In this piercing, ingenious account, American studies scholar Heideman (Class Struggle and the Color Line) unpacks why the Republican Party and the business elites that dominated it failed to rein in Donald Trump. Heideman draws a comparison between Trump and Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who, like Trump, “polarized much of the party against himself” and “practiced a demagogic mode of politics.” McCarthy was eventually neutralized by a censure in the Senate that was supported by the nation’s business elite. Heideman attributes the difference in outcome between Trump and McCarthy to new gaps both between candidates and their party, and between the party and big business. The former he fascinatingly traces back to 1950s campaign finance reform, which “virtually requires candidates to set up a finance committee separate from the national party,” with the party’s role reduced to providing “campaign services”; this effectively created a system wherein candidates with a personal brand and fund-raising prowess could do and say whatever they wanted without worrying about whether it aligned with the party’s agenda. The latter he attributes to the decline of organized labor, which ironically also weakened big business as a political force, since it lacks a serious foe to oppose. Meticulous and robustly argued, this is a vital new perspective on recent political history. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 11/21/2025 | Details & Permalink

Architectural historian Bruni and illustrator Thompson provide a sprawling survey of the evolution of Chicago homes. Though the first home in Chicago is often attributed to Fr. Jacques Marquette, a French-Canadian Jesuit missionary who built a log cabin in 1674, the authors begin by spotlighting the Indigenous Potawatomi’s 17th-century homes constructed from “bark or woven mats of reeds.” From these beginnings through the 1940s, Bruni and Thompson survey the city’s various styles of houses, apartments, and hotels, providing detailed descriptions, exquisite pen and ink drawings, and thorough explorations of contemporaneous events that yielded each era’s distinctive aesthetics. The latter makes for the most fascinating aspect of the book, revealing how “our homes are a physical expression of our history,” as when the city’s 19th-century population explosion ushered in a glut of “cheap and easy” wooden cottages that were decimated in the Great Fire of 1871, or when the 1893 World’s Fair led to a boom in rental properties. The volume is also valuable as a resource for identifying the styles of still-standing homes, with bullet-pointed lists of features that aid in distinguishing Gothic Revival (“distinctive pointed-arch windows”) from Beaux Arts (“symmetrical facade”). A bit too dense for casual perusal, this is best suited for dedicated Chicago architecture aficionados. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 11/21/2025 | Details & Permalink

Land is the indispensable collateral that makes the modern financial system work—and often crash—according to this eye-opening debut treatise from The Economist editor Bird. He traces the 300-year rise of land as the linchpin of the modern credit system, starting with banks in colonial America that loaned bank notes to landholders using their acreage as collateral. In the 20th century, Bird explains, the advent of mass homeownership made liquid mortgages and home equity loans dominant categories of bank lending, which could then be used to fund businesses. The downside, Bird contends, is that financial systems dependent on land boom when land prices rise and collapse when they dip. Bird autopsies several such episodes, including Japan’s 1980s land bubble—at one point, a single square mile of Tokyo was worth more than all the land in California—whose bursting tanked the economy for decades; the U.S. subprime mortgage bubble that precipitated the crash of 2008; and China’s real estate boom in the 2000s and 2010s, which resulted in tens of millions of apartments that now stand empty. Bird’s shrewd analysis crackles with fresh insights that tie together material economics with financial abstractions. The result is a stimulating take on modern finance that shows investors’ fates are rooted in the dirt beneath their feet. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 11/21/2025 | Details & Permalink

A young couple’s summer road trip curdles into a hellish hostage situation in this tense but hollow outing from bestseller Stevens (Dark Roads). In 1976, 20-somethings Alice and Tom are driving a rented RV from Seattle to Montreal in hopes of rekindling their marriage after the death of their newborn son. At a Canadian campground, they bump into a younger couple who identify themselves as Ocean and Blue. A gregarious Tom invites the apparent hippies to travel with them for a few nights, but then, while skimming a convenience store newspaper, Alice learns that the pair are runaways named Simon and Jenny, who fled the Vancouver suburbs after killing Jenny’s parents. When Simon discovers Alice has found them out, he takes her and Tom hostage and embarks on a chain of robberies that culminate in tragedy. Stevens constructs some rousing set pieces, including a memorable showdown with a cult leader, but the mayhem plateaus early, only regaining momentum in the book’s final act before everything arrives at a preposterous conclusion. Glimpses of a more intriguing novel emerge—particularly during flashbacks to Jenny’s bleak upbringing—but too often, Stevens merely plods from one fistfight to another. Thriller fans should hitch a ride elsewhere. Agent: Mel Berger, WME. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 11/21/2025 | Details & Permalink

Mount Shasta, Calif., high school senior Izumi Tanaka is a normal 18-year-old American girl: she enjoys baking, watching Real Housewives, and dressing like “Lululemon’s sloppy sister.” But Japanese American Izzy, conceived during a one-night stand in her mother Hanako’s final year at Harvard, has never known the identity of her father. So when she and her best friend find a letter in Hanako’s bedroom, the duo jump at the chance to ferret out Izzy’s dad’s true identity—only to find out he’s the Crown Prince of Japan. Desperate to know her father, Izzy agrees to spend the summer in his home country. But press surveillance, pressure to quickly learn the language and etiquette, and an unexpected romance make her time in Tokyo more fraught than she imagined. Add in a medley of cousins and an upcoming wedding, and Izzy is in for an unforgettable summer. Abrupt switches from Izzy’s perspective to lyrical descriptions of Japan may disrupt readers’ enjoyment, but a snarky voice plus interspersed text conversations and tabloid coverage keep the pages turning in Jean’s (Empress of All Seasons) fun, frothy, and often heartfelt duology starter. Ages 12–up. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary Management. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Kelkar’s (Bindu’s Bindis) novel features Oceanview Academy middle schooler Sonali, whose stoicism contrasts with her love of Bollywood movies’ melodrama. Stuck in a Los Angeles home with constantly arguing parents and her sensitive nine-year-old brother Ronak, Gujarati American Sonali, 11, tries to make sense of her world through the Hindi movies she’s seen all her life. Ever since an earnest public attempt five years ago to stop her parents’ fighting led to widespread embarrassment in front of family, Sonali has resolved to hide her emotions and do her best to ignore her parents’ arguments. But her efforts prove futile when her parents decide to try the “nesting” method of separation, where they take turns living in the house with Sonali and Ronak. The contemporary narrative takes an entertaining fabulist turn as Sonali’s life begins to transform into a Bollywood movie, with everything she feels and thinks made apparent through her “Bollywooditis.” Sonali’s first-person perspective is sympathetic as she navigates friendship and family drama, and Kelkar successfully infuses a resonant narrative with “filmi magic,” offering a tale with universal appeal through an engaging cultural lens. Ages 8–12. Agent: Kathleen Rushall, Andrea Brown Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

When she was six, Justice Kasric watched her blue-eyed merchant father play chess with the Faerie King. Now 15, Justice believes the event was merely a dream. She spends her days yearning for adventure, watching from the sidelines while her 16-year-old sister Faith, as slender and golden-haired as Justice but not as curious, becomes the toast of Victorian London society. One night, however, their father shatters their comfortable lifestyles when he forces the family—Justice, Faith, their younger brother Henry, and their constantly medicated, distant mother—into a locked carriage that takes them to a shadowy mansion. Justice’s discovery that the Faerie have invaded the human world and are targeting her family gains further urgency when she learns that her parents are on opposite sides of the conflict. Together, the Kasric siblings—including older brothers Benedict and Joshua—must find a way to save their family. While characters lack depth at times, and insufficient historical details don’t fully evoke the Victorian setting, Klaver’s (the Supernatural Case Files of Sherlock Holmes series) rich, lyrical descriptions augment the fantastical source material in this engaging series starter. Ages 13–up. Agent: Lucienne Diver, the Knight Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Nine years before this novel begins, eight-year-old best friends Esme Randal and Kayla Price snuck out of their cabin at Camp Pine Lake in Texas. They swore never to discuss the terrible events that followed, but when the girls, now 17, return to the camp as counselors-in-training from their hometown of Lewisburg, Pa., that proves easier said than done. Someone begins sabotaging camp activities, and ominous—and increasingly public—threats appear, referencing that fateful summer. The only other person who knows Esme and Kayla’s secret is a local girl named Lillian Campbell, whom they left to fend for herself that night in the woods. They’re loath to voice their suspicions of revenge lest they get in trouble or look bad in front of hunky fellow counselors Jake and Olly, but as events escalate, they realize they may not have a choice. Narrating from Esme’s increasingly apprehensive first-person perspective, Preston (The Twin) pays homage to classic summer camp slasher films. The underdeveloped, predominantly white cast relies heavily on stereotype, and the clichéd tormenter’s motive feels unearned, but horror fans will likely appreciate this paranoia-fueled tale’s gruesome, shocking close. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jon Elek, United Agents. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Inspired by her own family’s refugee journey from Vietnam to Hong Kong, Văn’s (If You Were Night) spare picture book, powerful in its deliberate simplicity, follows a black-haired, pale-skinned child as they, their guardian, and two younger siblings join other asylum seekers for a perilous maritime voyage. In a third-person voice, Văn anthropomorphizes objects, relaying their wishes: “The dream wished it was longer,” one spread reads, as a balding, mustached guardian holds the protagonist close, and a guardian with a bun rouses the second child to dress them. “The clock wished it was slower,” the subsequent pages read, as the two children tearfully hug their mustached guardian goodbye. The narrative continues as the now family of four make their way onto the boat and beyond. A final-act switch to first-person perspective drives home the journey’s personal nature. Intricate, lissome fine-lined art by Ngai (Dazzle Ships) recalls classical Asian compositions, Japanese woodblock prints, and an evocative sensibility in a gradated, surrealistic color palette. A seamless interweaving of elegant prose and atmospheric art marks this affecting immigrant narrative. Back matter includes heartfelt author’s and illustrator’s notes. Ages 4–8. (May)

Correction: A previous version of this review misquoted the book's text.

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

In a straightforward picture book debut by Meloy (the Apothecary series), a red-orange octopus is “happy in his cave,” until a human, portrayed as a pale hand, tricks the cephalopod into occupying a glove and subsequently takes him to “a glass house that wasn’t a cave.” Though the octopus is offered interactive tests and activities—including building blocks, a jar to unscrew, tight passages to navigate, and a camera to photograph visitors to his aquarium home—his days lack differentiation, and the pining octopus soon devises an intrepid plan to return home. The sympathetic prose is rhythmic, allowing readers to see the octopus’s perspective at every step of the process: of the glass house, “There were no waves. No little shivery ones. No big tumbling ones.” Sala (Green on Green) contributes vibrant art rendered in gouache, watercolor, and pastel on paper; particularly effective are spreads of the sinuous subject’s ocean life, with its richly varied flora and fauna. The Finding Nemo–esque adventure follows a predictable arc, but the tender narrative is gratifying and may serve as an effective jumping-off point for discussions about animal captivity. Ages 3–7. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink