Urban bird lovers will love Rosemary Mosco’s Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching, an exuberant, insightful, and enchanting book that shows appreciation for the natural world. It may even appeal to nature-loving teenagers—if they can... Read More

For relatability and accessibility, "Real Talk Tarot" updates the tarot, making the ancient system of self-knowledge and divination easy to use and appealing. Here, the tarot’s six-hundred-year-old system of applying archetypes to life... Read More

Great for any person who perennially insists that they’re a “fun-gi” at family functions, Frank Hyman’s "How to Forage for Mushrooms without Dying" is a fascinating guidebook that’ll earn its place on any bookshelf, even if the... Read More

“To walk at night” creates “a night twice lived,” Matt Gaw declares in "Under the Stars", which is structured around a series of night walks to delve into the science of the night sky. The pull of the moon is undeniable, Gaw... Read More

Television chef Kevin Belton’s Cookin’ Louisiana is an exuberant tasting tour of the state’s sixty-four parishes. Seafood is king here, but there are numerous other beloved local ingredients, from andouille to citrus to tasso,... Read More

Bill Schutt’s "Pump" is an entertaining survey of the evolution of the circulatory system. From grasshoppers to whales, it explains how hearts and other analogous structures work. Zeroing in on the human heart, the book contrasts the... Read More

A hearty “bless your heart” to those who misunderstand the South, the essays of Margaret Renkl’s Graceland, at Last vivify an often maligned region. Renkl is one angle of the face of the changing South: she cares about the... Read More

Anne Liu Kellor’s intimate and revealing memoir "Heart Radical" concerns a struggle to know oneself—and to get into the heart of the Chinese people through language. In Chinese, it takes four brush strokes to form the shape of a... Read More