Cyrille Martinez’s clever and incisive novel "The Dark Library" creates a surreal microuniverse of books, manuscripts, readers, librarians, and historians. In the Great Library, neglected works are becoming resentful and anguished.... Read More
In her lyric memoir "Lyrebird", Meredith Clark moves between poetry, metanarratives, and vignettes. Motivated by loss, she tries to accrue images and memories of a child yet unborn—perhaps to lure it into being, or to process her loss.... Read More
From dips to desserts, Dyna Eldaief’s "Egyptian Flavors" is a fond tribute to her homeland’s culinary customs. Eldaief finds that “cooking food that is part of my heritage is like looking through a portal to the past.” For her... Read More
Dakota McFadzean’s story collection To Know You’re Alive is deliberate, creepy, and wonderful. These stories might be called haunting or disturbing, but that loose description doesn’t do justice to their subtle and graceful... Read More
In the short stories of Scholastique Mukasonga’s "Igifu", exiled Tutsis struggle to survive and thrive in the aftermath of the Rwandan revolution. Tutsis, Rwanda’s long-oppressed ethnic group, have often suffered harassment,... Read More
A fictional alter ego channels a true-life account in Bishakh Som’s Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir. Anjali, a former New York architect, serves as a visual substitute for Bishakh Som. Her history and personality also mirror Som’s—for... Read More
"Believing Is Seeing" is a concise scientific work concerned with human visual perception. Michael W. Levine’s "Believing Is Seeing" is an accessible overview of the many ways that human eyes differentiate the light and stimuli they... Read More
In Pilar Quintana’s engrossing novel "The Bitch", a woman’s search for companionship leads her to an orphaned puppy. Damaris and her husband, Rogelio, have an uneasy, distant relationship. They live in a shack on a bluff near the... Read More