Pastor Groeschel (Winning the War in Your Mind) teams up with psychologist Chappelle for an optimistic, faith-based guide to tackling mental health issues. He debunks myths that prevent Christians from seeking help, including that depression and anxiety stem from inadequate faith or repressed sin, arguing instead that God intimately understands believers’ pain and can serve as a source of stability amid personal crisis. Drawing from his own recovery from a burnout-induced breakdown and interspersing advice from Chappelle, the psychologist who helped him get better, Groeschel unpacks how readers can handle anger, trauma, and anxiety with a mix of faith-based and therapeutic interventions. These include praying, keeping a gratitude journal, and reframing negative feelings as “signals... to make adjustments” to ineffective habits and thought patterns. Groeschel’s at his most enlightening when drawing links between faith and psychology. He explains, for example, how consistently focusing on Bible verses can create new neural pathways that override negative thought patterns, citing research suggesting that praying for 12 minutes a day over an eight-week period creates neural changes profound enough to be measured on a brain scan. The result is both a down-to-earth guide and a welcome corrective to a church culture that’s often silent on psychological health. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Dance critic Veale debuts with a sinuous history of the women dancers and choreographers who transformed their male-dominated industry. She begins in the 1890s, when modern dancers rejected symmetrical forms of ballet and fluffy tulle in favor of “supple, free-flowing dances” and diaphanous tunics that shocked audiences. The 1910s saw the rise of a second generation of modern dancers, led by Martha Graham, who used their bodies to express freedom, empowerment, and equality. Veale credits these women—including Hanya Holm and members of the New Dance Group—with “reimagin[ing] the relationship between dance and society” by making the art form more accessible and mixing performances with advocacy against social ills. The third generation profiled emerged in the 1940s, as dancers harnessed “sweeping styles” and “visceral twists of the body” to celebrate individualism and revitalize marginalized histories. For example, Black dancers like Katherine Dunham combined modern dance with African and Caribbean influences, while Pearl Lang explored her Jewish identity in dances that dramatized the lives of biblical matriarchs. With evocative prose (“You could hear her body as it slapped the floor, heavy with suffering”), Veale vividly highlights how famous and lesser-known female dancers remade an often exclusionary art form while expanding the ways that art can be used to pursue sociocultural change. It’s a captivating chronicle. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Activist McBay (Full Spectrum Resistance) offers an encouraging survey of successful environmental justice activism. The victories spotlighted include an unlikely alliance between construction unions and conservationists that helped protect urban green spaces in 1970s Australia, the diverse coalition-building that prevented gentrification of Boston’s Chinatown in the 1990s, the rural organizing and civil disobedience that stopped the construction of a nuclear reactor in Germany in 1975, and the ways in which Canadian environmentalists have built on a strong history of Indigenous land protection strategies to fight the installation of fossil fuel pipelines from the 2010s to today. Along the way, McBay points out common themes and approaches that led to each movement’s success, spotlighting 12 key “patterns,” including having “urgency” and a “positive vision” for the future, practicing strategic “escalation” and engaging in direct action rather than just protest, and building “coalitions across difference” and movements that can “persist and endure.” The individual stories are accessible but light on detail, leaving McBay’s points sometimes too vaguely illustrated. Still, it’s an illuminating overview and a useful playbook for environmentalists. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

The vibrant debut by Irish writer O’Hare follows three women bound by their lifelong friendship and a recent tragedy. Former schoolmates Maggie, Harley, and Róise, each 29, are mourning the death of their friend and housemate Lydia in a car crash one year earlier. They’re also each dealing with their own issues while continuing to live together, leaving Lydia’s room as a shrine. Maggie, a lesbian, struggles to move on from another friend who led her on for a year. Harley, who is bisexual and recovering from an abortion, repeatedly hits on their landlord, Frankie, who sells her the cocaine to which she is becoming addicted. Róise, meanwhile, harbors a mix of guilt and rage, given that she never forgave Lydia for causing her breakup with a toxic ex. As each friend celebrates her 30th birthday and new scandals roil their social circle, they wonder if they’ve outgrown each other and the house they shared with Lydia. O’Hare keeps the laugh track running on the trio’s bittersweet “sitcom” arrangement, as when Maggie vents about her love life: “Everyone’s one lesbian friend turns out to be either some weird lass with gills and a passion for taxidermy, or someone I’ve already gone out with. Or both.” This is one to cherish. Agent: Susan Golomb, Writers House. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

The U.S. is a cobbled-together assortment of nations with radically different cultural values, according to this sweeping follow-up to journalist Woodard’s American Nations. Updating the thesis of that book, Woodard posits a total of nine American subnations that diverge sharply, particularly over individual liberty vs. collective responsibility. They include Yankeedom, stretching from New England to Minnesota, whose Puritan roots bequeathed a sense of communitarian social discipline; the Deep South, whose origins in plantation slavery imprinted it with a hierarchical social order; and Greater Appalachia, a land of rebellious individualism. Drawing on polling stats and maps of county-level data on everything from election results to life expectancy, Woodard applies the nations framework to explain differing regional attitudes on issues like gun control (the violent honor cultures of the South and Appalachia detest it), migration (Appalachian xenophobia runs deep), and action on climate change (it’s actually popular in all the nations, he notes). A Maine native, Woodard wears his Yankee progressivism on his sleeve, frequently suggesting ways to nudge the other regions leftward. At times, his approach can seem unnuanced, as he ascribes so much of politics to tradition, but at other times readers will find themselves nodding along. It’s a thought-provoking reflection on the deep roots of America’s divisions. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Goncourt Prize winner Le Tellier (The Anomaly) blends autobiography, biography, and fiction in this intriguing story of a French Resistance fighter. In March 2020, Le Tellier retreats from Paris for the small Provencal town of La Paillette, where he recently bought a house with the intention to “invent some roots for myself.” After noticing the name André Chaix carved into the facade, he finds the same name, with the dates 1924–1944, on a war monument in the village square. From there, the narrative comprises Le Tellier’s reconstruction of André’s brief life. With the help of a small box of André’s belongings, given to him by local historians, the author pieces together what André might have been like. The portrait that emerges includes André’s sweet love letters to his fiancée, Simone Reynier, and historical data concerning the Resistance group he joined. Le Tellier also speculates about films André and Simone might have seen, and muses about the insidious political collaboration with the Nazis that stained daily life in that part of Vichy France. Le Tellier crafts a lifelike world around his central character, complete with striking photographs of André with his brother and with Simone, alongside scans of André’s ID card and letters. It’s an arresting testament to courage and humanity in the face of unspeakable evil. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Mak, cofounder of ClearLife Reset, a program that aims to help people reduce or quit their use of alcohol, debuts with a lucid guide to defeating destructive habits. Drawing from her own life, the author describes how she began drinking to fit in as a teen and continued to rely on alcohol to blunt feelings of dissatisfaction as a adult. After kicking the habit in the midst of getting divorced, she was able to start “making decisions from a clearer and more confident place.” Mak explains how readers can break free from their own “dimming habits,” like binge-eating or overworking, which minimize difficult feelings but make it harder to live intentionally and to fully connect with others. Readers can do so by recognizing and acting on eight core truths, among them the notions that life is better “clear” and that one’s trauma isn’t their identity. (Overidentifying with the pain and fear that drives one’s coping mechanisms can perpetuate self-defeating narratives, according to Mak.) Readers will appreciate Mak’s refreshingly candid exploration of her attempts to live more authentically, and her flexible, middle-of-the-road approach wisely leaves room for cutting back on or reframing harmful habits rather than abstaining from them entirely. Readers looking to make major life changes will be informed and inspired. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Investigative reporter Tulsky debuts with a harrowing true crime narrative about 17-year-old Lamonte McIntyre, who was unjustly convicted of murder by a dirty cop, an unethical DA, and a judge who had a secret past relationship with the prosecutor. In the 1990s, Kansas City suffered from government corruption, a decaying downtown, and a high crime rate. When two Black Kansas City men were executed in broad daylight in 1994, the cops and city hall wanted the case wrapped up quickly to avoid further damage to the city’s reputation. They pinned the crime on McIntyre, a poor Black teenager with a drug record, who was swiftly convicted despite a lack of evidence and a solid alibi. McIntyre languished in prison until 2019, when Centurion Ministries, an Innocence Project–style nonprofit, took on his case. With the help of attorney Cheryl Pilate, McIntyre was freed in 2017 and awarded millions in damages from the city and state. Tulsky meticulously traces the perfect storm of prejudice and corruption that left McIntyre vulnerable, and wrenchingly describes his unsteady efforts to rejoin society as an adult. This horrifying account of injustice and new beginnings leaves a mark. Agent: Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

Hannon (Over the Edge) wraps up the Undaunted Courage series with this pulse-pounding contemporary. Anthropologist Cara Tucker is taking a sabbatical in rural Missouri, where she’s helping Natalie Boyer, a local woman, translate family journals written in Paw Paw French, a nearly extinct dialect once spoken by French settlers in the region. Natalie hopes the journals will shed light on her thorny family history, including the suspicious circumstances surrounding a relative’s death in the 1930s. But a series of too-coincidental disasters—a fire set on Natalie’s property, her handyman’s mysterious death—soon has both women wondering if someone might be determined to keep the journals’ secrets buried. After local sheriff Brad Adams gets involved in the case and seeks Cara’s help extracting clues from the diaries, he begins to suspect the real culprit might be closer to home, even if he can’t yet discern their motive. Hannon keeps the tension high as Brad and Cara harness their faith to unravel a mystery that’s rooted in an intricate web of long-ago affairs, contested inheritances, and buried jealousies. Readers will be on the edge of their seats until the very end. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink

In Langsfeld’s elegiac debut, a lifetime of abuse and emotional neglect drives Tom Horak to kill his former childhood friend, Rust Hawkins. After the murder, Tom retreats from his small Colorado town to a cabin in the Rocky Mountains, where he endures a harsh winter with nothing but memories of his painful past and the moose meat he manages to hunt. Tom grew up in a house dominated by his alcoholic father, whose explosive rage and rigid ideas of masculinity prevented him from expressing his love in a healthy way. As a young adult, Tom entered a passionate, on-off relationship with the free-spirited Rose, who eventually married Rust and had his son, Gus, widening the divide between the two friends. Following Rust’s death, Gus, long abandoned by Rose, is taken in by Morris Green, a lonely Lutheran pastor grappling with his own existential doubts. Meanwhile, peace officer Marshal Tomlinson reluctantly pursues Tom, aware that the trauma of his childhood makes any hope of justice or closure an illusion. Like the novels of Tom Franklin and Willy Vlautin, Langsfeld’s meditative noir sanctifies lives steeped in pain and regret, yet still lit by the faint possibility of a brighter tomorrow. It’s an auspicious first outing. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 01/02/2026 | Details & Permalink