Bjorn Dihle’s fine essays speak to the greatness of the Alaskan outdoors. When he was young, Dihle’s parents decided to move from Sacramento to Juneau, Alaska. His essays loosely chronicle his adventures from growing up there,... Read More

"Black Sugar" opens as pirate Henry Morgan dies clutching his gold, his ship sinking under a Caribbean forest. In this moment of vivid magical realism, Miguel Bonnefoy sets the stakes for his novel—sunken treasure in the islands and... Read More

Masatsugu Ono’s "Lion Cross Point" is an atmospheric, melancholy tale about memory and absence. Ten-year-old Takeru arrives at his mother’s childhood village by the sea. Under the care of a relative, Mitsuko, he settles into a... Read More

In Michelle de Kretser’s "The Life to Come", lives intersect, entwine, or separate within distinct yet unified passages. The general nexus being Australia, backdrops shift from Sydney to Paris or Sri Lanka, from the present to the... Read More

Bleak and unsparing in its stark description of a world without hope, "The City Where We Once Lived" paints the picture of a future racked by climate change and destruction. Those who have stayed in the North End of the book’s unnamed... Read More

What would we do differently if we knew where we were going? Crackling with detail, Courtney Kersten’s memoir "Daughter in Retrograde" explores her relationship with her mother through the lens of horoscopes, astrology, and other... Read More

Jane Goodall’s research center on the shores of a Tanzanian lake pulsates with the passions, perils, and promises of the 1960s in Dale Peterson’s "The Ghosts of Gombe". The book seeks to solve the mysterious disappearance of a... Read More

In "The Merchant of Syria", Diana Darke uses the true story of Abu Chaker, a cloth merchant who began his career in Syria before expanding into Lebanon and later the United Kingdom, as an entry point to discuss Syria and how it developed... Read More