance novel lover Phoebe Berman is a few weeks away from her 30th birthday and despairing that she’s never had sex. Unfortunately, crippling social anxiety has left her terrified of dating, still traumatized by an unfortunate vomiting incident during her first kiss 17 years ago. Now, however, the chronic list maker creates a “Guide to Losing Her Virginity in Thirty Days,” encouraging herself to explore a range of scenarios for potentially meeting someone, from the cute (petting a dog and striking up a conversation with its attractive owner) to the last resort (advertising herself on Craigslist). Things seem to be looking up for Phoebe when school starts and she meets gorgeous new fourth-grade teacher Finn. But even as Finn appears to take an interest, Phoebe’s roommate and close friend, Jonathan, suddenly starts acting weird (could he be jealous?), and a former classmate, Matthew, with whom she once exchanged flirtatious text messages, unexpectedly reenters her life. Averick makes the romantic entanglements fun and surprising, and Phoebe’s personality—including her palpable and sensitively handled anxiety—leaps off the page. The result is smart, savvy, and irresistible. (May)

Reviewed on 04/10/2026 | Details & Permalink