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DEC 2023

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DECEMBER 2023

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gifts | poetry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

fiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

There’s something to surprise and delight in each of these collections of poems

nonfiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

feature | holiday mysteries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

young adult . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Sick of all the Christmas cheer? Seek refuge in these holiday mysteries

gifts | art books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

children’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Four fantastic volumes about mystical worlds for the art lovers in your life

behind the book | femi kayode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

columns

The second Philip Taiwo mystery reveals the backstage world of Nigerian megachurches

gifts | music biographies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Get cozy with Bob Dylan, Thurston Moore, Madonna and George Harrison

interview | mandy matney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

lifestyles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 book clubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

The “Murdaugh Murders Podcast” host on investigating the scandal that led to her memoir

whodunit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

q&a | merlin sheldrake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

romance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

The author discusses transforming bestseller Entangled Life into a photography book

audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

cover story | best books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 The editors weigh in on the books that stuck with us this year

interview | karida l. brown & charly palmer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 The spirit of W.E.B. Du Bois lives on in a new anthology from this husband-and-wife team

gifts | children’s literary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 These three exceptional collections are gifts that will keep on giving

feature | meet the author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Meet Fabio Napoleoni, the author-illustrator of Dragonboy and the 100 Hearts

H O LI DAY GI FT G UI DE Suggestions for every reader on your list in 2023 . . . . . . . 4–9

PRESIDENT & FOUNDER Michael A. Zibart VICE PRESIDENT & ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Elizabeth Grace Herbert CONTROLLER Sharon Kozy MARKETING MANAGER Mary Claire Zibart

EDITORIAL POLICY

PUBLISHER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Trisha Ping

BRAND & PRODUCTION MANAGER Meagan Vanderhill

MANAGING EDITOR Savanna Walker

SUBSCRIPTIONS Katherine Klockenkemper

ASSOCIATE EDITORS Erica Ciccarone Phoebe Farrell-Sherman Yi Jiang

EDITORIAL INTERN Jessica Peng CONTRIBUTOR Roger Bishop

BookPage is a selection guide for new books. Our editors select for review the best books published in a variety of categories. BookPage is editorially independent; only books we highly recommend are featured.

Stars (H ) indicate titles that are exceptionally executed in their genres or categories.

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B O O K P A G E • 2 1 4 3 B E L C O U R T AV E N U E • N A S H V I L L E , T N 3 7 2 1 2 • B O O K P A G E . C O M

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F IC T ION

HOLIDAY G I F T GU I DE

Page-turning fiction to gift this holiday season

The Little Liar Mitch Albom

This powerful novel moves from a small village in Greece during the Holocaust to America, where the intertwined lives of three survivors are forever changed by the perils of deception and the grace of redemption.

From an atmospheric dual-timeline suspense novel to sweeping historical romances to an enchanting royal love story, give the readers in your life stories that will captivate them this Christmas.

$26.99 | Harper

$17.99–$18.99 | Bethany House, Revell

Fiction favorites for the holidays A heartbreaking but hopeful debut about forgiveness, a modern and feminist update on Rosemary’s Baby and a gothic Southern thriller top everyone’s wish lists this holiday season! $16.99–$27.99 | Sourcebooks Landmark

New from V. E. Schwab!

Fall in love with the magical worlds of this #1 New York Times bestselling author, from The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue to the Shades of Magic series and The Fragile Threads of Power. $19.99–$55.97 | Tor Books

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HO LI DAY G I F T GUIDE

NONF IC T ION

The Ins-N-Outs of In-N-Out Burger

Thoughtful gifts for everyone on your list

Read the official story of In-N-Out Burger—how three generations created a thriving, family-owned company, why its fans are so loyal and how it became a beloved cultural icon—as told by the company’s owner and president, Lynsi Snyder.

Disney Worldwide Publishing brings you unique books for everyone on your naughty or nice list! We’ve got great gifts for sports enthusiasts, favorite teachers, hungry foodies, Marvel and Disney fans—everyone!

Lynsi Snyder

$29.99 | Nelson Books

$19.99–$50 | Hyperion Avenue, Andscape, Disney Editions

Find your inspiration with these uplifting reads Bringing holiday cheer to a movie buff or a mom? Somebody who loves helicopters or the holiday season? These three new releases are sure to make the perfect gifts. $24.95–$29.95 | Dexterity, K-LOVE Books

Make the holidays magic Thrill the fans and readers on your list with the perfect book or gift! From pop-culture cookbooks to surprise-a-day advent calendars, Insight Editions has something for everyone. $27.99–$34.99 | Insight Editions

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NONF IC T ION Give the gift of a great life story Read the can’t-miss memoirs of the season from two living legends. $32.99–$35 | Gallery Books

gifts | poetry

Revelations for every reader There’s something to surprise and delight in each of these collections—as well as chances to gain insight into the writing process.

H Personal Best What if you could ask a poet to walk you through the why of one of their poems: why it matters, why they chose to share it, what’s at stake? Carl Phillips and Erin Belieu do just that in their delightful anthology, Personal Best: Makers on Their Poems that Matter Most (Copper Canyon, $22, 9781556596520).

Including a remarkable and diverse array of contemporary poets, Phillips and Belieu assemble a collection of singular poems, each selected by its poet and accompanied by an explication of how it came to be written, illuminating the choices that make each poem sing. With poems by Danez Smith, Ada Limón, Ocean Vuong, Yusef Komunyakaa, Ilya Kaminsky and many more, it was a welcome gift to reencounter poems I knew in fresh contexts, and it was equally enjoyable to explore poems new to me. If someone you know is looking for some guidance in reading poetry, or seeking a deeper understanding of the poetic process, Personal Best would make an engaging, thoughtful gift.

The Asking In the first poem of Jane Hirshfield’s The Asking: New and Selected Poems (Knopf, $35, 9780593535950), she begins: “ My life, / you were a door I was given / to walk through.”

This beautiful opening is the door we readers walk through to discover this retrospective

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collection of Hirshfield’s poetry.

Throughout, her celebration of minute details brings readers into a space of awareness that continues even after our eyes leave the page.

Hirshfield writes in awe of the world, of science and of imagination, and she threads her ideas together with a specificity and power of observation that demands our attention.

There’s an old line of Robert Frost’s—that a poem “begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”

The Asking moves through both together, compelling the reader to wisdom and delight at interlocking, interconnected turns.

Razzle Dazzle Traveling through Ma j o r Ja c k s o n ’s Razzle Dazzle: New and Selected Poems 2002-2023 (Norton, $26.95, 9781324064909) opens a new window to his work. The poems are vibrant and engaging, examining life in America, racial injustice, and the ways that humans and nature intertwine and connect. Influences and legacies echo through the poems, and there’s a rich sense of community and conversation.

Jackson’s voice and sense of form are also impressive. Each line is carefully chosen; each stanza break opens up something new. Selections from The Absurd Man (2020) prove to be particularly compelling as a bookend to the opening section of new poems, titled “Lovesick.”

To see Jackson’s recent poems surround and grow out of the earlier ones is a joy.

—Freya Sachs

NONF IC T ION

feature | mystery

Have yourself a merry little murder Sick of all the Christmas cheer?

Seek refuge in one of these holiday mysteries.

Christmas Presents In Lisa Unger ’s Christmas Presents (Mysterious Press, $23.95, 9781613164518) Madeline Martin is trying to get on with her life after a tragedy in her high school years: Her bad-boy crush, Evan Handy, killed her friend and left Maddie bleeding and near death. 10 years later, a series of local women have gone missing. Unger embraces the book’s holiday setting throughout, but readers seeking a lighter read should be warned that the author doesn’t shy away from some very creepy material. In any event, Unger neatly ties up the loose ends of the varying cases in an electrifying conclusion, and readers will find themselves racing through the pages of Christmas Presents at near reindeer speed.

—Alice Cary

Something for everyone from National Geographic Books

Give the gift of travel this holiday season!

Discover perfect and unique gifts— from cooking with Gordon Ramsay and traveling through space with Neil deGrasse Tyson to bucket-list biking and travel destinations, plus the secrets to longevity.

Celebrate Lonely Planet’s 50th anniversary to get the ultimate travel inspiration and plan your next adventure! $17.99–$35 | Lonely Planet

$32.50–$40 | National Geographic

Up on the Woof Top Spencer Quinn’s Up on the Woof Top (Forge, $27.99, 9781250843302), sees Chet the dog and his crime-solving owner Bernie Little trading Arizona sand for Colorado snow.

The duo have been hired to help author Ariadne Carlise break her writer’s block by finding her muse, Rudy. It’s a curious assignment: Rudy’s a reindeer who went missing from Ariadne’s ranch the day after Thanksgiving. At Kringle Ranch, faux snow is plentiful and a wreath-shaped blimp hovers in the sky, but underneath the manufactured merriment lurks great danger. Chet and Bernie’s seemingly straightforward, albeit strange, assignment soon evolves into a race to catch a killer. Tense interrogations, gripping action scenes and clever detective work make Up on the Woof Top an engaging, entertaining holiday treat.

—Linda M. Castellitto Shop these titles at bookpage.com/holiday

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K I DS & YOU NG A DU LT

HOLIDAY G I F T GU I DE

Murtagh

Betwixt

Christopher Paolini returns to the world of Eragon. Join Dragon Rider—and fan favorite—Murtagh and his dragon as they confront a perilous new enemy!

This international showcase of horror features stories from a range of creators from the U.S. and Japan, as well as a foreword and exclusive cover art by global phenomenon Junji Ito.

Christopher Paolini

These books will inspire the next generation of explorers! $12.99–$19.99 | Lonely Planet Kids

$29.99 | Knopf Books for Young Readers

Ryo Hanada et al.

$25 | Viz Originals

The rip-roaring first arc of Chainsaw Man! This box set contains the first 11 volumes of the global hit Chainsaw Man as well as an exclusive double-sided full-color poster. $99.99 | Shonen Jump

A saga worth devouring Get the complete Promised Neverland saga in one stunning box set! In addition to all 20 volumes of the suspense hit, the box set contains an exclusive booklet and a double-sided full-color poster. $179.99 | Shonen Jump

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HO LI DAY G I F T GUIDE

K IDS & YOU NG A DU LT

Dear Rebel, Rebel Girls

More than 100 extraordinary women share their advice in this gift-worthy celebration of sisterhood. Each heartfelt contribution offers readers insight, inspiration and advice on topics like overcoming obstacles, discovering your passion and dreaming big. $27.99 | DK

Encyclopedia of Everything A brand-new encyclopedia in DK’s bestselling Eyewitness series brings together the world’s greatest record breakers, most amazing animals, inspiring history-makers and cutting-edge technology to give you one utterly unputdownable book.

Spread joy this holiday season with Disney Books Ryan T. Higgins’ laugh-out-loud picture books are the perfect gift for preschoolers. Looking for middle grade books?

Rick Riordan’s and Leah Johnson’s novels are the must-read stories of the year.

’Tis the season to be reading Discover the perfect bookish gift this holiday season with Astra Books for Young Readers! We have books for every kind of reader. $18.99–$19.99 | Astra Books for Young Readers, TOON, Hippo Park, Minerva

$18.99–19.99 | Disney Hyperion

$29.99 | DK

How the Grinch Lost Christmas!

Alastair Heim

The Grinch is BACK and ready to prove to the residents of Who-ville that he’s grown to love Christmas in this heartwarming sequel written and illustrated in the style of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! $19.99 | Random House Books for Young Readers

Help kids build confidence and camaraderie Follow a class full of curious kids, a clever manatee and a guide on how to become confident and successful with these picture and middle grade books. $16.99–$18.99 | American Psychological Association

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FESTIVE FUN FOR EVERYONE! WEIRD AND WONDERFUL

FACT-PACKED FUN LITTLE KIDS FIRST BIG BOOKS

28+

Titles – Collect them all!

ANCIENT, BUT AWESOME

COOL, FACT BASED FICTION EXPLORER ACADEMY

45+

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Titles

IZZY NEWTON AND THE S.M.A.R.T. SQUAD

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ZEUS THE MIGHTY

Titles

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Titles

AVAILABLE WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD Discover more at natgeokids.com © 2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC

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gifts | art books

A garden of unearthly delights These fantastic volumes will send the art lovers in your life on a journey through mystical worlds.

H Underworlds What comes to mind upon hearing the phrase “beneath the surface”? Stephen Ellcock’s Underworlds: A Compelling Journey Through Subterranean Realms, Real and Imagined (Thames & Hudson, $35, 9780500026311) rouses our minds from “a world of surfaces, of gloss and illusion and first impressions” to remember the labyrinthine world of the subterranean that has, since time immemorial, served as a wellspring of awe and fear for humankind. Known for curating online art galleries on social media, Ellcock presents an eclectic yet coherent collection of images ranging from dizzying ossuaries, to nightmarish animals of the deep sea, to the sophisticated structures of mycorrhizal fungi.

Ellcock moves not only between continents and time periods, but also diverse disciplines such as philosophy and biology. Surreal, intricate artworks and photographs are accompanied by an even pacing of Ellcock’s own prose as well as excerpts from others’ musings. The result is a dreamlike trove of information that will leave readers with a newfound connection to the realms below us, which we have too often mindlessly ransacked for profit. As Ellcock writes, if we “heed the echoes of eternity calling from the lower depths,” we might just “claw our way back out of darkness.”

The Art of Fantasy The human mind possesses the ability to leave reality for marvelous realms, and some of us seek to capture those impossible dreams upon a physical canvas.

In The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook of All That is Unreal (Frances Lincoln, $30, 9780711279957), Florida-based writer and blogger S. Elizabeth explores a “sweeping though loosely defined art genre” and its “visual flights of fancy and imagination.” Through full-color reproductions of artwork across a variety of mediums, The Art of Fantasy investigates how artists capture their personal ideas of fantasy, which are just as often grounded in unfamiliar visions as in recognizable lore. S. Elizabeth’s curation spans not only the well-known classics such as Hieronymus Bosch, but also fresh, contemporary artists such as Yuko Shimizu or Paul Lewin. The exploration of fantasy landscapes in the book’s last section is particularly compelling and stylistically diverse. Foreboding alien invasions, apocalyptic castles and whimsical aircraft remind us just how unlimited our imaginations can be.

Worlds Beyond Time Throughout the 1970s, science fiction paperbacks were graced with attention-grabbing, shockingly

complex cover art. Even in the 21st century, these ornate compositions and vivid color palettes still percolate into major franchises such as James Cameron’s Avatar series. Adam Rowe chronicles the development of this instantly recognizable style in Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s (Abrams, $40, 9781419748691). This thorough collection traces connections between ‘70s cover art and influences that include imaginative 1920s iconography by Frank R. Paul, surrealism, psychedelia and even the complimentary genre of fantasy.

Rowe writes, “In my unvarnished opinion, ‘70s sci-fi is the peak of artistic achievement, though I’ve heard good things about the Renaissance.” It’s a bold statement, but one that is difficult to refute as one reads Worlds Beyond Time, which does a superb job of cataloging artists' unique styles, from Angus McKie’s hazy cities to the elegant dreamscapes of Bruce Pennington.

In addition to spotlighting an exemplary art style, Worlds Beyond Time demonstrates the stunning vastness of science fiction as a literary genre.

H The Magicians In a magnificent flourish, an elephant bursts forth from an old teapot; a small blackbird breaks out from behind the glass of a framed engraving; a bewildered girl emerges from behind a folding blue screen. This is how The Magicians (Enchanted Lion, $34.95, 9781592704040) awaken and leave the abandoned house in which they’ve slumbered for years. They are soon chased by the Huntress and the Clinker, a fiery mechanical cross between a lion and a dragon.

This grand pursuit traverses a true carnival of settings, including a pastoral village, a blank realm “outside” the physical world and a battle on a golden plain.

Both children and adults will be dazzled by the intricate details and textures of the bold silk-screen-style illustrations. Blexbolex’s careful compositions evoke sweeping action and emotion, and one will want to constantly leave The Magicians open for display. With its jaunty blue text and cream-colored, double-layered pages, the physical printing of this volume is impeccable—among the best of the year—and accentuates the reading experience.

Translator Karin Snelson smoothly derives a folkloric cadence from the original French prose: As the blackbird “marauds through fields and orchards . . . the day passes deliciously” and later becomes “charged with a heavy nostalgia.” Elevated word choice and spirited phrasing give a timeless quality to this fantastic graphic novel, which muses upon mercy, change and possibility. Just as any gift should, The Magicians lends itself to endless revisiting with its thematic and emotional depth.

—Yi Jiang

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lifestyles

by susannah felts

Bringing it all back home These four design books are sure to inspire, instruct and make you tremble with sheer want.

Right at Home

educational: If you’ve wondered just what plasterand-lath is, now you’ll know.

Despite the fact that I adore each of the Fab Five, when I watch “Queer Eye,” I’m most dazzled by the Heirloom Rooms transformations masterminded by Bobby Berk. What a delight, then, to have his effervescent designer’s Continuing the HGTV-to-book theme, we have “Home Town” creator Erin Napier’s Heirloom mind channeled into beautiful book form. In Right Rooms: Soulful Stories of Home (Gallery, $35, at Home: How Good Design Is Good for the Mind (Clarkson Potter, $35, 9780593578353), he leads us 9781982190439), in which she tells stories of her own by the hand on a quest to make our homes work for, home renovations alongside anecdotes and home not against, our lives. “Your home needs to be a safe images from a bevy of friends. The book proceeds space for your mind,” he says, going on to banish all room by room, from front porch to back porch, with lofty talk of “design aesthetic” in favor of focusing on refreshingly unstaged shots of interiors, like an image specific things you love, letof vintage cabinetry in which “We’ve all got instincts! ting form follow function and stacks of La Croix boxes are honing our instincts. “We’ve in a mirror. (Don’t get Which means: We can all visible all got instincts! Which me wrong, though; there’s no means: We can all be designshortage of enviable interiors be designers.” ers,” he promises. I have my that seem, well, at least a little doubts, but . . . might I know myself and my instincts bit staged.) In total, the book prompts readers to a bit better, having spent time with this book? Yes. reflect on how memories and emotions are embedMight I discover ways to improve my space without ded in every nook of our domestic spaces. Napier buying a bunch of new stuff? Also yes. Might I conwants us to think of our homes as living, breathing tinue to wish Berk & co. would upend my life for the documents of our lives, and to treasure them as such, better? That’s a given. which is always a good idea.

Cheap Old Houses

HMountain House

Elizabeth and Ethan Finkelstein launched the @cheapoldhouses Instagram account in 2016, delighting followers with the boundless possibilities of starting over with a fresh—albeit dusty—slate.

Even if you don’t dream of rescuing a fixer-upper, the notion is endlessly enchanting and story-rich, which is why “Cheap Old Houses” is yet another successful HGTV series. For those of us who’d rather read than stream or scroll, enter its book form: Cheap Old Houses: An Unconventional Guide to Loving and Restoring a Forgotten Home (Clarkson Potter, $35, 9780593578766), in which architecturally sound buildings priced beneath $150K are restored to livability. The Finkelsteins note that the buyers have “discovered astonishing purpose by devoting attention to a home that needs love,” a path to fulfillment I can totally get behind, despite my total lack of carpentry skills. There are how-tos sprinkled within (“Painted Woodwork: To Strip or Not to Strip?”) but the focus is on the amazing stories and images of a wide range of old buildings—from mansions to farmhouses to cabins, and even a hydropower station—and the people who gave them new life.

The details and features that have survived in highly dilapidated structures are awe-inspiring but also

And now for some design porn of the high-altitude variety. Put the kettle on, wrap yourself in a blanket and peep interior designer and author of Surf Shack and Bibliostyle Nina Freudenberger’s Mountain House: Studies in Elevated Design (Clarkson Potter, $40, 9780593233054), where a 17th-century farmhouse in a Swiss valley rubs shoulders with a cozy cabin in California’s San Gabriel mountains; where a granite-and-concrete home tucked into a Portuguese hillside nestles up against a tiny, townhouse-like cabin in the Catskills of upstate New York; where snowy scenes of an Alpine chalet meet the verdant surroundings of Sonoma County. The structures here, found in 12 countries, are wildly different (though many are on the small side and evidence smart uses of space). What they hold in common is a visible sense of retreat; all seem to be in conversation with their surrounding landscapes.

I don’t think there’s a spread within this book that doesn’t make me tremble a bit with sheer want. But to imagine occupying these spaces leads us to challenge ourselves to rise above such human impulses.

After all, mountains “remind us of how small we really are, which makes them practically divine,” writes Freudenberger.

Susannah Felts is a Nashville-based writer and co-founder of The Porch, a literary arts organization.

She writes a weekly Substack called FIELD TRIP.

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book clubs

by julie hale

Out of the shadows Mark Braude’s Kiki Man Ray: Art, Love, and Rivalry in 1920s Paris (Norton, $18.95, 9781324065951) takes an in-depth look at Kiki de Montparnasse, a painter and performer who served as a muse to a number of the era’s preeminent artists, including photographer Man Ray. Longtime lovers and creative collaborators, Kiki and Man Ray worked together to produce some of his most famous images. In this wonderfully detailed history, Braude spotlights Kiki’s background and unique genius, her turbulent relationship with Man Ray and lasting impact on popular culture. Readers who are fascinated with the Lost Generation will savor this atmospheric account of bohemian Paris.

In her captivating historical novel Becoming Madame Mao (Mariner, $19.99, 9780618127009), Anchee Min tells the coming-of-age story of Yunhe, who is born into poverty in rural China but defies expectations by becoming the wife of Mao Zedong. Yunhe Four books showcase leaves home with hopes of becoming an actress, changes her name, the women behind enlists in the Red Army and evenmarries Mao. Min mixes fact some of history’s most tually and fiction as she depicts their troubled relationship and Yunhe’s influential men. evolution into a woman of political influence. This beautifully executed novel offers rich discussion topics including Chinese history and politics, gender roles and female agency.

With The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire (Crown, $18, 9780307407160), Jack Weatherford takes readers back in time to 13th-century Eurasia, when formidable women like Khutulun and Mandukhai the Wise helped to ensure the dominance of the Mongol Empire by developing commerce, supporting education and fighting in battle. Their stories appear to have been intentionally deleted from Secret History of the Mongols, an account of Genghis Khan’s reign that appeared in the 13th century.

In this fascinating, well-researched narrative, Weatherford highlights their remarkable accomplishments while immersing readers in Mongol culture.

Set in the 19th century and inspired by historical events, The Last Queen: A Novel of Courage and Resistance (William Morrow, $16.99, 9780063161870) by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni chronicles the life of Jindan, a lowborn Indian girl who married Maharaja Ranjit Singh, ruler of the Sikh Empire. After the death of her husband, Jindan’s young son assumes the role of maharaja. Acting as regent, Jindan develops into a strong leader who is perceived as a threat by the British Empire. A bestseller in India, the book’s powerful themes of motherhood and female fulfillment provide great talking points for reading groups.

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A BookPage reviewer since 2003, Julie Hale recommends the best paperback books to spark discussion in your reading group.

13

whodunit

by bruce tierney The Final Curtain

Murder Crossed Her Mind

For those of you who have followed Keigo Higashino’s Ace private investigator Lillian Pentecost and her Kyoichiro Kaga series since its inception, I bear sad sidekick Willowjean “Will” Parker are back in Stephen Spotswood’s Murder Crossed Her Mind (Doubleday, tidings: The fourth installment in the series, The Final $27, 9780385549288). The year is 1947; the location is Curtain (Minotaur, $29, 9781250767523), is also its last.

If you haven’t read the previous three, don’t fret; the New York City. The pair has been hired to look into the disappearance of retiree Vera Bodine, who has author brings you up to speed on everything you need to embarked on a late-in-life mission to expose Nazis know in order to fully appreciate Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga’s final case. The story, partly told in flashhiding in postwar America. Bodine is reputed to have backs, explores the possible connections between a pair a photographic memory, and there are some villainous of present-day murders and the strange disappearance characters who would like to pick her brain or silence of Kaga’s mother, Yuriko Tajima, who vanished when he her forever. Perhaps both. Lillian has been somewhat was a teenager. Kaga didn’t hear a peep from or about sidelined by advancing multiple sclerosis, but she is as her until he was summoned to pick up her ashes from intuitive (and as crusty) as ever. She may do most of her a club owner who had once employed her. As a longdetecting from an armchair these days, but she’s still time police detective, Kaga very invested in securing the dislikes unanswered quesThree delightful crime-solving well-being of the heroic yet tions by nature, particularly vulnerable Bodine. Will is when the questions are ones characters (and one charming the action figure, the Archie that have haunted him since Goodwin to Lillian’s Nero thief) return, plus a new childhood. But the mystery Wolfe; like Goodwin, she is of his mother’s disappearthe narrator (and also like detective makes his debut. ance has persisted. Ten Goodwin, she’s a smartass). years later, however, another woman dies in an eerily The feel is very much of the period in terms of lexicon, similar manner: alone in an apartment, far from home. fashion and all the other minutiae that make for authenThe narrative is complex and there are many names to tic storytelling. However, as Will and Lillian are both keep track of, requiring the full attention of the reader; women and Will is gay, they have different perspectives that said, Higashino has thoughtfully provided a list of on life as hard-boiled detectives in the 1940s than their characters at the beginning of the book. Japanese police forebears in the genre. investigations unfold differently than their counterparts in the West, adding a layer of novelty for newcomers to The Other Half the series on top of the satisfaction of watching a clever, methodical detective get the job done.

I have long been a fan of English bad-boy writers of the mid-20th century: Kingsley Amis, et al. There is something about the boredom and superficiality of the posh The Fourth Rule that appeals to my decidedly middle-class upbringing, The fourth entry in Jeff Lindsay’s popular Riley Wolfe and their humo(u)r is of the understated but wickedly series, The Fourth Rule (Dutton, $28, 9780593186251) delicious variety that I could feast on for hours. Fast finds the thrill-seeking thief considering a heist of epic forward to 2023, and their spiritual heir—or I should say proportions: stealing the Rosetta stone from the British heiress—is Charlotte Vassell, author of The Other Half Museum. Never mind that it weighs the better part of a (Anchor, $27, 9780593685945), a murder mystery chockton and is likely the most heavily guarded treasure in the full of the rudderless overprivileged and those drawn U.K. after the crown jewels. This would be an over-theinexorably to their flame. As the book opens, socialite Rupert Beauchamp is hosting a somewhat ironic 30th top caper for even the most cunning James Bond villain, but for Riley, it actually borders on the believable. As he birthday party for himself: replete with coke (not of the smugly notes early on in the narrative, “It’s just me, alone capital-C variety) and champagne—at McDonald’s. He on top . . . Riley Wolfe, top of the heap, the best there ever is about to finish things with his girlfriend, Clemmie, was. End of discussion.” Um, hubris much? And we all and throw her over in the hopes of winning his longknow what happens to people in the iron grip of hubris. time inamorata, Nell, who, it must be said, is less than Despite all this, Riley is something of a realist, mostly thrilled with that prospect. When Clemmie turns up obeying the rules—Riley’s Laws—he has set out for his murdered the following morning, the partygoers comprise the primary suspect pool. Unsurprisingly for reglife of crime. Riley’s Fourth Law states: “Even if you’re the best there is, watch your back. Because somebody better ular readers of mystery novels, everyone has an alibi, is coming.” This rule should probably doubly apply when but trust detective Caius Beauchamp (no relation to an attractive stranger enters the picture, but hey, even Rupert, which becomes something of a running joke) to get to the bottom of things. Blisteringly funny, full of Achilles had a heel, right? The Fourth Rule offers up a twists and turns, and featuring a cast of characters you tasty combination plate of humor, deception, suspense and villainy—and that is just on the part of the protagowill love to loathe, The Other Half deserves to be on nist. Wait until you meet the villain(s). your “read now” list.

H

Bruce Tierney lives outside Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he bicycles through the rice paddies daily and reviews the best in mystery and suspense every month.

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Pulling back the curtain

© NICHOLAS LOUW

behind the book | femi kayode

Femi Kayode’s second Philip Taiwo mystery, Gaslight, reveals the backstage world of Nigerian megachurches.

Sade Dawodu, wife of a beloved bishop, has gone missing. As investigative psychologist Philip Taiwo tries to uncover the truth, he exposes an ugly underbelly of corruption and control. In this essay, author Femi Kayode tracks his interest in the alluring facades of religion back to its source.

••• each other. The choir looked like After high school, I became the Sound of Blackness when they swept away with the born-again were handed a Grammy. Amid the pandemic that hit its peak in the thunderous applause, I shouted early ’90s in Nigeria. I bought into into my wife’s ear. “Did you like it?” it all: the rousing choir, the flamShe answered, eyes alive with hapboyant pastors, the speaking in piness and devoid of judgment, “It tongues and the hug-your-neighwas a wonderful performance.” bor-and-tell-them-Jesus-lovesThat honest response has stayed Gaslight with me for the 20 years since it was them. Because I am a closet voySoho Crime, $29 eur, I attended only the Pentecostal spoken. Performance. Through 9780316536646 several church attendances, churches that had large congregations. I would remain on the edge across the different countries we Mystery of the crowd, close enough to give have called home in the past two the illusion of participating, but still distant decades, I could never shake that word from the enough to observe. edge of my consciousness. Performance. The I loved the pastors; always smartly dressed, stage replaced the altar. The lights meant to creand almost certainly with an American accent. ate a celestial atmosphere became props. The They are almost always men, with equally congregation on high alert, an audience primed flamboyant wives who were seated to the side for the main event. The price of entry was in the of the altar, piously urging their husbands to offering box. Action!

“Preach it!” The sermons could make even the As this transformation unfolded in the theater most confident stand-up comedian surrender of my mind, the writer in me pondered: What their crown; wry humor met with deep insights was going on backstage? Do the pastors wear sprinkled with what I considered an uncommon makeup? (I have since confirmed that many do.) understanding of the human condition.

Do they throw tantrums like petulant divas? Yes, My wife was raised Catholic. Since one of indeed. These questions and many more kept our shared philosophies is “A family that prays me awake when sermons lost meaning, choirs together, stays together”—quaint, right?—and became sound effects and I grew too jaded to we were all so joyfully (now, we would say ignoput my faith in the word of man. The sameness rantly) patriarchal, she started accompanying grated on me, like I was stuck in the reruns of me to my church, which held services in a music a blaxploitation TV series. The recycled plot prompted my mind to travel behind the curhall on Lagos Island.

On this particular Sunday, the pastor came tains, and I started seeking answers outside the on stage, an energetic GQ cover model. The script playing out in front of me. choir, resplendent in their robes, walked solGaslight chronicles my journey behind the emnly behind him. Absolute silence. The performance. It is a diary of my evolving faith.

A journal of my steadfast belief that no matter lights dimmed, and a spotlight fell on the pashow great the act, man is not God. tor. Boom! The backtrack of Kirk Franklin’s —Femi Kayode “Stomp” came on, and the pastor began to rap!

The whole church stood up, dancing.

Visit BookPage.com to read our The music ended. The pastor was sweating, review of Gaslight. breathing hard. The congregation high-fived

N O T A L L P L AY D AT E S A R E C H I L D ’ S P L AY

A thrilling new novel a b o u t m u r d e r, class, and motherhood from the author of Greenwich Park

“Smart, tense, and gripping. Loved it!”

—E l l e r y L l o y d, N e w Yo r k Ti m e s b e s t s e l l i n g a u t h o r o f t h e R e e s e ’s B o o k C l u b P i c k T h e Cl u b

On Sale 12.5.23

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romance

by christie ridgway

Fireside kisses, adorable little towns— and a CIA agent?

The annual avalanche of festive love stories is upon us! These five books belong on the very top of your list.

H The Takedown

then her boss invites himself to a holiday meal. Luckily, Holly doesn’t mind letting Laurel step into her place . . .

Carlie Walker’s The Takedown (Berkley, $18, with the exception of playing wife to her husband. There’s another man for that role: Laurel’s nemesis, grouchy and 9780593640395) is an engaging story filled with danger, drama and introspection—and fun-averse Max Beckett. Of course, a Christmas romance you won’t there’s a blizzard and romantic Warm and sweet, ‘Faking sparks and misunderstandings, want to miss. When CIA agent Christmas’ is hot chocolate as well as movie marathons and Sydney Swift learns her sister plans to marry crime lord Johnny dance parties. Max learns to smile in book form.

Jones, she instantly regrets the on occasion and Laurel finds out she’s not such a screw-up after all. This is hot chocolate in familial distance she’s encouraged due to her dangerous job book form—warm and sweet. and agrees to help the FBI take Johnny down. At Grandma Ruby’s for Christmas, Sydney must keep her mission a secret even as she’s sharing quarters with not only Johnny, but also A Holly Jolly Ever After his best man and head of security, the far too attractive Nick Fraser. Celebrating the season while sussing out the An unlikely pairing enjoys a scorching Christmas romance Jones clan’s nefarious next moves isn’t easy, and Sydney in A Holly Jolly Ever After (Avon, $24.99, 9780063222649) does some soul-searching about her career while trying

by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone. After years in good-girl not to fall for Nick, who must be as bad as Johnny—right? roles followed by a shocking divorce, actor Winnie Baker is This untraditional Christmas tale is as fun as can be and ready to end her people-pleaser ways and take charge of her will have readers whipping through the pages. life. First up is starring in a Christmas soft-core porn film alongside ex-boy band member, Kallum Lieberman (who was “the funny one”). Though she’s been in the entertainThree Holidays and a Wedding ment business since childhood, the challenge of acting Bad luck turns to good fortune in Three Holidays and a sexy, especially pretending to enjoy sex on screen, is such Wedding (Putnam, $17, 9780593543917) by Uzma Jalaluddin a hurdle that Winnie confides in Kallum—and he’s eager to and Marissa Stapley. Maryam Aziz is on her way to her sister’s help. He’s had a crush on her since her early TV days, and wedding, and Anna Gibson is about to meet her boyfriend’s awakening her to carnal pleasures is a joy that threatens to parents. But both are stranded along with their entire flight turn into love. But their idyll in Christmas Notch, Vermont, after a blizzard traps them in the adorable and fantastical the charming backdrop for their movie, is supposed to be town of Snow Falls, Ontario, where the sequel to a beloved no-strings. The love scenes smoke, the characters and their Christmas movie also happens to be filming. As Christmas, sidekicks are funny and sweet, and readers will root for Hanukkah and Eid al-Fitr approach (the novel is set in 2000, Winnie to get all she deserves. when all three celebrations fell within days of one another), Anna must deal with the displeasure of her boyfriend and Wreck the Halls her attraction to the movie’s leading man, while Maryam manages her extended family and her childhood crush, Saif.

In Tessa Bailey’s Wreck the Halls (Avon, $18.99, Jalaluddin and Stapley expertly braid the three faiths together 9780063308305), the progeny of an infamous female rock duo get involved in a band reunion—and with each other. and each character sparkles in their own way. The holiday(s) The Steel Birds broke up before their respective kids, Beat spirit is strong in this one! and Melody, were born. But their legend lives on, and since Beat’s in a financial bind, he tries to get the women back on Faking Christmas stage. Though Melody only met him once when she was a For pure festive rom-com fun, look no further than Faking teenager, she feels so connected to Beat all these years later Christmas (Berkley, $17, 9780593638361) by Kerry Winfrey. that she jumps on board with his idea. The holiday reunion Laurel Grant thinks of herself as the “other twin,” the one setup and The Steel Birds are interesting, but it’s Beat and who constantly screws up, while her identical sister Holly Melody’s intense bond that drives the story and gives it lives on a farm with her husband and kids, raises goats and oomph. Bailey masterfully sells the sublime connection cooks like a dream. Laurel is the social media manager for between the two characters, whether in conversation or a magazine promoting the charms of Ohio, and may have more carnal situations. It’s delicious and delightful, the stuff pretended her sister’s life was her own to get the job. But of pure fairy tale romance, and readers won’t want it to end.

Christie Ridgway is a lifelong romance reader and a published romance novelist of over 60 books.

16

gifts | music biographies

Rockin’ around the Christmas tree Get cozy with Bob Dylan, Thurston Moore, Madonna and George Harrison in biographies that reveal the men and women behind the music.

H Bob Dylan

Madonna

An artist of many faces, Bob Dylan is perhaps what we project onto him of ourselves and our world. Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine (Callaway, $100, 9781734537796) is a 605-page immaculately designed compendium that seemingly encompasses all possible sides of the legend.

Photos, art, memorabilia and personal correspondence abound, as well as essays written by authors, artists and musicians who visited the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and were asked write an essay based on a single item.

Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo selects a painting of the first record that 15-year-old Dylan recorded, a breathless cascade of radio hits tracked in a music shop’s recording booth. Poet Joy Harjo chooses the Japanese album cover of Blood on the Tracks, lyrically riffing on “Tangled Up in Blue.” Author Tom Piazza takes inspiration from a typewritten draft of “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” to pen a short play about a scholar who seeks the input of an exhausted, half-mad Dylanologist.

In the epilogue, Douglas Brinkley writes, “Dylan is an experience more like a meteorite than a mummified artifact of scholarly pursuit.” Mixing Up the Medicine, with all its heft and weight, keeps the man in motion—dazzling, beguiling and multidimensional.

—Erica Ciccarone

At age 65, she is still one of the most recognizable women in America, making news with every appearance and regularly posting to her 19.1 million Instagram followers. But Madonna in the ’80s and ’90s? It’s impossible to describe how thoroughly she dominated pop culture. In this vivid and memorable biography, Mary Gabriel paints a satisfyingly full picture of the life of Madonna, whose earliest years were spent in a boisterous and loving family. But her mother died of breast cancer when Madonna was only 5, and her remaining childhood was marked by deep sadness and chaos.

Madonna escaped through performance—she chased her dreams to New York City, living in apartments crawling with roaches and working dead-end jobs while pursuing music and acting. Gabriel brings 1980s New York to life: the gritty city where young talents went to find fame, and where gay men were getting sick and dying of a mysterious new disease. The biography deftly sets Madonna’s story against the backdrop of the times, reflecting on how her art was influenced by religion, race, sex and women’s rights.

Madonna: A Rebel Life (Little, Brown, $38, 9780316456470) is a thoroughly entertaining and deeply nostalgic look at one of the true icons of our time.

—Amy Scribner

George Harrison

H Sonic Life

There’s a subcategory of hardcore Beatles fans who, unprompted, will ardently opine that the humble writer of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” is the best Beatle.

Look no further than Philip Norman’s new biography George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle (Scribner, $35, 9781982195861) for all the proof you need.

The book offers a full serving of Beatlemania through the specific lens of the group’s youngest member. The entire dynamic of The Beatles is on full display in these career-spanning chapters, showing how class, religion and maturity played a role in the functioning of the band.

Norman underscores the emotion and intensity of Harrison’s life, as the Beatle moved from a young rebel without a cause into a pious guitar guru, highlighting Harrison’s family who nurtured him into a passionate creative. In his school days, we see Harrison wriggle free of draconian English expectations and meet his soon-to-be bandmates. From there, the group slowly ascends, working grueling yet colorful days in Germany, and shoots into stardom all at once.

Thanks to illuminating anecdotes that reveal the band’s complex relationships, Beatles fans will be enthralled page after page.

—Eric A. Ponce

Intellectual noise-rocker Thurston Moore’s longawaited memoir offers much more than a recounting of his 30-year tenure in the band Sonic Youth. Encyclopedic and capacious, Sonic Life (Doubleday, $35, 9780385548656) is no less than a history of U.S. underground arts and culture, told through the prism of one band.

Moore’s sentimental education took place in late 1970s New York City, when suburban teenagers could educate themselves by hanging around record shops, bookstores and nightclubs. Musician-poets like Patti Smith offered a gateway drug to what Moore calls “rock ’n’ roll transcendence,” a mystical devotion to sonic creativity.

Sonic Youth’s influences were eclectic, rooted in the apocalyptic noise of No Wave, but also inspired by free improv jazz, poetry and the visual arts. The book tracks these influences, evoking a lost era of New York’s thengritty downtown music scene. Once Kim Gordon enters the picture, the narrative zooms in to vivid descriptions of the off-kilter tunings and experimental musical chemistry between Moore, Gordon and Lee Ranaldo.

Sonic Life offers Moore’s perspective on rock music as a quasi-religious vocation, and is a prismatic view on the musical democracy that was Sonic Youth.

—Catherine Hollis

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interview | mandy matney

Murdaugh, murder and mayhem Mandy Matney discusses the South Carolina scandal that led to her memoir and true crime saga, Blood on Their Hands.

When Mandy Matney graduated from journalism school at the four years of reporting,” a sort of story-behind-the-story that provides University of Kansas in 2012 and her parents asked her to choose a celenew material for even Matney’s most faithful podcast fans. It’s meant to bratory vacation spot, she picked Hilton be inspiring to other journalists, and, as Head, South Carolina. During that trip, Matney notes, “It’s the book that I would Matney remembers glancing at the local have wanted to have 10 years ago when I started my journalism career.” newspaper and thinking how nice it “It’s kind of a whole new layer of vulwould be to have a job there. “They’re talking about alligators and all these nerability for me to tell all these [percool things,” she remembers thinking. sonal] stories,” she says, comparing her “And then it happened!” Matney says, process to “taking an ice cream scoop to speaking from her Hilton Head home. my insides” and revealing “those deepdown things that you don’t want to talk After disappointing reporting stints about and you don’t want to deal with.” in Missouri and Illinois, the Kansas native came to Hilton Head in 2016 as Matney grew up watching “Dateline” a reporter for The Island Packet. “I think and “20/20” with her mother, and I was drawn to this area for some rearemembers following the O.J. Simpson son,” she reminisces, adding, “I feel like case when she was a kindergartner it was kind of the universe telling me to “because my mom was so into it.” She come here.” writes that although her first two jobs Several years later, Matney was covwere soul sucking (“I cried often”), her saving grace came in the form of nights ering a story much more predatory than alligators—the trial and conviction of spent listening to WBEZ’s “Serial” and prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh for watching Netflix’s “Making a Murderer,” the 2021 killings of his wife, Maggie, and while dreaming of “doing something their 22-year-old son, Paul. She had as inspiring.” already been delving into the Murdaugh Unfortunately, Matney’s job at The family’s influence and corruption: In Island Packet was overshadowed by 2019, 19-year-old Mallory Beach was a misogynistic editor she refers to by killed in a boating accident in which the pseudonym “Charles Gardiner” Paul was driving, inebriated. These in her memoir. When, for example, crimes opened a floodgate of investiMatney got access to key files related gations into Alex Murdaugh’s massive to the strange 2015 hit-and-run death financial improprieties, and eventuof a young man named Stephen Smith, ally led Matney to launch “Murdaugh potentially linked to the Murdaughs, Murders Podcast”—a career trajectory Gardiner luridly asked, “What did you do to get that file?” Matney reflects, “I she recounts in Blood on Their Hands: Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of don’t think people talk enough about the Murdaugh Dynasty. bosses being mentally abusive, and Blood on Their Hands Matney likens the Murdaugh case to how much that affects your entire life William Morrow, $28.99, 9780063269217 a “superstorm that we can’t get out of,” and your work.” acknowledging, “I kind of do miss my Thankfully, she partnered with Memoir a savvy, supportive colleague, Liz life before it was just constant chaos and absurdity.” After a bit of a break this summer, the Murdaugh story has Farrell (with whom she still collaborates) to follow their instincts in the Murdaugh story, even as their editor tried to discourage them. Matney heated up again, with Murdaugh asking for a new trial and his lawyers wrangling over whether the state or federal government should control believes that their outsiders’ perspectives added fuel to their reporting— the remainder of his assets. Throughout the they weren’t used to “this system of good old “You have to be the person to boys just running amok and doing whatever myriad developments in the case, Matney has they wanted.” She adds, “I think a lot of peofound the national press coverage to be “eye say something when you see ple have a really hard time imagining that a opening.” While she’s seen “a lot of really great guy who looks like Alex can do these things. journalism,” she acknowledges that she’s also that something isn’t right.”

But that’s a big point that I think we all need been disappointed with reporters who “take to realize is that there are people like Alex, who are manipulators and the easiest, goriest, most salacious angle of the story and roll with it,” which narcissists, and we can’t be fooled by them. . . . You have to be the peris “the opposite of what I want to do.” son to say something when you see that something isn’t right, because Cognizant of the swirling sea of media being produced about the family—books, documentaries and more—Matney and co-author Carolyn they will—like Alex did—destroy everyone in their wake.” Just a few days Murnick decided to frame their offering as her own “memoir based on before our conversation, Matney reveals, she stood a few feet away from

18

© RICKY HARTZOG

audio

H Bellies In Bellies (Harlequin Audio, 12 hours), Nicola Dinan captures the hypersensitivity of new romance—the fervent touches, tentative mornings after and paranoia about ruining things—as Ming and Tom navigate the push and pull of their relationship. Nathaniel Curtis lends Tom a placid, droll voice that underscores Tom’s desperation to appear unfazed despite his insecurities. Octavia Nyombi is soft and steady as Ming, wrapping listeners up in the layers of emotion that pile together in Ming’s extensively reflective thought process. By recognizing imperfection and refusing to shy away from struggles big and small—from sleep discomfort to the stigmas surrounding queer love and identity—Bellies soothes the imperfect, struggling parts of ourselves.

—Jessica Peng

Temple Folk

Murdaugh during a federal hearing. “It’s bone-chilling,” she says. “It’s not fun for me to be in his presence.”

Matney’s memoir also addresses the toll that the case has taken on her mental health. “No one really told me when you start digging into stories that are this dark, and communicating often with victims of really horrific crimes, you are carrying a load that is unbearable at times. People need to talk about that.”

On a brighter note, Blood on Their Hands also chronicles how she and David Moses (then her boyfriend, now her husband) began their Murdaugh podcast. “It’s not this easy process where a microphone comes out of nowhere and just magically puts your words into a podcast and it sounds beautiful. It’s very frustrating at the beginning. . . . I’m not ashamed of the fact that our first few episodes sounded very rough. I want other people to know that it’s OK to start something and not be perfect at it. . . .

I think that that’s been a big reason why a lot of our fans have been really attached to our podcast.” Matney loves podcasting, especially because “journalism is so different when you own your own business and you can actually do and say the things that you want.” Five years ago, she says, “I could never have dreamed of doing this with my husband in my house studio.”

Blood on Their Hands will surely satisfy true crime fans. And with Matney’s acknowledgment of the grinding work and mental toll her investigation demanded—to wit, “interviews with over one hundred sources, as well as hundreds of pages of legal filings, police reports, social media posts, and court transcripts”—the book is also a powerful tribute to journalism’s ability to hold the powerful to account.

—Alice Cary Visit BookPage.com to read our review of Blood on Their Hands.

The debut short story collection from writer Aaliyah Bilal traverses the inner worlds of Black Muslims in America as they grapple with life events like the death or infidelity of a parent.

Temple Folk (Simon & Schuster Audio, 8 hours) is read by Amir Abdullah, Chanté McCormick, Soneela Nankani, Leon Nixon and Jade Wheeler, an array of narrators that together illuminate the range of the stories. Holding emotional weight and spiritual reverence, the narrators’ stunning performances anchor listeners and create a sense of intimacy.

—Sarah O’Neal

H Waiting to Be Arrested at Night Poet and filmmaker Tahir Hamut Izgil reflects on the Chinese government’s persecution of the Uyghur people in Waiting to Be Arrested at Night (Penguin Audio, 7.5 hours), a personal and harrowing audiobook that brings together history, memoir and poetry. Greg Watanabe’s straightforward narration puts the emotion of Izgil’s story into sharp relief, underscoring both Izgil’s dread over mounting persecution and his hope for a better future. Together, Izgil and Watanabe give a voice to a silenced community and call for listeners to bear witness to the persecution of the Uyghur people.

—Tami Orendain

Learned by Heart Shiromi Arserio’s heartfelt performance captures youthful innocence and passion when two 14-year-old girls must hide their blossoming love for one another. Learned by Heart (Hachette Audio, 9 hours) is set in an English boarding school in the 1800s. Although heiress Eliza Raine tries not to draw attention to herself, she can’t escape questions and judgment about her Indian and English heritage. New student Anne Lister, who is outspoken and so different from the others, makes a strong impression on Eliza. Before long, Eliza is falling for Anne. Arserio’s velvety voice sweeps effortlessly between Eliza’s perspective as a schoolgirl and that of her ardent adult self, as Eliza confronts the consequences of her fateful affections.

—Maya Fleischmann

19

q&a | merlin sheldrake

GLIMPSE THE REMARKABLE WORLD OF FUNGI With Entangled Life: The Illustrated Edition, Merlin Sheldrake has transformed his bestseller into a photography book with an abridged text. The psychedelic and disorienting imagery puts a glorious, usually unseen world in Technicolor.

Your first book, Entangled Life, became such a success upon its publicaSpeaking of this new widespread appreciation for fungi, what do you tion in the spring of 2020. It was both a product of and a contributor to a think it’s all about? We can certainly look back to Michael Pollan’s 2018 new global phenomenon: our fascibook, How to Change Your Mind, nation with fungi. You’ve said that the and the 2019 film Fantastic Fungi, “An interesting effect arises when one book’s reception came as a surprise, and we can make assumptions about shuttles between scales: The familiar can how 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic led but here you are now, transforming it into an illustrated gift edition, filled become unfamiliar, as if we’re looking at people toward yeasty hobbies like with stunning photography. What brewing and baking, and toward something for the first time.” greater desire for mycelium-like does it mean to you, to present your closeness. Or perhaps it’s been book in this new format?

So much of fungal life takes place out of the reach of our unaided senses driven by a desperate hope that fungus will save the world by eating all our plastics and all our problems. What do you believe has most that it can be hard to find a way into their worlds; we need all the help we can get and sometimes words can only captured our attention about fungi, get us so far. To come closer to fungi and why now? we have to look at them. Indeed, much I think there are a few reasons. The of our modern scientific understandfirst is quite simple: We know more ing of fungi—and life in general—has about fungi than we used to thanks been transformed by microscopes that to the development of technologies— enhance our ability to see, rendering like DNA sequencing—and decades the invisible visible. My own underof brilliant work by mycologists all standing of fungi, like those of many over the world. The more we have of my colleagues, has similarly been learned, the more we have been able transformed by the many hours I’ve to appreciate the vital roles that fungi spent looking at fungi, often gazing play in Earth’s systems. down a microscope. The illustrated Second, as environmental emeredition of Entangled Life is a way to gencies have worsened, a growing awareness of the interconnectivity invite readers into some of these astonishing visual worlds and celebrate the of all life forms has permeated pubremarkable artist-researchers who lic consciousness. This has coincided have painstakingly captured these with the rise of network science and images. I think it is a beautiful book to network models, now used to make hold and explore. sense of everything from human social lives to biochemistry. Fungi How did you go about abridging are interconnected organisms—most the text? Did the imagery guide live their lives as networks and form you in any way, or was it the other literal connections between organway around? isms—and so make powerful poster It was a challenge! When writing, I organisms for both ecological and often found myself imagining the network thinking. book’s themes and stories as cords Third, I think the growing interthat I could splice, braid and weave. est in psychedelics has also played I soon realized that abridging the text a part. Much of the recent wave of research into psychedelics has meant more than just cutting words and sections; I had to make sure that taken place with psilocybin, found in I had suitably re-woven the threads. “magic” mushrooms, and I think the Entangled Life: The Illustrated Edition Sometimes I was guided by the imagastonishing and puzzling effects of Random House, $40, 9780593729984 ery, and sometimes I had to let the this compound have helped awaken text tell me how it wanted to flow. I curiosity to fungi more generally.

Science had anticipated that this would be a Fourth, as you suggest, people frustrating process, but in fact it turned out to be satisfying, and I’m happy have been captivated by the many ways we might partner with fungi to with the outcome. help us to adapt to life on a damaged planet. Ongoing environmental

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q&a | merlin sheldrake

So much of your discussion of fungi is about relationships and challenging the definition of the individual— which is another reason we might assume your book has reached so many readers. (Imagine if human social media could provide the level of connection of the mycorrhizal “wood wide web”!) Yet this illustrated edition features fungi portraiture, with close-ups of individual fruiting bodies in their best light. I wonder, when looking at these photographs, do you see an individual?

No, I don’t. Mushrooms are loosely analogous to a plant’s fruit. When I see an apple, I see a representative of an apple tree with tangling branches growing upwards, and tangling roots growing into the soil. Likewise, when I see a mushroom, I see a representative of a sprawling fungal network, itself potentially linked up to one or more plants. We are only ever looking at part of the picture.

additional layers of meaning for me: They are representations not only of the fungi living in the roots of a plant, but of the rest of the plant and its web of relationships within a tropical forest in which I spent a lot of time. Some of my other favorite images are the images of lichens captured and created by Toby Spribille and Arseniy Belosokhov. These are remarkable depictions of symbiosis in action: you can see the fungi clasping the algal cells. © HANNA-KATRINA JEDROSZ

devastation has brought about renewed interest in the fungal world, and radical mycological possibilities abound, from fungal medicines to fungal foods, to new building materials and more.

© ERIC CHO

Although this illustrated edition has so many incredible images, it’s impossible to rely wholly on vision when it comes to fungi. Our eyes and cameras can only perceive so much. I wonder if this required imagination is why, even in a mushroom-loving cultural moment, some people still fear fungus and its unknowns. What would you say to those whose imagination turns to fear?

Fear of fungi runs deep in some cultures, whether because of poisonous mushrooms, the threat of fungal pathogens or the fact that so many fungi are decomposers and therefore associated with death and decay. In reality, fungi are a kingdom of life, as broad and busy a category as animals or plants. There are so many ways to be a fungus, just Some of the book’s images feel more as there are so many ways to be an abstract to the untrained eye. If you animal. A particular fungal pathogen know what you’re looking at, an might be scary, just as a great white image may inform and illuminate; to shark might be scary. But the fact that Visit BookPage.com to read our review of the layperson, the same imagery can the shark is scary wouldn’t necessarily Entangled Life: The Illustrated Edition. confound. Which images have been make you scared of all other animals. most illuminating to you, and which have been most challenging?

Faced with fear about fungi, I would turn my mind to their many essenOne of the things I was trying to do in this book was to play with scale, tial life-giving properties and the many ways human existence is unimaginable without them. No plants could exist without fungi, for example, nor moving from images of comparatively large subjects like mushrooms and humans to microscopic subwould bread, alcohol, soy sauce jects like spores and mycelial or any number of lifesaving networks. I’ve found an interfungal medicines. esting effect arises when one shuttles between scales: The What is your advice for all amateurs crouching over a familiar can become unfapatch of forest, hoping for miliar, as if we’re looking at their own encounter with a something for the first time.

A familiar looking mushroom mushroom or lichen? might suddenly look strange, One of the most important and a microscope image of a things is to sit and let one’s eyes adjust. It often takes a while for mycelial network might feel fungi to jump out at you. Sitting like a vast landscape or a dense quietly, with a softer focus, can forest in which one could get be a helpful way to tune in. lost. In this way I’ve found that many of the images that are The only way your readership most bewildering are also the most beautiful. hasn’t been able to experience your book’s content is by taste Two of your own images and smell, so I must ask, is a are included in the book. What brings you the most joy or pride fermentation guide in your future?

Not currently, although my brother Cosmo and I have recently released a about them? line of live, fermented hot sauce!

I love the way that they depict the remarkable intimacy of the physi—Cat Acree cal relationship between plant and fungus. Of course, the images have

21

cover story | best books

THE BEST BOOKS OF 2023 OUR STANDOUT SELECTIONS FROM AN EXCELLENT READING YEAR

TOP 10

All the Sinners Bleed

by S.A. Cosby

Cosby’s nerve-jangling, thought-provoking, often heartbreaking mystery follows the first Black sheriff of a rural county in Virginia as he tracks a serial killer.

Dear Mothman

by Robin Gow

Honoring all parts of the queer experience, Dear Mothman will make middle grade readers feel seen and leave their hearts full.

A Fever in the Heartland

by Timothy Egan The latest enthralling narrative history from the National Book Award-winning author focuses on the rapid rise and spectacular collapse of the KKK in the 1920s—and the heroine who brought it down.

The Great Reclamation

by Rachel Heng The prose in Heng’s excellent historical novel, set in

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20th-century Singapore, is alive. Each character is rich with complexity, each snapshot brimming with imagery.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

by James McBride

McBride is a lyricist and musician, and there’s a rhythmic quality to his unique sixth novel, a riveting historical tale full of all kinds of love.

Lone Women

by Victor LaValle From an award-winning fantasy writer, Lone Women is a powerful study in setting and character with a healthy dose of horror. It will forever change the way you think about the Wild West.

A Nobleman’s Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel

by KJ Charles

This deliciously adventurous historical romance is a standout among Charles’ meticulously crafted body of work.

The Prince and the Coyote

by David Bowles and Amanda Mijangos Weaving history and fiction together for young adult readers, Bowles fashions a rich story of political intrigue, ferocious battles, stunning landscapes and the enduring hope of humanity.

Waiting to Be Arrested at Night

by Tahir Hamut Izgil

Izgil’s memoir is one of the only firsthand accounts of the ongoing genocide of Uyghur people by the Chinese government. Immersive and captivating, this is essential reading.

A Walk in the Woods

by Nikki Grimes, Brian Pinkney and Jerry Pinkney

This heartbreakingly beautiful picture book about loss features a seamless collaboration from author Grimes and father-son illustrators Jerry and Brian Pinkney.

cover story | best books

FICTION NONFICTION

Bellies by Nicola Dinan Dinan’s debut is a vulnerable, moving, riotously funny and deeply honest story about trans life, first love, art-making, friendship, grief and the hard, slow process of building a home—in a new country, with another person and inside yourself.

Blackouts

by Justin Torres With blacked-out passages and beautiful, surreal images woven throughout the narrative, Torres delivers a feverish, thrilling and envelope-pushing novel, bringing together several strands of both Latin American and queer literature.

The Covenant of Water

by Abraham Verghese

Sprawling, passionate, tragic and comedic at turns—Verghese upends all of our expectations again and again in his long awaited follow-up to Cutting for Stone.

Crook Manifesto

by Colson Whitehead Crook Manifesto more than matches the finely hewn psychological tensions that haunted Whitehead’s main character in Harlem Shuffle. The interplay between context and character makes this sequel soar.

The Fraud by Zadie Smith Smith writes eloquent, powerful and often quite humorous novels with social issues at the fore, and The Fraud is no exception. Its firm grounding in the past offers a rich reflection of the present.

The Future

by Naomi Alderman The Future is a daring, sexy, thrilling novel that may be the most wryly funny book about the end of civilization you’ll ever read.

Happiness Falls

by Angie Kim

Kim’s suspenseful follow-up to Miracle Creek follows a family that lives in a quiet and even bucolic neighborhood near Washington, D.C. They try to stay out of trouble. But trouble comes to them.

Loot by Tania James

A Man of Two Faces

Return to Valetto

In his memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Nguyen “re members” and “dis remembers,” excavating and reassembling memories as if working on his family’s portrait.

James’ third novel is brilliant and unique, her creative liberties mixing well with the historical realities of colonialism and migration.

by Dominic Smith

With Return to Valetto, Smith doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but he doesn’t need to: He is a master of his trade who has executed a flawless novel that satisfies.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett Tom Lake is a gorgeously layered novel that spans decades yet still feels intimate, meditating on love, family and the choices we make.

Witness by Jamel Brinkley Without ranging beyond New York City, the stories in Brinkley’s exceptional second collection go deep into the human heart through precise language and a generous spirit.

Gator Country

by Rebecca Renner Renner’s debut follows an undercover mission to expose alligator poachers in the Everglades, revealing the scraggly splendor of the region’s inhabitants.

Goodbye, Eastern Europe

by Jacob Mikanowski Journalist and historian Mikanowski pulls off the nearly impossible—an accessible, detailed history of Eastern Europe spanning 2,000 years in under 400 pages.

I Saw Death Coming

by Kidada E. Williams

Williams demonstrates with forensic precision that the progress of the post-Civil War Reconstruction was hampered by a not-so-secret war against Black citizens.

The Kneeling Man

by Leta McCollough Seletzky For Seletzky, the famous photo of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination is particularly haunting—because her father was the one trying to administer first aid.

In Memoriam

King: A Life

In Memoriam is a remarkably beautiful debut novel, both a gripping love-inwartime story and a meditation on the futility and trauma of World War I.

Eig’s monumental biography takes Martin Luther King Jr. down from his pedestal, revealing his flaws, needs, dreams, hopes and weariness.

by Alice Winn

by Jonathan Eig

by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Our Migrant Souls

by Héctor Tobar

Tobar has written one of the most important pieces of Latino nonfiction in several decades. Turning the last page, you will feel the weight of history on your shoulders.

Owner of a Lonely Heart

by Beth Nguyen

Nguyen has only spent 24 hours with her mother over the course of her adult life. Her revelatory memoir depicts all the love and anguish bound up with this fact.

Rough Sleepers

by Tracy Kidder

With a straightforward scrutiny that reveals without judging, Pulitzer Prize winner Kidder documents the three years he spent with the team that cares for Boston’s unhoused population.

Still Life With Bones

by Alexa Hagerty

Anthropologist Hagerty’s extraordinary memoir is a tribute to the victims of genocide in South America, whose bones Hagerty returned to their grieving families.

The Quickening

by Elizabeth Rush

Pulitzer finalist Rush combines memoir, reportage and science writing in a lyrical, women-centered addition to the Antarctic canon.

The Underworld

by Susan Casey

Casey presents a dazzling answer to the age-old, tantalizing question about the ocean’s abyss: “What’s down there?”

The Wager

by David Grann Grann’s narrative nonfiction masterpiece about an 18th-century man-ofwar that ran aground in South America reveals humanity at its best and worst, from heroism to cannibalism.

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MYSTERY & SUSPENSE ROMANCE SCI-FI & FANTASY

cover story | best books

24

Bright Young Women

The Blonde Identity

Knoll’s Bright Young Women is a primal scream for women past and present, a true crime-inspired thriller that ferociously dismantles the mythology of serial killers.

A woman with amnesia learns she’s the identical twin of a spy—and her twin’s enemies are hot on her trail— in Carter’s highly enjoyable romantic suspense novel.

Exiles

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

by Jessica Knoll

by Jane Harper

by Ally Carter

Business or Pleasure

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi

by Shannon Chakraborty The author of the bestselling Daevabad trilogy tops herself with a swashbuckling high seas quest that’s rousing, profound and irresistible.

A Day of Fallen Night

Solomon’s Business or Pleasure dives into the messiness of life and emerges with a truly romantic love story between an actor and his ghostwriter—who’s providing some sex lessons on the side.

by Samantha Shannon

by Ariel Lawhon

Every Duke Has His Day

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

Atmospheric, unique and elegantly written, The Frozen River will satisfy mystery lovers and historical fiction enthusiasts alike with its beautifully realized setting of colonial America.

A dutiful scientist and a social butterfly are thrown together when they accidentally swap poodles in Enoch’s hilarious Regency romance.

Harper’s lyrically written, immersive and slow-burning mystery Exiles is a powerful send-off for beloved sleuth Aaron Falk.

The Frozen River

The Last Devil to Die

by Richard Osman

The Last Devil to Die is equal parts well-plotted cozy mystery, scintillating repartee and deep reflection on what it means to love and live.

The Motion Picture Teller

by Colin Cotterill

By turns witty, warm, charming and poignant as it follows a picaresque quest for a lost film, The Motion Picture Teller is perhaps Cotterill’s finest novel thus far.

The River We Remember

by William Kent Krueger

Krueger’s page-turning, rewarding mystery The River We Remember is a superb exploration of the prejudices and complexities of post-World War II America.

The Secret Hours

by Mick Herron

Sly and suspenseful, The Secret Hours is both a marvelous standalone novel and a stunning companion to Herron’s Slough House series.

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Sutanto hits all the right notes in Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, a cozy mystery worth reading for its hilariously meddlesome titular character alone.

Zero Days by Ruth Ware Ware’s action-packed thriller Zero Days is as much an exploration of grief as it is a warning about the vagaries of technology.

by Suzanne Enoch

Exes and O’s by Amy Lea Exes and O’s is equal parts tender and laugh-out-loud funny, with an earnest appreciation for the romance genre singing loudly from every page.

Hunt on Dark Water

by Katee Robert

The Dark Olympus author combines the fantasy and pirate subgenres with Hunt on Dark Waters, a fast-paced and delightful fever dream of fantasy creatures, mysterious magic and sizzling sexual innuendo.

Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly

Shannon’s prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree is just as sumptuous and explosive, immersing readers in a world on the brink of destruction.

Gut-wrenching and deeply human, Bardugo’s return to the magical Yale of Ninth House will tug at your heartstrings even as it chills you to the bone.

He Who Drowned the World

by Shelley Parker-Chan Parker-Chan’s He Who Drowned the World is finely crafted, ambitious and a more than worthy sequel to She Who Became the Sun.

Medusa’s Sisters

by Lauren J.A. Bear

A gorgeously crafted retelling of Greek mythology, Medusa’s Sisters is a celebration of the many faces love can wear.

Our Share of Night

by Mariana Enriquez, trans. by Megan McDowell

Two men fall in love as they hike the Pacific Crest Trail in a story so sweet and satisfying that you’ll never want it to end.

Spooky, atmospheric and experimental, Our Share of Night is a constantly surprising and bloody tale following a man and his son as they try to escape a sinister cult.

The True Love Experiment

The Reformatory

by Christina Lauren

Romance blooms between a reality TV star and her producer in the author duo’s sexy and heartwarming The True Love Experiment.

We Could Be So Good

by Cat Sebastian

Set at a newspaper in 1950s New York City, Sebastian’s grumpy-sunshine love story is a tender, heartening stunner.

10 Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hall Hall’s rom-com might have a zany setup—A guy fakes amnesia! To avoid being fired! And then he has to move in with his boss!—but its authentic emotion will win readers’ hearts.

by Tananarive Due

This masterful horror novel from iconic author Due honors and revises her family’s painful history with the abusive reform school that inspired Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys.

Silver Nitrate

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Mexican Gothic author Moreno-Garcia puts a new spin on Nazi occultists and eldritch rituals in Silver Nitrate, a love letter to classic horror cinema.

Starling House

by Alix E. Harrow Harrow’s Starling House is a riveting Southern gothic fantasy with gorgeous prose and excellent social commentary.

YOUNG ADULT MIDDLE GRADE PICTURE BOOKS

cover story | best books For Lamb

Chinese Menu by Grace Lin

Cline-Ransome powerfully chronicles the events that lead to a fictitious lynching, expertly balancing brutality and sensitivity.

Chinese Menu is an exceptional compilation that can be read all at once or taken out as a reference while eating certain dishes—a family ritual all ages will enjoy.

by Lesa Cline-Ransome

Greymist Fair

Conjure Island

by Francesca Zappia

by Eden Royce

In seven intersecting stories, Zappia nods at fairy-tale conventions before subverting and exceeding them.

Conjure Island takes readers on an exciting getaway and offers a sense of reassurance to anyone feeling lost, left out, lonely or simply in search of some magical fun.

Imogen, Obviously

by Becky Albertalli

Albertalli’s latest novel offers a gentle, hilarious and authentic look at figuring out who you are on your own timeline.

Nigeria Jones by Ibi Zoboi In this story of a girl who questions her parents’ Black separatist utopian community, author Zoboi strikes a delicate balance with weighty themes.

Nine Liars

by Maureen Johnson In her fifth book starring teen sleuth Stevie Bell, Johnson both employs and subverts the hallmarks of classical English country house mysteries.

Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian Only This Beautiful Moment transmutes the rallying cry of “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” into even more beautiful poetry that will change lives.

The Space Between Here & Now by Sarah Suk This intriguing mix of fantasy and realism lures readers in with the promise of magic and keeps them engaged with emotionally resonant themes.

Unraveller

by Frances Hardinge This fantasy novel ventures into the darkest human emotions to pose a necessary question: What does it mean to truly heal?

Warrior Girl Unearthed

by Angeline Boulley

Firekeeper’s Daughter author Boulley returns to Sugar Island with a thriller that asks: Who owns the past?

Eagle Drums

by Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson Rainey Hopson provides an exciting look into Iñupiaq culture while offering invaluable lessons about the power of community, kinship and celebrations.

Hope in the Valley

by Mitali Perkins

Many books advocate for listening to people of opposing views while following one’s own beliefs, but few do it better than Perkins’ exceptional Hope in the Valley.

Just Jerry by Jerry Pinkney Just Jerry is a moving and vivid reminder that young people can be successful in the arts if they receive the necessary tools and support.

The Puppets of Spelhorst

Big Tree is an awe-inspiring odyssey, a survival story and an invitation to think about the planet we call home.

by David Bowles, illustrated

by David Álvarez This wondrous, sparkling story conveys how Rabbit and Opossum became “Guardians of Light,” providing the moon with its glow and the sun its fire.

Big by Vashti Harrison In an exceptional picture book, Harrison considers the shifting connotations of the word big in a young girl’s life.

A Cloud in a Jar

by Aaron Lewis Krol, illustrated by Carlos Vélez Aguilera A Cloud in the Jar has everything: clever narration, a straightforward message about bravery and brilliant artwork.

Desert Queen

by Jyoti Rajan Gopal, illustrated by Svabhu Kohli Desert Queen is a fearlessly triumphant depiction of the wonder, magic and sparkle of dance.

Every Dreaming Creature

by Brendan Wenzel

This eye-catching succession of nighttime visions promotes a sense of empathy and admiration for the world’s many creatures.

by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated

by Julie Morstad

Mole Is Not Alone

With all the makings of a classic fairy tale, The Puppets of Spelhorst skillfully salutes the power of storytelling through a tale of five puppets.

Sweet and cozy—much like the cream puffs Mole makes—Mole Is Not Alone lends itself well to bedtime snuggles.

Remember Us

by Jacqueline Woodson

by Maya Tatsukawa

Oh No, the Aunts Are Here by Adam Rex, illustrated by Lian Cho

Woodson flawlessly intersperses explosive moments—and games of basketball— among quiet, reflective scenes, responding to her protagonist’s fears with reassurance about the permeance of loving memories.

This spirited gem of a book explores what it’s like to have a quiet life temporarily transformed by boisterous relatives.

What Happened to Rachel Riley?

by Qing Zhuang

by Claire Swinarski

In this strikingly realistic novel, Anna must navigate the minefield of middle school while trying to figure out what she stands for.

You Are Here Big Tree by Brian Selznick

Ancient Night

edited by Ellen Oh You Are Here vividly illustrates the talents of a diverse group of creators as well as the rich and varied range of Asian American experiences and identities.

Rainbow Shopping A shopping trip and a shared meal provide comfort and connection in this touching portrait of a familial love.

Scroll by Hui Li A writing lesson blossoms into a magical adventure with ancient Chinese characters in one of the year’s most unique stories.

When You Can Swim

by Jack Wong

Text and illustrations merge seamlessly to illuminate the ways in which swimming animates all one’s senses.

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reviews | fiction

H Happy

By Celina Baljeet Basra

Literary Fiction Happy Singh Soni is not, well, happy: He is longing for more. And, given his condition at the outset of Celina Baljeet Basra’s debut novel, why wouldn’t he be? His home, a Punjabi farming village that is being steadily encroached upon by an expanding theme park, is no place for a young man with ambition—of which, make no mistake, Happy has a bountiful platter.

Happy’s primary objective is to travel to Europe and become something befitting his expansive and flighty imagination: perhaps a movie star or a playwright. Constantly updating his résumé, he envisions his future with “a lustrous, luxurious bathroom made entirely of Makrana marble.” This makes him an easy mark for those only too eager to shepherd the dreamer to the Europe of his imagination . . . for a price.

In a very timely manner, Basra makes a potent point about how undocumented

H Stockholm

By Noa Yedlin

Literary Fiction Having a group of friends means getting up to hijinks. Even hiding a dead body to pretend your friend is still alive, and therefore eligible to win a Nobel prize, can be a fun group activity, as Noa Yedlin proves in her latest novel—though results may vary.

Stockholm (HarperVia, $30, 9780063310810) begins in Israel, where Avishay has passed away a week before the Nobel Prize announcements, for which he’s in the running due to his work in economics. His four closest friends, Zohara, Yehuda, Nili and Amos, think that if they pretend he’s still alive, Avishay could go down in history. What follows is a madcap adventure filled with laughs and tears and the kind of under-your-skin frustration that only your closest friends can give you.

The complex dynamics among the friends make for a slew of hitches in their improbable scheme. Zohara discovers Avishay’s body using the key he gave her to his apartment because they were not-so-secret lovers. Then, it’s Yehuda who hatches the plan to pretend Avishay is alive for another week, neglecting to mention that it would benefit him. Nili decries her status as the fifth wheel of the group, while Amos questions

26

workers are frequently abused both economically and physically.

After a harrowing journey, Happy finds himself in Italy, working at a radish farm as an undocumented immigrant. His proximity to the Italian film studio Cinecittà makes his goal of stardom feel tantalizingly close, yet it remains every bit as remote as it was in India. He puts on a brave face even while the gap between his dreams and his daily life becomes a virtually unbridgeable chasm.

Although Happy (Astra House, $26, 9781662602306) starts out at a leisurely pace, this is just a matter of

Basra taking the time to build Happy’s complex character layer upon layer, encouraging the reader to root for her quixotic protagonist. As his life, somewhat predictably, falls short of his lofty ambitions, Basra manages to keep Happy true to his ideals, rather than having him succumb to cynicism or bitterness.

The book’s unexpected climax is handled so masterfully that it seems, in retrospect, inevitable.

The humanity underpinning Happy’s story will speak to anyone with a heart and a dream.

—Thane Tierney

whether Avishay’s work really warrants the fame—and extensive Wikipedia entry—it gave him. As the friends fake texts and ward off visitors, their bond is put to the test and decades of pent-up feelings erupt in a single week.

Yedlin makes this absurd plot often feel more like that of a thriller. So much is at stake in every scene—not just the Nobel Prize but years of memories, trust and love. Though each character has a distinct voice and is given plenty of room to develop, the novel is best when the four of them come together. Witnessing their hilarious banter and inside jokes, readers won’t feel left out; they’ll be glad for a glimpse of this friendship, with all its tension and tenderness.

—Eric A. Ponce

As Day opens, Isabel and Dan are muddling through an ordinary morning with their schoolage kids. Isabel is a creative director in an evaporating industry, and Dan is a former rocker who still yearns for the spotlight. Isabel’s brother, Robbie, teaches sixth grade history and lives in their attic bedroom. Though the point of view roves among characters, it’s Robbie who forms the center of the novel. Robbie’s feeling regret about his ex, Oliver, and about his long-ago decision to turn down medical school. Everyone’s floundering except Wolfe, Robbie’s Instagram persona—a perfect, though fictional, gay man.

The novel’s middle section takes place a year later, during the COVID-19 lockdowns, with Robbie stranded in Iceland, Isabel managing worries about her kids and her marriage, and Dan starting to write songs again. This section incorporates emails, texts and stretches of unadorned dialogue, including a heartbreaking phone conversation between Isabel and her dad. One year later, in April 2021, the characters gather upstate, each changed in their place in life and in their relationships with one another.

Despite contemporary details like Instagram follows and Zoom school, Day has a dreamy, timeless feel. Using gorgeous, often heightened prose, Cunningham offers intimate glimpses of weighty moments instead of big scenes to examine the family’s strands of connection and disconnection, along with the ripple effects of the pandemic. Day may be a spare, short novel, but it’s a novel that asks to be read meditatively, rather than rushed through.

—Sarah McCraw Crow

Day

By Michael Cunningham

Family Drama In his novels Specimen Days and The Hours, the latter his acclaimed homage to Mrs. Dalloway, Michael Cunningham used three timelines to great effect. He does so once again in Day (Random House, $28, 9780399591341), which follows a Brooklyn family on the same April day over three years: 2019, 2020 and 2021.

reviews | nonfiction

H Gator Country

By Rebecca Renner

Nature Investigative journalist Rebecca Renner’s breathtaking Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades (Flatiron, $29.99, 9781250842572) brims with exhilarating tales of the denizens—both human and animal—that lurk in the saw grass, skunk cabbage and mangrove roots of the rapidly vanishing Everglades. The fast-paced narrative is imbued with the atmosphere of tension that shapes any good mystery story—but unlike other mysteries, Gator Country is shaped by moral ambiguities among antagonists and protagonists. With deep affection for a beloved place, Renner, who grew up in the Everglades, sketches a vivid portrait of the scraggly splendor of the land and its tenacious hold on life in a world that often fails to see its beauty.

At the heart of Renner’s book lies Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

H Chasing Bright Medusas

By Benjamin Taylor

Biography It is often said that novelists find their best material in their own childhoods.

In Chasing Bright Medusas: A Life of Willa Cather (Viking, $29, 9780593298824), Benjamin Taylor convincingly argues that for Cather, this supposition is the key to fully appreciating her work.

Taylor, an award-winning memoirist, novelist and biographer, freely admits his great affection and admiration for Cather and her writing. In this relatively short but well-researched biography, he conveys Cather’s complexity, her strengths and her frailties: headstrong and independent, but also easily hurt by a negative review; ruthlessly honest in her writing, but unable (or unwilling) to come to terms with her own sexuality and her love for Isabelle McClung Hamburg; clinging to her values and idealism, but also aware that humans are frail vessels. Many of Cather’s letters have recently come to light, and Taylor uses them sensitively and effectively to tell her story.

The letters humanize her, revealing a woman of tremendous genius and touching vulnerability.

Taylor is at his most convincing when he links Cather’s literary works—from her first articles

officer Jeff Babauta’s struggle to balance his sympathy for wily lifetime poachers with his understanding that alligators are a key species in the conservation of a fragile ecosystem. Near retirement, he takes on one last mission and, despite being torn about this charge, goes undercover to catch alligator poachers who are stealing gator eggs from nests and selling them.

Who is the hero, and who is the villain? It depends on who you ask. Before the Everglades became a national park, “poaching” was simply “hunting,” and it was largely done for sustenance. As Renner points out, tourism, the rapid encroachment of urbanization, farming, the disruption of natural fire cycles, and land-hungry builders who “snatched the land and made hunters into poachers” have endangered the Everglades far more than poachers.

Renner weaves Babauta’s story with her own; she grew up in south Florida, and as she puzzles through her reporting, she also reflects earnestly on her relationship with the swamp. Her mission, she writes, was “to go to the Everglades and listen.” In doing so, she captures the inhabitants of the region—human, animal and ecological—in all their frailty and splendor.

At the end of this tangled environmental morality tale (no spoilers—we learn this up front), the FWC takes down the ring of poachers. For Renner, though, the moral of the story is that “To be at odds with nature is to be at odds with ourselves . . . Our centuries of war with the swamp have shown that when we attack nature, nature will fight back, and both humans and nature will lose.”

—Henry L. Carrigan, Jr.

to her final story—to her life. Very few authors have embedded their past so seamlessly and beautifully into their works as Willa Cather.

Taylor draws direct lines between episodes in O Pioneers! and My Ántonia to Cather’s childhood in Red Cloud, Nebraska. But he also shows how even her later, less obviously autobiographical works, such as The Professor’s House and Death Comes for the Archbishop, are imbued with the experiences, observations and values she acquired over her lifetime.

Cather’s wry observations of human nature seem to have truly inspired Taylor. His interpretations of the interplay of memory and description in Cather’s work are some of the most lyrical and moving passages in this highly polished and heartfelt book.

—Deborah Mason

category-resistant fiction like 2002’s The Crimson Petal and the White, Faber promises that this book, which was decades in the making and exhaustively examines genres, their artists and their respective audiences, “will change the way you listen.” In doing so, it also broadens the act of listening in directions that are surprising, sometimes unsettling and ultimately endearing.

Faber has his opinions, and he doesn’t hold back. He thinks composing and playing classical music is often more a test of playing skill than true creative work. Rock is still too Anglocentric, its audiences unreceptive to listening to songs sung in languages other than English. Today’s multimedia-infused performances are a “synergy of illusions.” He weighs in on the vinyl versus digital debate and the practice of lip-syncing. His thoughts on The Beatles and their albums are included along with those on The Beach Boys, Beyoncé, Beethoven, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston and Marvin Gaye, among others.

It’s a sprawling survey that sometimes feels unwieldy, but Faber covers miles of ground with knowledgeable panache.

Exploring the act of listening through the prisms of history, culture and his own troubled childhood, Faber—who has chronic tinnitus—dances through chapters titled “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and “Let’s Hear It One More Time for Ludwig!” In “The Tracks of My Tears,” he arrives at what it is about music that makes some people cry. With that, he brings his listeners to common ground where music thrives: our humanity.

—Priscilla Kipp

Listen

By Michel Faber

Music The word “listen” can function both as a noun —“Give a listen”—and as a verb: “Are you listening?” In Michel Faber’s first work of nonfiction, Listen: On Music, Sound and Us (Hanover Square, $30, 9781335000620), he gives both uses a workout. Known for

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reviews | young adult

H Gwen & Art Are Not in Love

By Lex Croucher

Historical Fantasy Lex Croucher’s delightful young adult debut novel is set in an alternate version of England in the Middle Ages, one in which the primary political turmoil is a conflict between the Catholics and the Arthurian cultists—those who are convinced that the Arthurian legends are true and that the once and future king is destined to rise again. Meanwhile, inside the castle walls, the King of England’s daughter, Gwen (short for Gwendoline, not Guinevere) is bristling over her impending marriage to Art (yes, short for Arthur), the descendant of King Arthur who is destined to unite the two factions.

As the title of Gwen & Art Are Not in Love (Wednesday, $20, 9781250847218) suggests, the two are anything but a love match. When they were younger, they fought over trivial matters,

H Godly Heathens

By H.E. Edgmon

Fantasy Gem has always had strange dreams of a sexy, violent demon, but they never could’ve guessed they were seeing memories of their past life as a magical god. But after a beautiful girl named Willa Mae reveals that she and Gem are reincarnated deities—and soulmates—Gem must deal with their newfound divinity while escaping from other gods who want revenge for past misdeeds.

H.E. Edgmon’s action-packed novel plunges readers into the epic, emotionally charged world of reincarnated gods who must deal with not only eons of enmity but also life in teenage bodies. Godly Heathens (Wednesday, $20, 9781250853615) opens with a bloody vision of Gem participating in the torture of another god.

But while the scenes of violence are striking, so are the depictions of intimacy between characters. Although there exist millennia of animosity between them, none of the characters are purely protagonists or antagonists. Instead, Edgmon delivers complexity as Gem and the others wade through the moral grayness of dealing with their individual pasts while considering what it would take to break a cycle of hatred.

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but when they reunite as young adults they realize their impending nuptials might be ill-advised for other reasons. When Arthur visits the royal court for the annual tournament, Gwen spots him kissing another young man; Arthur, in turn, uncovers Gwen’s secret diary that confesses her attraction to Lady Bridget Leclair, the only female knight of the realm.

The two reluctantly enter into a pact: They’ll pretend to get along, in order to keep one another’s secrets safe. The marriage bit? They’ll figure it out later. But plans have a way of getting complicated, especially when Arthur has eyes for Gwen’s quiet, studious brother Gabriel, the heir to the throne.

Croucher, the author of a number of irreverent Regency rom-coms, clearly has a lot of

fun with her material as she offers readers a quirky, queer Arthurian remix with serious undertones.

Lighthearted and genuinely entertaining banter soon gives way to political machinations and intense battlefield scenes that throw the stakes for the main characters into high contrast. Fans of Arthurian romance will find much to appreciate here, as well those who enjoy queer reimaginings of history and literature.

But anyone who enjoys a swashbuckling tale of talented, thoughtful young people coming into their own will root for Gwen and Art (and Bridget and Gabriel) as they discover their true purpose, and maybe save England at the same time.

—Norah Piehl

Edgmon develops diverse characters who bear centuries of varying identities and histories that impact—and clash with—who they currently are. Gem is nonbinary, trans and Native, and they also carry memories of their reincarnations’ identities. Likewise, the rest of the cast comes from myriad backgrounds and regions all across America.

With a compelling plotline and cast, Godly Heathens establishes an intriguing setup for the planned second book in the Ouroburos duology. Its depth in content and theme creates a profound story that will empower and inspire.

—Tami Orendain

In high school teacher Brian Wasson’s warm and witty debut novel, Seven Minutes in Candyland (Quill Tree, $19.99, 9780063264656), another profit opportunity arises one fateful day in the utility closet that doubles as Kalvin’s HQ. He’s surveying his inventory when his longtime crush Sterling Glistern eases in, looking for a place to have a good cry. When Sterling confides in Kalvin about her relationship troubles, Kalvin is able to offer a sympathetic ear and helpful advice: His psychologist parents have a successful couples therapy podcast and YouTube channel, and Kalvin’s been absorbing their teachings his entire life.

Soon, he’s the school’s go-to therapist, earning $10 per seven-minute session from the “rich kids.” It’s a thrill to not only help others, but also stockpile cash. Kalvin’s goal is to earn $11,737

by Valentine’s Day so he can present his parents with a family trip to Hawaii. Their marriage has been struggling, and Kalvin is convinced the trip will help his family find joy once again.

As his deadline approaches, Kalvin’s anxiety switches into high gear: What if he can’t fix his family? And why won’t some of his clients take action based on his advice, already?

Seven Minutes in Candyland is an entertaining and empathetic read that urges us to embrace vulnerability and pursue emotional clarity. Readers will enjoy the story’s rom-com aspects: multiple will-they-or-won’t-they couples; a big upcoming school dance; and plenty of sweet surprises. Candy consumption is optional but encouraged.

—Linda M. Castellitto

Seven Minutes in Candyland

By Brian Wasson

Romantic Comedy Kalvin Shmelton, sophomore at Gregg County High, is “a jackof-all-treats, master of none” with a nice side hustle as a purveyor of $1 candygrams.

The student council used to dominate the market, but Kalvin saw an opportunity to beat their narrow offerings. After all, “nothing in the school’s handbook says students can’t be capitalists, too.”

reviews | children’s

H The Ferris Wheel

By Tülin Kozikoğlu Illustrated by Hüseyin Sönmezay

Picture Book A boy and a girl live in cities in two different parts of the world. Though it’s not stated in the text where each resides, it is easy to tell the boy and his mother live comfortably, while the girl and her father live in the midst of war, where safety is never a given.

As each pair goes through their daily lives, their respective experiences mirror each other, and their destinations converge upon a single point: a brightly lit Ferris wheel, turning slowly on its axis as it offers a new perspective from every point in the sky.

Author Tülin Kozikoğ lu and illustrator Hüseyin Sönmezay’s picture book The Ferris Wheel (Interlink, $18.95, 9781623717216) is a beautifully profound yet subtle story about refugees and global connection. This book captures the essence of what a picture book should be:

Laolao’s Dumplings

By Dane Liu Illustrated by ShinYeon Moon

Picture Book Millie and her grandmother love making dumplings together, which requires a trip to buy ingredients and see their friends in the bustling, lively neighborhood of Chinatown. This heartfelt picture book takes an unexpected but honest turn when Laolao’s age causes her to become less independent and unable to cook.

But rather than spend her days feeling sad, Millie fills her time cooking for Laolao. When Millie decides to attempt the dumpling recipe, Laolao’s family and friends step up to help her in a beautiful show of community.

Laolao’s Dumplings (Godwin, $18.99, 9781250778192) is warm and soaked through with colorful cheer. Laolao’s inviting house is full of grandmotherly decor, while Millie is instantly likable with her big smile and red cheeks. In a delightful burst of fantasy, smells and tastes that she experiences—such as jasmine tea or lychee—transform into jolly little floating creatures, giving the sense that Millie’s joy is too big to contain. Above all, ShinYeon Moon’s depictions of Chinatown stand out with vibrant streets pleasantly bustling with shoppers and vendors of all kinds. Intricately detailed with signs and stores and produce,

The text and illustrations are in complete conversation, providing context for and bolstering each other.

Across seemingly simple spreads, the parents’ dialogue often matches verbatim: “On the street, Mama says, ‘Be careful.’ / On the street, Papa says, ‘Be careful.’ ” But small differences carry larger implications: For example, as each pair passes a candy store, the boy’s mother says, “Not before lunch,” while the girl’s father says, “Not anymore.”

Sönmezay’s stunning digital illustrations are as textured and tangible as if one were standing in front of a physical canvas. Bordered by white frames containing the text, the images possess a strong dimensionality that foregrounds each parent-child pair while offering many background details to explore. Sönmezay makes the meaningful choice to keep the color palettes

similar throughout both settings, showing that vibrancy can persist in dire circumstances.

The varying contexts depicted in each street scene are likely to prompt questions and fruitful conversations.

Though drawn from Koziko ğ lu’s experiences growing up and living in Turkey— which her author’s note describes as “a land of ‘comers’ and ‘goers’ ’’ due to centuries-old, ongoing political turmoil—The Ferris Wheel itself is not specific about time or place, which adds to the universality of its deceptively simple narrative. While the overarching metaphor of the Ferris wheel itself may not be immediately clear to young readers, the book will begin a conversation that can be returned to again and again.

—Mariel Fechik

Moon’s Chinatown is so full of life it’s impossible to not feel a connection.

Dane Liu’s first-person narration stays fun and fresh with plenty of innovative descriptions and alliteration. Succinct, spot-on imagery creates a strong atmosphere while propelling readers through the story. Liu manages to also seamlessly weave in mini lessons on Chinese culture and traditions, making Laolao’s Dumplings perfect for storytime and school curricula.

Laolao’s Dumplings is a story of family and community, of tradition and culture, of curiosity and determination. By the end, this reviewer wasn’t sure what was more enticing: making (and eating) dumplings, or exploring the energetic shops of Chinatown. The story ends with a recipe, making the former quite possible. As for the latter, this book allows readers to take imaginary trips to Laolao’s welcoming neighborhood as often as they want.

—Jill Lorenzini

the (Greedy) Pea (Candlewick, $17.99, 9781536231328), they can marvel at a tiny vegetable who becomes voraciously self-aware.

One moment, the titular pea is just one among many heaped in a beautiful decorative bowl. The next, he’s standing with arms aloft declaring, “I am SO hungry!” But he doesn’t just have a little snack; no, he gulps down a Brussels sprout and makes his way down an elaborate banquet table, hoovering up all the food he encounters with hilariously messy results.

Hodgkinson, who is known for books such as Troll Swap, as well as her work on British children’s TV shows including “Olobob Top,” has created a colorful visual feast replete with intricate patterns and expressive characters, such as an observant cat who gapes at the pea’s antics.

The Princess and the (Greedy Pea) is a cumulative rhyme like its inspiration, “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. "The text grows (along with the pea) as the pages turn, adding lines onto the refrain “Without a doubt / he swallowed a sprout. / What’s that about?” The fairy tale “The Princess and the Pea” is folded in as well: the feast was meant for a purple-clad princess. Alas, the louche legume has consumed nearly every crumb and left behind a graveyard of broken crockery, so the frustrated princess must go to bed hungry.

But her bed is so uncomfortable! Kids will crack up when they realize why. The Princess and the (Greedy) Pea is a slyly funny, wonderfully rendered reimagining of children’s classics that will have kids clamoring for a reread.

—Linda M. Castellitto

The Princess and the (Greedy) Pea

By Leigh Hodgkinson

Picture Book Kids (and whimsical adults) often wonder what it would be like if inanimate objects came to life. Thanks to Leigh Hodgkinson’s The Princess and

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interview | karida l. brown & charly palmer © MARIE THOMAS

Celebrating the children of the sun The spirit of W.E.B. Du Bois lives on in a new anthology by Charly Palmer and Karida L. Brown.

Very early in their relationship, in March Hunter, Ph.D., a UCLA professor. Instead, he 2017, artist Charly Palmer emailed Karida L. sent an astonishing poem, “The Children of Brown a question: If you were to write a chilthe Sun,” which helps introduce the collection. dren’s book, what would it be? Brown, who “We really thought that people would stay in has a doctorate in sociology and is a professor their lane and stick to their genres,” Brown says, at Emory University, had always adored the approving of the fact they did not.

Berenstain Bears books. “I thought I was a bear,” Zoe Jones, the 5-year-old daughter of a friend, she recalls, speaking from their home in Atlanta, wrote a poem called “Kisses Make Things Better Georgia. However, she had another, very dif(But Sometimes They Don’t).” Two years later, when she saw the poem in the book, she said, ferent answer for Palmer, explaining that she “This person has the same name as me”—and would love to create a book inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois’s writing for children. she was ecstatic when her mother reminded her that it was indeed, her poem. Wesley Since graduate school, Brown has called Du Bois her “North Star and guiding light.” In Gordon, the 14-year-old son of one of Brown’s 1920, the NAACP founder began publishing The colleagues, wrote a powerful essay about the Brownies’ Book: A Monthly Magazine for Childeath of his grandfather, “Death Leaves a Scar; dren of the Love Leaves Sun, which Memories.”

“The point is not that the child will Brown was circulated for nearly two comprehend every single nugget. But if i m p r e s s e d years. Aimed sent him the book is on your coffee table, it gets and at Black and revision sugbrown chilup in your bones, it gets in your spirit.” gestions. “We dren ages were really 6–16, the magazine’s inside cover announced, intentional that this book should give new writ“DESIGNED FOR ALL CHILDREN BUT ESPEers and artists the opportunity to have their first CIALLY FOR OURS.” Brown recalls, “When I first published work debut alongside some of these creative giants,” Brown explains. “It’s an elevalearned about The Brownies’ Book, it shocked tor, in a way. It brings us all up.” me. It really brought me to tears to think that one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th cenThe wide range of offerings is designed to appeal to many differtury, who was so very busy, would take the time out to make this happen.” ent ages. Palmer and Brown emphasize that Now, the couple has turned their email musings into a stunning compendium of art they wanted this book to and prose also aimed at young readers. The be “intergenerational” and encourage converNew Brownies’ Book: A Love Letter to Black Families (Chronicle, $40, 9781797216829) is sations among children, a thought-provoking collection filled with 60 parents, grandparents, stories, poems, essays, songs, photos, comaunts and uncles. In The ics, plays, illustrations and photographs. They New Brownies’ Book, Palmer includes a porcome from a wide variety of Black creators ranging from award-winning illustrators like trait of Brown’s Aunt Mary, who often said, James Ransome and poet Ntozake Shange to a number of young people—even Zoe Jones, a when cooking, “You gotta 5-year-old. In the book’s introduction, Palmer let it soak. When you soak describes them as “an A-team of creative people your meat, it’s gonna taste better. Same thing that shared the same passion and commitment with your mind.” Brown to Black Love.”

After sending out a request for contribunotes, “Some of these stotions at the beginning of the pandemic, Brown ries, you just gotta let it soak. The point is not notes, “We got loads of surprises with the subthat the child will comprehend every single nugmissions—and the range of literary and artistic get. But if the book is on your coffee table, it gets expression.” For instance, she expected some up in your bones, it gets in your spirit. And as sort of historical essay from Marcus Anthony you mature, it allows you to explore and tap into

30

Visit BookPage.com to read an extended version of this interview.

the range of human emotions and the human condition through stories and art.”

During his childhood as one of five siblings raised by a single mother, Palmer often found inspiration in biographies of accomplished Black people. “We have a little bit of that woven throughout the book,” he says. Palmer adds that he wants readers to know “you all have the potential to be great.” He says, “As much as my subject matter today is of the Black experience, I came to art through the Beatles. . . . I wanted to try to put on paper what the Beatles made me feel like.” Later on, the writings of James Baldwin made him feel the same way.

This husband-and-wife team would love for their book to be on the coffee table of every Black family in America and around the world, and they have partnered with the nonprofit Page Turners to help distribute The New Brownies’ Book to underserved schools. Palmer notes, “If you really look at this book, it isn’t about being Black. It’s about being human, about family love, laws and humor— the threads that connect us all.”

When asked if they wish Du Bois could see their new book, Brown says, “I feel like his spirit as our ancestor is all over this thing.” She mentions a letter she once read that discussed his desire to restart the Brownies periodical: “It stayed on his mind. So, I know that Du Bois would be so very proud to know that The Brownies’ Book lives on.”

—Alice Cary

Revisiting beloved literary voices An anthology is a gift that keeps on giving, and these three exceptional collections will keep a variety of readers engaged.

H The New Brownies’ Book In homage to a children’s periodical started by scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois in 1920, Karida L. Brown, a professor of sociology at Emory University Sociology, and artist Charly Palmer—a husband-and-wife team—have curated an astounding collection celebrating Black joy and creativity. The New Brownies’ Book: A Love Letter to Black Families (Chronicle, $40, 9781797216829) is a large-format treasury of art, short stories, poetry, essays, plays and more, which the authors hope will serve “as a strong expression of inspiration, recognition, love, laughter, reflection, and celebration of what we mean to one another.”

The illustrations throughout are eye-catching in color, theme and style, starting with Tokie RomeTaylor’s mesmerizing cover photograph, Child of God, featuring a young girl dressed in lace and feathers. Chapters are devoted to subjects like family, school, “She’roes” (notable women), living and dying; there is also a section focused on Langston Hughes, who published his first work in the original Brownies’ Book at age 20.

While many anthologies of this sort tend to focus on young audiences, The New Brownies’ Book is designed to appeal to all ages and does an exceptional job of putting both new and old artistic voices in conversation. This collection retains ties to the original magazine—by including elements such as reproductions of early pages—but also overflows with inspiration from modern sources.

A Toni Morrison Treasury A Toni Morrison Treasury (Paula Wiseman, $29.99, 9781665915540) caters to young readers with a collection of eight children’s books that the late Nobel Prize-winning writer wrote with her son, Slade Morrison. Each one is illustrated by an artist chosen by Toni herself; they include Joe Cepeda, Pascal Lemaître, Giselle Potter, Sean Qualls and Shadra Strickland. As Oprah Winfrey writes in a brief foreword, “Reading these stories is a way for children and adults to connect with one of the world’s most extraordinary authors in a new and inspiring way.”

Adults will enjoy these tales as well, as many Morrison fans may never have encountered her writing for children. For example, “The Big Box,” is a lengthy rhyming story about three children confined to a big brown box because, according to adults, they “just can’t handle their freedom.” The tale is a delight from start to finish. At first, the big box seems to offer unfettered joys—treats and toys galore—but readers will soon realize it’s a prison. Potter’s droll illustrations perfectly capture the strange dichotomy of their situation and their feelings of entrapment. “Poppy or the Snake” is also particularly clever. Lemaître’s use of dark tones heightens the tension between the two protagonists, and bright green Snake’s bold, wily ways make for a fun read-aloud. In the lively “Peeny Butter Fudge,” Cepeda’s bright illustrations ramp up the rollicking fun had by kids and their high-spirited Nana .

A Whale of a Time Books like A Whale of a Time: A Funny Poem for Each Day of the Year (Nosy Crow, $40, 9798887770253) that offer yearround reading selections facilitate great bedtime rituals for children.

The poems included here are particularly short, sweet and funny, while representing a broad range of contributors, including Roald Dahl, T.S. Eliot, Nikki Giovanni, Linda Sue Park and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Lou Peacock draws readers right in with an infectious, animated introduction that urges them to quickly turn to Rita Dove’s Jan. 1 poem, “The First Book,” and not to miss Willard R. Espy’s clever ode to punctuation for July 4, “Private? No!” Matt Hunt’s kid-friendly illustrations enrich each page with additional humor: showing, for example, a loud-mouthed toddler serenading her exhausted parents from her crib, or a page full of April Fool’s Day pranks.

Many spreads focus on several poems with a central theme—such as dogs, the moon, laughter, family or even porcupines and hedgehogs— creating a nice continuity between several days in a row. No matter what kind of day a young reader may be having, A Whale of a Time will spark a satisfying smile.

—Alice Cary

feature | meet the author

meet Fabio Napoleoni

F

abio Napoleoni is the creator of Dragonboy—featured in Dragonboy and the 100 Hearts (Little, Brown, $18.99, 9780316462211)—a character based on his son, and the character Marcenivo, which he conceived while his infant daughter was battling a life-threatening heart condition. Napoleoni used his art when he worked with troubled and abused children before becoming a full-time artist.

© THOMAS SPRAVKA

gifts | children’s literary

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Nita Prose THE MYSTERY GUEST: A MAi □ NOVEL A new mess. A new mystery. It's up to Molly the maid to uncover the truth, no matter how dirty, in this standalone novel from the #1 New York - Times bestselling author of The Maid, a Good Morning America Book Club pick.

Ballantine Books I Available in Hardcover, eBook, Audio, and Large Print Editions

Madhur Jaffrey; Foreword by Yotam Ottolenghi AN INVITATION TO INDIANCOOKING: 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION: A COOKBOOK Beautifully redesigned-and with a new foreword by the author and a new introduction by superfan, Yotam Ottolenghi-and featuring Jaffrey's own illustrations, this anniversary edition celebrates An Invitation to Indian Cooking's half a century as the go-to text on Indian cooking.

Peggy Townsend THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE WILD A sweeping, atmospheric domestic suspense thriller where the dangers of Alaska aren't limited to storms, starvation, and grizzly bears-sometimes the most dangerous thing is the person you love.

Berkley I Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions

Knopf I Available in Hardcover and eBook Editions

Mary Haverstick A WOMAN I KNOW: FEMALE SPIES, DOUBLE IDENTITIES, AND A NEW STORY OF THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION The true story of a filmmaker whose � unexpected investigation of her film's subject opened a new window onto the world of Cold War espionage, CIA secrets, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

FOR THE �CELEBRITY BIO LOVER Barbra Streisand MY NAME IS BARBRA The long-awaited memoir by the superstar of stage, screen, recordings, and television.

Viking I Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions

Crown I Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions

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LL Cool J, Vikki Tabak, & Alec Banks LLCOOLJ PRESENTS THE STREETS WIN: 50 YEARS OF HIP­ HOP GREATNESS Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the influential culture, sound, and preeminent voices of American Hip-Hop music, each page features a treasure trove of images and ephemera. The images are accompanied by first-person recollections from Hip-Hop greats.

Rizzoli I Available as a Hardcover Edition

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