A frustrated piano teacher gains some much-needed clarity and perspective in An Yu’s novel "Ghost Music". Song Yan lives with her husband and mother-in-law, but family secrets and thwarted ambitions prevent her from developing a close... Read More

Populated by brave souls, "The Forbidden Zone 1940" is a gut-wrenching memoir that recalls the havoc caused by the Second World War. Anne Angelo’s "The Forbidden Zone 1940" is the second installment of her compelling memoir series set... Read More

Dave Williams and Elizabeth Howell’s "Why Am I Taller?" covers the medical side of an astronaut’s life. Physician astronauts, like Williams, have a unique window into what it’s like to be in space. They both experience and diagnose... Read More

Childhood friends reunite, setting off an exploration into the depths of personhood in João Gilberto Noll’s explicit novel "Hugs and Cuddles". A man boards a submarine with a friend whom he calls “the engineer.” On it, German men... Read More

Encompassing both pain and hope, "Sideffect" is the story of a mourning father’s pursuit of justice. Rodney Bridge’s based-in-truth novel "Sideffect" details a father’s efforts to redress the death of his son. At sixteen,... Read More

A newspaper clipping ignites a widow’s search for the truth in Sam Shelstad’s mystery novel "Citizens of Light". Colleen has been going through the motions since the death of her husband, Leonard. While on shift at the call center,... Read More

In "How We Live Is How We Die", Pema Chödrön contemplates the spiritual, psychological, and physical aspects of death from a reasoned, resonant Buddhist perspective. Chödrön is a teacher and a Buddhist nun. Now in her mid-eighties,... Read More

In Brenda Lozano’s "Witches", an Indigenous healer tells her story to a reporter who has her own unhealed wounds. Paloma was killed for being Muxe, a third gender recognized by the Zapotec, one of Mexico’s many Indigenous groups. The... Read More