As a child, Maryse Condé found the family kitchen to be a refuge from a frightening, confusing world. Surrounded by enticing scents and comforting arms, she discovered her love of cooking and came to realize that she was a rebel at... Read More

"The Road to Urbino" moves between Sri Lanka, the UK, and Italy, illuminating how each locale touches and irreparably changes its cast of characters throughout their lives. Ras is in jail. His crime: the theft of The Flagellation of... Read More

Since turning forty, journalist Ada Calhoun has been obsessed with the women of Generation X and their “struggles with money, relationships, work, and existential despair.” Playing devil’s advocate in Why We Can’t Sleep, Calhoun... Read More

“I am always writing as an alcoholic,” Sheryl St. Germain says in the introduction to her brave, moving memoir in twenty-nine movements, "50 Miles". Its pieces range from lyrical essays to prose poems and fragmented... Read More

Narcisse is the virtuoso black cat chef at Le Minipalais and the central figure in Jeffrey Erlacher’s delightful middle grade novel, "The Little Palace". Animals and humans work together at the Paris restaurant, an oasis of food, art,... Read More

"The Bear" is a dreamy dispatch from the end of the world. In Andrew Krivak’s palimpsest novel, the reassertion of nature over the bones of human civilization is a dignified and regretless process. The girl and her father may very well... Read More

Octavia E. Butler’s classic science fiction novel "Parable of the Sower" has been adapted into graphic novel format by Damian Duffy and John Jennings. In the bleak America of the 2020s, Lauren Oya Olamina, a young black woman, resides... Read More

In "A Small Door Set in Concrete", Israeli activist Ilana Hammerman attests to the cruel and ever-worsening effects of the borders and policies that separate Israel and Palestine. Seeking new meaning after loss through travel, Hammerman... Read More