“Since its very inception, Israel is the summation of the West.... It is not just a settler colony that the West supports, but it is ‘the West’ in its very quintessence,” argues Dabashi (Iran in Revolt), a professor of comparative literature at Columbia, in this piercing study. Making a case that “Palestinians are the simulacrum of the world” and that Israel is “doing to Palestine what the West has done to the world,” Dabashi considers Palestine’s place in global literature and knowledge production while taking sharp stabs at “Eurocentric Critical Theory” and its thinkers, including Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, for what he considers their blindness to and silence on issues outside of the West. Elsewhere, Dabashi considers political art (“Can a Palestinian artist be anything but a political artist?”) and argues that Palestine will be the West’s final reckoning: “The West has had its historical course and died in Gaza.” While Dabashi’s prose style can be academic and jargony, he pulls no punches in his criticisms of the West’s self-mythologizing and of where the Western philosophical canon falls short, and his analytical threads are fascinating to follow. It’s a searing condemnation of the status quo and a poignant intellectual reckoning with an unfolding tragedy. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 10/31/2025 | Details & Permalink

This straightforward guide from bestseller Nafousi (Manifest) invites readers to cultivate confidence through “self-acceptance, resilience, and a deep understanding of your own value.” Unpacking the roots of insecurity, she cites the brain’s hard-wired instinct to prioritize negative feedback and criticism as well as formative failures to measure up to cultural expectations. She then lays out an eight step process to improve one’s confidence by silencing one’s inner critic and rewriting harmful self-beliefs, cultivating positive habits that boost one’s self-perception and sense of follow-through, and channeling self-criticism into helping others. Nafousi’s persuasive advice is bolstered by bullet points, doable exercises, and vulnerable disclosures about her own struggles to build confidence, a process that she makes refreshingly clear is ongoing (“I’ve learned that confidence isn’t about being perfect or never feeling fear—it’s about trusting yourself enough to take action despite those things”). Those struggling with imposter syndrome or low self-esteem would do well to take a look. (Dec.)

Reviewed on 10/31/2025 | Details & Permalink

Educator Feldman debuts with a vulnerable and ambitious essay collection about illness. The book opens with a short prelude juxtaposing two trauma responses to sexual assault—Ida Bauer (better known as “Dora” in Freud’s famous case study of female hysteria) was stricken by temporary muteness, the author by a violent eczema flare-up—laying the groundwork to explore intimate links between chronic illness, trauma, hysteria, and sex. From there, Feldman examines society’s tendency to deem certain bodies as “unworthy of desire” and “pathologize” sex that fails to adhere to narrow standards, how illness produces isolation and how unexpected interventions like “sickness selfies”—selfies of ill people, “taken in beds and bathtubs, in hospitals or treatment centers”—combat it by constructing “a community of care” between the ill person and the healthy, and the ways those in queer and straight relationships harm and heal one another. Raw depictions of the author’s own encounters with illness—including their struggles with fibromyalgia, and caring for their ALS-stricken father—are interwoven with an impressive array of critical theory and cultural criticism, making for a wide-ranging look at the often-binary ways society views bodies and how communities can foster new forms of healing. The result is eye-opening. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 10/31/2025 | Details & Permalink

This over-the-top spicy paranormal romance from bestseller Emezi (You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty) follows Galilee Kincaid, the daughter of a large Southern family of supernaturally powerful Black women led by matriarch Nana Darling. Even among her kin, however, Galilee has always felt different. When she moves to the city of Salvation with her two best friends, Bonbon and Oriaku, she enters the orbit of Lucifer Morningstar. He’s the leader of an elite security team guarding a mysterious Nigerian artifact collected by Oriaku’s wealthy father—and he’s also the literal devil. It’s lust at first sight as Galilee wrestles with the intensity of her feelings for the possessive and dangerous Lucifer. Meanwhile, his underlings, the princes of hell, work to keep them apart, especially the brooding Leviathan, whose own relationship with Galilee eventually takes a heated turn as well. When Oriaku’s father’s artifact threatens to open a gate to hell, Galilee must confront dark secrets from her past and embrace her identity to save the world. The reveal of Galilee’s origins feels fairly expected, and the abundant sex scenes, while scorching, occasionally border on gratuitous, but it’s satisfying to see Galilee own her power and her desires. There’s nothing particularly revelatory here, but it’s a solid outing and an exciting new direction for Emezi. (Jan.)

Reviewed on 10/31/2025 | Details & Permalink

Gregory resumes her Tudor Series (following 2017’s The Last Tudor) with an engrossing tale of lady-in-waiting Jane Boleyn. In 1534 Greenwich Palace, Jane attends to her sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s pregnant young queen. Henry is obsessed with producing a male heir, and after Anne gives birth to a girl, Elizabeth, he has Anne executed. Little is known about the historical Jane, who was wife to Anne’s brother, George. Contemporaries vilified her as a traitor to her husband and Anne, both of whom were executed in 1536. Playing on the fact that Jane’s father, Lord Morley, studied Machiavelli and Castiglione, Gregory casts her heroine as an ambitious, Machiavellian survivor who was enlisted by Thomas Cromwell “as one of his many lady-spies in the queen’s rooms.” The reader follows Jane through a well-staged series of court dances, royal hunts, May Day ceremonies, and other festivities. Lurking in the background are court intrigues, Spanish spies, and power plays, all of which bring on “death, undeniable death.” Gregory also sketches the inner lives of “strong man” Henry VIII and his many wives: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, and “Kitty” Howard. It’s Jane who steals the show, however, up until her tragic death in 1542. Once again, Gregory brings the Tudor era to vivid life. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/31/2025 | Details & Permalink

Journalist Hamm (Bernie’s Brooklyn) offers a timely but uneven account of Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral campaign. Opening the chronicle with the Queens assemblyman’s surprise primary win against former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, Hamm explores how the 33-year-old democratic socialist upended conventional wisdom about how to succeed in N.Y.C. politics, from his unwavering pro-Palestinian views to his lack of support from the New York Times. The narrative also tracks the campaign’s response to xenophobic backlash, including a councilwoman’s call for Mamdani’s deportation, and juxtaposes Mamdani’s relentlessly optimistic focus on affordability with Cuomo’s “dreary” billionaire-backed messaging. Hamm provides biographical details about Mamdani that shed light on both his development as a politician, such as his going on a hunger strike in 2021 for taxi drivers caught in a “predatory” debt system, and as a person, like his youthful rap career as Young Cardamom. The account is at its most captivating when Hamm adds local political context to Mamdani’s primary victory, including an analysis of the little-appreciated role played by the Democratic Socialists of America. However, the author’s overt, enthusiastic support of Mamdani makes for a muddled mix with his objective reporting. It’s a great primer on the candidate for supporters, but others will yearn for more depth. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/31/2025 | Details & Permalink

A mansion is riddled with decades of deadly secrets in Wright’s chilling latest (after Specters in the Glass House). The narrative unspools across two timelines; in the 19th century, as Waverly Pembrooke grapples with the grisly murder of her uncle Leopold Traeger, whose Newton Creek, Wis., estate has been her home for years. When it turns out Leopold’s will stipulates the immediate closure of Trager Hall, leaving Waverly without a place to stay, she teams up with local undertaker Titus Fitzgerald to uncover the truth about the murder. The present-day timeline follows Jennie Philips after she inherits the now-crumbling mansion from her father. She’s eager to sell—until she discovers a dead body on the property, stoking her curiosity and prompting her to enlist the help of Newton Creek native Zane Harris to dig into the mansion’s dark past. As Jennie and Zane wrestle with whether to open Traeger Hall’s doors for the first time in more than a century, anonymous threats against Zane’s family compel them to summon their faith and ask the same question Waverly did in 1890: What lies within Traeger Hall that causes people to kill? Wright skillfully wraps both timelines around the same intriguing mystery, seeding the plot with enough curveballs to keep readers turning pages. Lovers of gothic fiction will be hooked. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 10/31/2025 | 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