Book of the Day Roundup: February 9-13, 2026
My Name Is Samim
Fidan Meikle
Kelpies
Softcover $9.99 (296pp)
978-1-78250-930-1
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
In Fidan Meikle’s empathetic novel My Name Is Samim, a young Afghani refugee faces numerous dangers in his search for safety and belonging.
Sensitive thirteen-year-old Samim narrates in dual timelines. In the present, he is a foster child in England, living with Miss Brown and several other refugee children from various countries. His parents were killed for helping Americans, and the ghost of his humorous best friend Zayn keeps him company.
A math prodigy, Samim self-soothes by reciting pi, which he memorized up to 230 digits. When his teacher recognizes his chess skills, he invites Samim to join the school’s club. However, there, he finds himself at odds with Max, the reigning chess champion and feared school bully. When they get into a fight, only Samim faces consequences.
In the second timeline, Samim makes the arduous move from his “snake-shaped village” in Afghanistan, with “mountains in snowy hats,” to the United Kingdom with a case worker. He travels across Iran, Turkey, and Greece, on foot, by boat, and rolled up in a carpet in the back of a truck. This story unfolds as a high-stakes adventure, with engaging action sequences and heart-pounding close calls. Along the way, Samim encounters enough kindness to keep his hope alive, even as some of his choices end in tragedy.
My Name Is Samim is an affecting novel. Its everyday school scenes are well juxtaposed with the horror and hardships Samim encounters as he is “forced on a journey no one goes on by choice,” inducing empathy. While the denial of Samim’s bid for asylum comes as a gut-punch, his classmates band together and find a way to help him. Even Max turns out to have redeeming qualities.
SUZANNE KAMATA (December 18, 2025)
Crown City
Naomi Hirahara
Soho Crime
Hardcover $29.95 (336pp)
978-1-64129-608-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
A man is tasked with finding a missing painting in Naomi Hirahara’s historical novel Crown City.
While adrift in grief, Ryui is offered a job in California by his father’s former client. After a harrowing voyage from Japan, he enters a world of boardinghouses and streetcars; he sets to work at an emporium specializing in Japanese crafts. Ryui’s immigrant status gains him a spot on the waitstaff of noted artist Toshio Aoki for his Cherry Blossom dinner. After the dinner, Aoki implies that Ryui stole a painting. When Ryui protests his innocence, Aoki offers an alternative: Find the missing painting.
Ryui is young, inexperienced, and rigid in his thinking. His culture shock is evident in the comparisons he makes between American and Japanese culture. He clings to his cultural sensibilities as a way to stay connected with his homeland and build relationships in Pasadena, but with varying degrees of success.
Set in the early 1900s, the story is framed by two letters sent from a Japanese internment camp. This is a clear indication that anti-Japanese sentiment will play a role, but the book unfolds in ways both familiar and unexpected. The slow pace of the investigation into the missing painting provides ample opportunity for Ryui to explore his new home and make his own decisions for the first time. The novelty of it all allows him to describe all in exacting detail without overburdening a narrative balancing his coming-of-age, his growing understanding of prejudice, and the mystery. The language is evocative and immersive, lending weight to Ryui’s observations, and real people and events add historical credence and narrative depth to the mystery.
Crown City is a measured coming-of-age novel in which a man ponders what must be preserved for the sake of one’s cultural identity.
DONTANá MCPHERSON-JOSEPH (December 18, 2025)
Marie’s Magic Eggs
How Marie Procai Kept the Ukrainian Art of Pysanky Alive
Sandra Neil Wallace
Evan Turk, illustrator
Calkins Creek
Hardcover $19.99 (48pp)
978-1-66268-069-4
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
This heartfelt biographical picture book exemplifies art as a form of resistance. The life of Marie Procai—a Ukrainian immigrant, renowned folk artist, mother, and cornerstone of Ukrainian cultural heritage—is detailed in intricate illustrations reminiscent of the patterns and techniques of pysanky, the traditional Ukrainian art of decorating eggs that Marie preserved and revitalized. Brilliant yellows and blues nod to the Ukrainian flag, and sunflowers symbolize hope and resistance. The mesmerizing illustrations will reveal a new surprise with every read.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (December 18, 2025)
The First Fascist
The Sensational Life and Dark Legacy of the Marquis de Morès
Sergio Luzzatto
Harvard University Press
Hardcover $35.00 (464pp)
978-0-674-29769-2
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
The First Fascist is Sergio Luzzatto’s absorbing biography of the Marquis de Morès, covering how he came to lead an antisemitic movement in the late 1800s that was later defined as fascist.
The French son of former Italian nobility and a military man who married into wealth, Morès didn’t lack ego or opportunities. Hopscotching across continents, this thorough biography chronicles his misadventures, from a stint as a cattle rancher and meat distributor in the Dakotas (highlighted by a surprising friendship with Teddy Roosevelt) to a doomed attempt to build a railway on the China-Vietnam border. As his failures mounted, Morès blamed Jewish financiers and politicians, joining up with like-minded supporters to start a political party that would threaten to upend the French government.
In compiling a retrospective of Morès’s life, the book draws from a multitude of historical illustrations and sources, including military reports, newspaper excerpts, and firsthand accounts by local settlers and police informants. Rousing the public using “fake” news, accusing high-ranking Jews of conspiracies, challenging opponents to duels, and even running for political office in Paris, Morès was more notable for his bluster than lasting results. Nevertheless, the book argues that he should be more than a historical footnote: his tactics and prejudices influenced fascist demagogues including Benito Mussolini in subsequent decades.
Also included is a rich overview of the tumult of the late nineteenth century, as aristocracies gave way to capitalism and urbanization and pistol duels were phased out in favor of political skullduggery. While Morès’s life was short, it was packed with incident, and this profile of his exploits, capped with a chilling epilogue about the far-ranging consequences of fascism, is an excellent political history as well as an enticing character study.
HO LIN (December 18, 2025)
This Incredible Longing
Finding My Self in a Near-Cult Experience
Blair Glaser
Heliotrope Books
Softcover $20.00 (230pp)
978-1-956474-74-9
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop)
Blair Glaser’s intimate, breathtaking memoir is about her spiritual entanglements with Siddha Yoga, a practice of meditation, servitude, and inner reflection that she undertook with the ashram of Guru Gurumayi.
Fresh out of college, Glaser was an aspiring actor and singer who was lost in deep depression. Experiencing suicidal ideation, she was saved through the repetition of a mantra that she half-heard at a Siddha Yoga Center. In repeating this chant, inexplicable peace washed over her, empowering her to take a dedicated interest in Siddha Yoga as led by enchanting, charismatic Guru Gurumayi. As Glaser became more tethered in this practice and particular ashram, she learned more about mindfulness, herself—and, in a shocking turn of events, the foibles of organized power.
The prose is honest and empathetic. The dissonance Glaser experienced between gratitude and critique of the ashram is used to showcase its captivating world. There, she unpacked the traumas of her past and experienced deep longing, drawing her closer to Guru Gurumayi. In treating the scandals around Gurumayi, which involved abuse and power struggles, the text is nuanced and layered. It conveys Glaser’s own, often positive experiences at the ashram, too, from her transformative improvements in self-worth to the everyday minutiae of consuming rich chai and biryani in its food halls. Her generous depictions extend to the most important people in her life, as well: her family, who gave her a flawed but loving upbringing; her closest friend, Gabby, who introduced her to Siddha Yoga and Guru Gurumayi; her mentor and therapist, Kate, who was unyielding in her honesty; and the many swamis and fellow devotees at the ashram.
This Incredible Longing is a memoir about multiple comings-of-age, coming to terms with oneself, and finding a personal rhythm and inner peace.
NATALIE WOLLENZIEN (December 18, 2025)
Kathy Young
