Tate Bertram is handsome, smart, and rich—a golden boy who has lived a privileged life. At just nineteen years old, he is also a gambling addict. After he nearly died while trying to evade a debt collector, his family staged an... Read More

"The Book of Pearl" is a beautifully imagined tale of grief and love. Timothée de Fombelle’s book, originally published in French, is impeccably translated by Sarah Ardizzone and Sam Gordon. The story is luminous, with a plot that... Read More

Eighty percent of Greenland is covered by ice. That makes it an inhospitable setting, certainly, but it’s “a dream” for scientists, William E. Glassley writes. In "A Wilder Time", an account of the geologist’s research journeys,... Read More

Natalie Hopkinson makes an impassioned case for artists to have a more central role in rethinking societal problems in "A Mouth Is Always Muzzled". The book brilliantly recounts the history of the sugar and slave trades, as well as the... Read More

The novel emphasizes how, no matter the circumstances, there’s room for belief in a future. Niccolò Ammaniti imagines the fallout of an epidemic fever in his gripping, post-apocalyptic "Anna". "Anna" will inspire comparison with The... Read More

Katie Cortese’s Make Way for Her and Other Stories offers enticing glimpses of curiously compact, womencentric fictional universes, generally focused on girls, teenagers, women, and the men who affect—but not necessarily... Read More

Tara O’Connor delivers a cautionary tale for the high school set in her graphic novel, "The Altered History of Willow Sparks". Willow Sparks, known to her friends as Willy, is a teenager who grapples with popularity, gym class, and... Read More

Surrealistic tones emphasize heavy questions of empire-building and cultural subsumption in this thoughtful archaeology novel. Set in the cutthroat world of classical archaeology, Bernard Schopen’s "The Last Centurion" is a story in... Read More