This immersive history from bestselling biographer Haygood (The Butler) explores the unique experiences of African Americans drawn into the Vietnam War as the civil rights battle raged on the home front. Among those profiled are Capt. Leroy Pitts, the first Black officer awarded the Medal of Honor after he “heaved himself” onto a grenade to protect his men, and Air Force officer Fred Cherry, who endured seven harrowing years of torture as a POW, as well as civilians like Philippa Schuyler, a biracial piano prodigy who died while rescuing orphans fathered by American soldiers in Vietnam, Time journalist Wallace Terry, who doggedly reported on Black soldiers, and Maude DeVictor, a “government worker-bee” who investigated veterans’ illnesses caused by Agent Orange. These disparate threads combine to produce a wide-ranging examination of the “many truths” of African American life during “America’s first fully integrated war,” from discrimination against Black officers and racist tension between Black and white troops to those tensions’ dissipation under shared duress, as in the case of the moving friendship that developed between Cherry and fellow POW Porter Halyburton, a white Southerner. In particular, the book vividly portrays the growing anger among African American troops about fighting “a white man’s war,” culminating in a “racial riot” at the Long Binh Jail near Saigon in August 1968 following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. The result is a highly original window into a turbulent historical moment. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

These scattershot essays from psychoanalyst Phillips (Unforbidden Pleasures) explore the interplay between psychoanalysis—which studies how unconscious drives determine behaviors—and an optimistic pragmatism, outlined by American philosopher Richard Rorty, that argues people can mine their unconscious to achieve their goals. Pairing the two, Phillips contends, can yield a realistic but hopeful outlook. The essays explore such topics as the Freudian “death instinct,” or the wish that one had never been born, which pragmatism can turn in a useful direction, according to Phillips; and psychoanalytic resistance—the patient’s stubborn evasion of painful truths—which, the author writes, is not an obstacle to therapy but the key to its success, since such blocks reveal core desires to the psychoanalyst while allowing the patient to “test” and buy into the therapeutic process. Phillips connects Freudian themes to mind-expanding questions and broader intellectual discourse, but his analysis too often lapses into academese (“I want to wonder, among other things, how we became interested, and what it was that we thought we were interested in; and what psychoanalysis is, for us now, a way of being interested in?”). Devoted Freudians will appreciate this, but casual readers will likely find it too esoteric to make an impact.

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Tremonti Reiter, founder of Creatively Noted, a company that conducts note-writing workshops, debuts with a ho-hum ode to the power of handwritten notes. During a precarious period when the author and her husband, then an NFL free agent, were searching for their next home base, Reiter decided to begin writing a handwritten note each day, and found in the practice a powerful tool for staying grounded and improving her “mental, spiritual, and physical health.” She unpacks the many benefits of note writing, among them boosting one’s sense of gratitude, fortifying connections with friends, family, and acquaintances, and providing a creative outlet. Guidance for establishing one’s own note-writing practice is included, with tips on choosing recipients, deciding on content, and sticking with the practice. The author’s cheery tone and enthusiasm charm, and readers will appreciate the inclusion of her notes to friends, family, and acquaintances. Unfortunately, her exhortations of the benefits of note writing become repetitive, and the writing advice is mostly stale. The result is a sweet but superfluous paean to a lost art. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this solid biography, literary scholar Harris (Rebecca Harding Davis) chronicles how mystery writer Elizabeth Jordan helped shape American letters in the early 20th century. Born in 1865, Jordan developed a love of reading during her childhood in Milwaukee, and at 13, she set out to become an author. As a teenager she contributed to local newspapers before landing a reporting job at the World in New York. She excelled, covering many of the day’s most sensational news events, including the case of Lizzie Borden, a Massachusetts woman accused of killing her parents with an axe. In 1900, Jordan became editor at Harper’s Bazaar, where she expanded its fiction offerings, leaving in 1913 to become a literary adviser for Harper and Brothers publishers, where she signed Sinclair Lewis and Frances Hodgson Burnett. Harris points out that Jordan “became to Lewis and many other authors what Maxwell Perkins was to Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.” Jordan went on to write critically acclaimed books of her own, becoming for more than 20 years before her death in 1947 “one of America’s top mystery writers,” known for novels like The Girl in the Mirror and The Blue Circle. Harris’s attention to detail, dynamic prose, and astute critical skills uncover the significant role Jordan played in American literature. Readers will be impressed. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

“Life itself has very little plot,” says one of the narrators of these magnificent short stories by Lavin (Tales of Bective Bridge), who died in 1996. Rather than run a conventional course toward epiphany or redemption, each entry ends abruptly or ambiguously. In “A Cup of Tea,” a stubborn college student and her equally stubborn mother clash during a visit home. The story culminates in an all-too-realistic moment of folly as the daughter comes close to understanding her mother but instead lurches into an over-intellectualization of the issue at hand. In “A Memory,” a retired professor collapses in a fit of delirium after refusing to commit romantically to a former colleague he has been stringing along. A young man and an aging widow begin to fall in love in “The Cuckoo Spit” but go their separate ways after only a few days of courtship, unable to surmount their own ageism and anxieties about propriety. Many of the well-crafted tales feel ahead of their time. This acute and uncompromising collection is a gift. Agent: Grainne Fox, UTA. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this towering absurdist work that is perhaps easier to admire than enjoy, Moresco (Clandestinity) chronicles a young man’s successive affirmations of his religious, political, and artistic lives. Divided into three sections covering each phase, the novel opens as the unnamed narrator, a seminary student waking up in a dark dormitory, painstakingly and slowly polishes his shoes. He calls this exercise one of his “games of eternity.” At the seminary, he meets a roguish older prefect named The Cat, who reappears in the third section as a Godot-like book publisher who endlessly defers meeting with the narrator to discuss his manuscript (presumably a novelization of his days as a seminarian and political operative). In the second section, the narrator joins a shadowy left-wing organization and tours Italy in a “plastic car” with a blind man, delivering political speeches to near-empty or deserted town squares. The narrator withholds emotional, spiritual, romantic, and intellectual reflections, and instead recounts his life like an impersonal and uncanny film reel. Moresco punctuates the narrative with hallucinatory set pieces, most memorably the nighttime incineration of a trash heap on the narrator’s family estate, complete with a raucous crowd and brandy-drunk animals running wild. It’s a bit exhausting, but there are plenty of marvels to be found. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this breezy account, Becker (Character Matters) and Collamore, former advance aides for President George H.W. Bush, recall consequential moments from their tenures preparing the president for public appearances and collect stories from other advance aides. The result is a blend of memoir and watercooler discussion, with the authors offering running commentary between often comedic dispatches. Andrew Friendly, who worked for Bill Clinton, recalls a 1993 teleprompter malfunctioning during a congressional address that forced Clinton to pull his speech from memory. Becker recalls apologizing to First Lady Barbara Bush for managing to position her in front of defecating cows during a speech at the Florida State Fair; her colleague Gordon James recounts failing to fetch the diminutive Queen Elizabeth a stepping stool in 1991, allowing the audience to see only her purple hat. These lighthearted passages are offset by the occasional somber one, including chilling accounts of the assassination attempts on Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and subdued reflections on 9/11 and the Sandy Hook school shooting. Though most of the anecdotes are only a few paragraphs, they offer a tantalizing glimpse behind the presidential curtain. History buffs will relish the up-close perspective. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

From the evolution of the opposable thumb to the exploitation of fossil fuels, each stage of human development has been driven by an engineering advancement that involves “converting energy from one form into another,” according to this cerebral study. Biologist Ennos (The Age of Wood) begins with humanity’s antecedents, tree-dwelling primates who developed bodies that happened to be ideal for creating simple tools. Over time, early humans modified these tools to convert more energy with them, such as using “sling action” to turn stone blades into powerful projectiles. Meanwhile mastery over fire supplemented the power-generating potential of early humans’ metabolisms, allowing them to “divert more energy to.... supporting a larger brain,” and leading, over the ensuing millennia, to more and more energy-intensive technologies, from fired earthenware ceramics to the smelting of metals. In the early modern era, the discovery that coal contained “five times as much energy per unit as wood” facilitated the buildup of the “energy intense industries” that kicked off the Industrial Revolution. Today, “profligate” use of energy threatens humanity’s existence, Ennos notes, even it has “doomed us to be the slaves of machines” and “forced us to mimic them, carrying out repetitive but unskilled tasks.” The result is a striking call to reconsider whether humanity controls energy or it controls humanity. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Losing a baby broke the First Couple’s hearts but revived their marriage according to this emotionally probing history. Former Washington Post editor Levingston (Little Demon in the City of Light) recaps the death of Patrick Kennedy two days after Jackie Kennedy gave birth to him, five weeks early, in August 1963; he succumbed to hyaline membrane disease, a lung disorder that was often fatal in premature infants. Patrick’s demise, Levingston notes, captivated the world and inspired improvements in neonatal healthcare that have all but eliminated such deaths, funded in part by bills President Kennedy signed after his son’s death. But Levingston’s focus is on the tragedy’s role in JFK’s transformation from heartless womanizer—he was yachting with other women when Jackie gave birth to a stillborn daughter in 1956—to loving family man. This time, Kennedy stood vigil over his dying son and shed “cataracts” of tears after his death. In the aftermath, the couple made previously uncommon public displays of affection, while Kennedy bonded with his young children. (He also, according to Levingston, swore off sex with his two mistresses, even as he continued to rendezvous with them.) Later chapters explore how the newly rekindled relationship compounded Jackie’s trauma after the assassination. Levingston fleshes out his chronicle of the couple’s reconciliation in soap-operatic prose. It makes for an affecting if occasionally maudlin addition to the Camelot saga. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink

Miller riffs on Jane Austen’s Emma with the cute latest in her Silver Teapot series (after Not Exactly Mr. Darcy). Emma Jane “EJ” Bennett and Jordan Knightley, cocreators of the Christian dating app Dream Match, grew up together in small-town Wattle Vale, Australia, and have been inseparable ever since. Having relocated to Sydney, the pair now yearn for different things: Jordan’s drawn to a life centered on family and faith, while EJ hopes to grow Dream Match’s success. Her search for investors connects her to a circle of high-flying elites, including Eric Churchill, a wealthy, womanizing businessman of whom Jordan is immediately suspicious, though EJ’s convinced he’s the key to keeping the app afloat. When Eric and EJ start dating, she’s thrilled to step into his glittering world, but Jordan worries EJ’s abandoning her small-town values. After Jordan shows up at one of Eric’s parties and criticizes its waste and luxury, EJ returns home to Wattle Vale and tries to understand what’s driving her toward success—and how far she’s willing to go to obtain it. Miller has fun modernizing Austen’s conceit with lively characters and zippy dialogue, though she sometimes leans into predictable moralizing about the ills of a superficial lifestyle. Still, there’s plenty here to please Miller’s fans. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 02/27/2026 | Details & Permalink