Daniel Tammet’s "Nine Minds" is a biographical mosaic of neurodivergence built of stories of individuals whose struggles and achievements defy the clichés surrounding autism. The book presents autism not as a “disorder” but as a... Read More

A girl competes in an intergalactic cooking contest in Nicolas Wouters’s graphic novel "Magda, Intergalactic Chef". Magda is hesitant about participating in her planet’s cooking tournament but does so to appease her family. Her... Read More

An astronaut suffering from insomnia is stalked by a presence aboard a space station in the ominous graphic novel "Station Grand". Michael returns to Station Grand for a long solo assignment. His only company is a computer, which tracks... Read More

Immersed in an endemic sense of grief, Cara Stoddard’s coming-of-age memoir "Spirography" is about cancer’s enduring presence in her life. At seven years old, Stoddard was diagnosed with a pediatric germ cell tumor. Thereafter,... Read More

The innocence of boyhood is eclipsed by a fraught world in Vijay Khurana’s coming-of-age novel "The Passenger Seat". From the first page, Teddy and Adam are described as “boys, or men,” as if even the narrator is uncertain about... Read More

A king with everything goes in search of nothing in this picture book with a philosophical twist. The king travels to the not-quite-barren expanse of the desert and gazes into the not-quite-emptiness of the night sky, but still,... Read More

Julie Brill’s family memoir "Hidden in Plain Sight" is about her Holocaust-survivor father and her experiences learning about his life. Brill’s father was young when the Nazis attacked Belgrade. He survived the war on a farm outside... Read More

Revenge, murder, and gender-based hypocrisy in communist China drive the unsentimental narrative of Fang Fang’s short novel "The Running Flame". Yingzhi lives in a small village in the Chinese countryside. Desiring more than what her... Read More