"Lights, Camera, Lionel Trains!" is a varied visual mosaic that illustrates the breadth and depth of the toy trains’ cultural impact. Roger Carp’s lavish coffee table book "Lights, Camera, Lionel Trains!" is a panoramic photographic... Read More

"Life at Shutter Speed" is a photographer’s retrospective that captures the glamour and danger of motor vehicle culture. A retrospective focused on custom cars, races, and international race culture, Larry Chen’s "Life at Shutter... Read More

"The Saundra Gray Affair" is a political thriller about the personal costs of leading a public life. Set in Washington, DC, Daniel Yager’s "The Saundra Gray Affair" is a tense thriller about political scandals and their personal costs.... Read More

Laws regarding classroom science curricula are examined in Alexander and Harold Gouzoules’s deft history book The Hundred Years’ Trial. The Gouzouleses’ scientific and legal expertise informs this fascinating history, which moves... Read More

“The Texas grid is a land flowing with milk, honey, and countless ways to die” in Lyndsey Lewellen’s exciting novel "The Crier Stone", in which a girl works to save the corrupt city she escaped. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland,... Read More

Patterns and textures layer in the jewel-toned collage illustrations of this exquisite picture book that honors the bond between mother and child. A girl muses on all the memories held in her mother’s scent: happy days, rosy cheeks,... Read More

Kathleen B. Casey’s cultural survey "The Things She Carried" examines purses, pocketbooks, and handbags not through a fashion lens, but as “fraught but vital object[s]” with fascinating histories. The book’s evocative case... Read More

Jane Kurtz’s touching memoir in verse "Oh Give Me a Home" is about belonging and sisterhood. In Maji, Ethiopia, young Kurtz and her family laid down roots after her father helped the community build a waterwheel. As a child, Kurtz... Read More