Derek Sayer’s "Postcards from Absurdistan" is an encompassing review of cultural and sociopolitical Prague from tumultuous 1938 onward, detailed with compassion for the Czech people. It is meticulous in recounting the regimes they have... Read More

Rilla Askew’s historical novel "Prize for the Fire" is the tragic, passionate story of an Englishwoman who lived during the reign of Henry VIII. In 1537, Martha faces an arranged marriage. But her sudden death leaves a void in the... Read More

In Ron Rindo’s gripping novel "Breathing Lake Superior", a grieving man goes on a troubled religious odyssey. Sixteen-year-old John lives in suburban Milwaukee with his mother and stepfather, Anna and Cal, and his stepsister, JJ.... Read More

Clark Strand’s mystical treatise "Waking Up to the Dark" encourages reconsidering and preserving the entity of night amid a world of incessant brightness. The book reflects upon life prior to gas lighting and Thomas Edison’s... 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

James D. Richardson’s biography "The Abolitionist’s Journal" concerns the extraordinary life of George Richardson, an antislavery advocate and traveling Methodist preacher. George Richardson kept a 300-page journal that became... Read More

In Mary Wimmer’s atmospheric novel "The Art of the Break", a woman inherits her father’s cheese-making business. In mid-1970s Milwaukee, Charlie is having increasing marital problems with Rick, her Vietnam veteran husband. An... Read More

Jessa Crispin’s voluble memoir "My Three Dads" entwines intense personal experiences with compelling social observations. Crispin, after renting a house in a blighted neighborhood of Kansas City, began to feel haunted. After meeting... Read More