With this unique anthology, Pulitzer winner Meacham (And There Was Light) aims to inspire by spotlighting tense moments of political polarization and conflicting viewpoints throughout American history. He does this by juxtaposing progressive and conservative texts, such as those defending slavery and those arguing for its abolition. Canonical works like the Declaration of Independence, Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, Martin Luther King’s “Promised Land” speech, the Declaration of the Rights of Women drafted at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, and Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus” are pitted against the likes of the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that upheld segregation and Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephen’s argument that slavery is morally good. These back-and-forths continue through the pro-peace and pro-war movements around both the Vietnam War and the “war on terror,” and around 20th-century fights for women’s rights, racial minority rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. While these documents are stirring and worthwhile, an astute reader already steeped in American progressive mythology will note that 20th-century battles and individuals that are less settled matters on the left get elided—there’s no Milton Friedman, no Henry Kissinger, and no one directly opposing them. Still, there’s much powerful thought to soak up here. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this lively revisitation of the Seminole Wars, journalist and historian Holmes (12 Seconds of Silence) highlights the fortitude and clever military tactics of the rebels. The 1835 standoff between the Seminole tribes under Chief Micanopy and the U.S. government under President Andrew Jackson was precipitated by U.S. acquisition of Florida from Spain in 1821. Southern Americans rushed in to violently claim lands and expand slavery. When Jackson became president in 1829, he demanded the Seminoles relocate to Oklahoma; when some Seminoles refused, he sent the Army to forcibly remove them. Micanopy and his close “Fellowhood” of advisers, including a free Black American known as Abraham and the famous Creek warrior Osceola, were among those who encouraged the Seminoles to stay and fight. Abraham, Micanopy’s “sense bearer,” a position akin to prime minister or privy counselor, was able to move through both the Indigenous and white worlds, and frequently reconnoitered in the latter. Meanwhile Osceola led guerilla forces in lightning-quick attacks that then melted away into Florida’s inhospitable swamplands and nearly impenetrable interior. Holmes also spotlights the American military officers who led the invasion, and whose racist underestimation of their opponents, particularly because many were Black, led to the “costliest” conflict of the Indian Wars. Fast-paced and action-packed, it’s a riveting look at courage and military prowess displayed in the face of insurmountable odds. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

What do Superman, the teddy bear, and chattering wind-up teeth have in common? All were invented by first- and second-generation Jewish immigrants, writes sociologist Kimmel (Guyland), great-grandnephew of the founder of the Ideal Toy Corporation, in this eye-opening history. Modern American childhood was created by those who never experienced a carefree childhood themselves, Kimmel notes; Jews arriving from Eastern Europe to late-19th-century New York City encountered crushing poverty that meant children grew up “largely on the street.” Toymaking, meanwhile, was “small, relatively genteel, and almost entirely Protestant,” with toys made mostly in Europe, until WWI embargoes helped the American toy industry boom. Plus, as the U.S. moved away from stern Puritanical ideals about “idle hands” and toward a sense of childhood as a separate stage of development filled with play, Yiddish notions of children as blessings fit nicely into the new progressive mold. Among the creators profiled are the Hassenfield brothers, rag sellers who eventually founded Hasbro; children’s book authors like Maurice Sendak; and Jewish woodcarvers who fashioned elaborate carousels. The book pops with gleeful toy history (like Ideal Toy Company’s “Baby Jesus doll,” which the pope inexplicably endorsed but no one bought), though Kimmel sometimes overreaches (it seems unlikely that Spider-Man is even “indirectly inspired” by a spider that saved King David). It’s an entertaining exploration of the sweeping influence of immigrant artists on American life. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Journalist Hattem debuts with a deeply reported look at the new patterns of migration resulting from climate change. Hattem notes that humans “are an innately migratory species” and that environmental changes have always spurred migration but asserts that what is novel about the current moment is the pace of change. He takes readers to Bangladesh—“one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world”—where, due to displacement caused by river erosion, nearly 10 million people are considered “climate migrants.” In northwest Bangladesh, the average household has been displaced a whopping 4.6 times. He also presents the case of Guatemala, where increasing droughts will have nearly two million climate migrants on the move northward through Mexico by 2050, according to the World Bank. Excoriating anti-migrant narratives in the West as racist, Hattem notes the irony that if Western leaders really wanted to reduce migration, they would focus on combatting climate change and “make it easier for people to stay in place.” He observes that many people would indeed prefer to remain in place, and makes plain that mass migration can amount to a devastating cultural erasure, as with the case of Bangladesh’s Munda people, a rural, forest-worshipping Indigenous sect, whose way of life has been threatened by “climate induced scattering.” The result is an informative and troubling snapshot of the current state of the climate crisis. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Brand strategist and longtime yoga practitioner Norton draws inspiration from his years on the mat for his wry debut collection of life advice. Each chapter is anchored by an aphoristic piece of wisdom the author has overheard in yoga class. Some of the advice is familiar; “If you feel overwhelmed, just do the next right thing,” he writes, is a reminder that there’s rarely a “correct” next decision. (The best choice is to pick an option that’s feasible and enjoyable, because “at the very least, it’s better than no move at all.”) Elsewhere, he uses the instruction “Close your eyes so you’re not comparing yourself to others in the room” to emphasize how growth and fulfillment come from within. Norton entertains with his self-aware humor and fun pop culture references (ranging from Amélie to Jessica Lange), though he can go off-track, as with a rambling meditation on Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential bid (“The reason we can’t stop talking about Hillary is because her loss shattered our individual and collective worlds”). The result is an approachable and low-pressure, if uneven, guide to self-reflection and personal change. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this scrupulous study, anthropologist Roberts (God’s Laboratory) mines her fieldwork in Mexico City to upend judgmental Western notions of addiction. Drawing from a local philosophy that sees compulsion in the context of its circumstances, she distinguishes between addictions, which happen in community and can be connective, and vices that draw people apart. (The same substance, like alcohol, can be an addiction when used at parties, or a vice when someone isolates themselves while drinking.) Tracing the history of the term addiction, she explains how its 16th-century meaning as “devotion, loyalty, attachment... especially pertaining to the worship of God” was slowly pathologized in the West as post–Protestant Reformation individualism took hold. The focus on personal morality and self-control, she writes, transformed addiction “from being viewed as a regular part of the human condition to a disease” and thus a source of shame, while discounting its structural roots, including economic inequality. As an alternative, she suggests embracing a definition of addiction that centers “devoted and connected pleasure,” reduces shame, and embraces community. While she sometimes leans into extremes (“What if abject junkies could revere heroin for all to see, instead of isolating themselves, ashamed in vice?”), Roberts does a masterful job of excavating the social and cultural roots and ramifications of addiction, exploring along the way AA’s questionable methods (some argue that it replaces one kind of addiction with another), her own disordered eating history, and more. It’s a worthy take on a challenging topic. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Basara (The Cylicst Conspiracy) spins an invigorating if digressive tale of a Russian prophet and crank. Born in the late 19th century, Demyan Lavrentyevich Parkinson claims to have discovered a disease he calls Parkinson’s, which has nothing to do with the real-life neurological disorder previously discovered in England by another Parkinson. This Parkinson’s is symptomless, claims Demyan, who also heralds its “redemptive” qualities, arguing that it can purify nations and liberate people from worshipping at the “abhorrent shrines of godless health.” A Zelig-like figure who plays a central role in key moments of Russian and Soviet history, Demyan denies that a healthy mind can exist in a healthy body, seeing an obsession with fitness and medical treatments as indicative of moral, spiritual, and intellectual decline. Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Vladimir Nabokov contribute their own reflections on Demyan’s writings (the former bemoans the “boring, strained style” of Demyan’s novel). Basra stuffs a great deal of material into the fragmented narrative, including state archival documents, philosophical treatises, and ruminations on the history of walled cities. Though the novel tests the reader’s patience, Basara’s playful erudition impresses. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Colombian writer Ospina (Variations on the Body, a story collection) dismantles the illusion of man-made borders in her beautiful debut novel, which tracks the migrations of five animals. It begins with a dog named Kati, who’s left on the streets of Bogotá when her unhoused owner is arrested. She’s taken to a shelter, where she meets another dog, Mona, abandoned by her owner. Elsewhere, a scarlet tanager bird survives a near-fatal impact with a Manhattan skyscraper and flies south to Colombia, over migrant children corralled in a detention center in Florida, only to find his home in the mountains clear-cut and poisoned by pesticides. In other narrative threads, a newborn beetle is whisked from the countryside into a Bogotá apartment where she becomes lost amid the foreign steel and cement, and a woman gives up her pet porcupine. Later, Ospina circles back to Kati, who’s uprooted once again, this time to the countryside, where she eventually claims a new independence. Animated by a sense of wonder about animals’ inner lives in a landscape increasingly altered by humans, Ospina’s narrative hints at the radical possibilities of a future shaped by purposeful communion with nature. This is revelatory. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

Illustrator Houghton’s scrupulous debut investigates the life of Charlotte Brontë through the lens of her wardrobe. Drawing from the collection of nearly 150 garments and accessories housed at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in England, the author spotlights a governess dress from Brontë’s stint in her mid-20s as a minder to two young children, an ”elegant, unobtrusive” garment that aimed to walk the “sartorial tightrope” between respectability and showing up her employer; her corsets, which Brontë wore during her time in Brussels with her sister Emily, and were laced so tightly the fabric beneath the iron structure has degraded, suggesting the self-consciously “plain” Brontë may have practiced an extreme form of lacing to meet the era’s strict beauty standards; and a brown silk “going-away dress gown” she changed into after her wedding ceremony—a smart, practical piece of clothing that “had been designed with her writerly life very much in mind,” the author posits. (Brontë got little use out of it, however, as she died less than a year after her wedding.) Houghton’s volume is enhanced with copious illustrations, a glossary of fashion terms, and detailed explanations of the research conducted to learn about the garments Brontë wore, including laboratory analyses to determine the original dyes and the mills in which the fabric was spun. Armchair fashion historians will be delighted. Illus. (Feb.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink

In this dreamlike science fiction novel, Ober (Doctor Benjamin Franklin’s Dream America) explores a world where all of civilization exists on isolated rocks in what seems to be an endless void. The story opens on a small rock called Fairveil, where Emery receives an unusual visitor: the Sinker, a woman who’s been traveling for a long time through the void. Emery’s son, Del, has a deadly infection, and the Sinker persuades Emery to come with her to a nearby rock to find medicine, teaching her how to sink and rise through the void by positioning her body against its friction. When they arrive, the two hear intriguing stories of a rock that consumes other rocks—a tale that the Sinker seems to recognize. The Sinker leaves Emery to pursue this lead, but before they part, gives her a map and empowers her with the knowledge to make her own way in the void. On their separate travels, the Sinker confronts her past while Emery follows her strangely vivid dreams to uncover fascinating secrets. In the void, no two rocks are alike, and Ober packs his heroine’s immersive adventures with gorgeous, visceral descriptions and a sense of wonder. Combining impressive worldbuilding and thrilling action, including some fun twists and unexpected reveals, this is sure to please. Agent: Peter Steinberg, UTA. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 02/13/2026 | Details & Permalink