With a mesmerizing vision of life among the stars, wherein space’s endless horizon only seems limited by the expectations of a small, blue-collar community, Rebecca Thorne’s middle grade novel "The Secrets of Star Whales" is deft in... Read More

Approaching nature from a personal perspective, Bjorn Dihle’s "A Shape in the Dark" overturns the media myth of brown bears as vicious, deranged killers, constructing a poignant portrait of the creatures that recognizes their true... Read More

In Jennifer Gruenke’s fantasy novel, people “do terrible things to stay alive,” hoping they can be forgiven. Eighteen-year-old Ren is a gutter rat, gambler, and pit fighter who survived immolation nine years ago. She now wields her... Read More

Portraying an unsuccessful artist’s glide into washout and reinvention after capitalism’s unequal demands erode their ability to create, Yxta Maya Murray’s novel "Art Is Everything" is a candid critique of society’s usurious... Read More

David Bateman’s semiautobiographical novel "Dr. Sad" follows a physician through the minutiae of daily life for six months after his HIV diagnosis, creating a “song of himself, lacking in strict continuity, filled with flights of... Read More

The insightful essays of "Supersex" comment on the omnipresence—and official absence—of superheroes’ sexuality. This collection acknowledges that comics have been a site of moral panic for generations. The superhero genre, in... Read More

An elliptical novel that integrates the death of a lineage into a reflection on personal mortality, Kat Meads’s "Dear DeeDee" recasts the unresolved stories of a Southern paternal line. Rooted in North Carolina, the Meads family line... Read More

In 1854, Virginia Reeve stands in front of a Boston court, accused of the kidnapping and murder of wealthy socialite, Caprice Collins. Reeve, the leader of an all women’s expedition to the Arctic, juggles what to withhold and what to... Read More