The author’s clever plots lend themselves to unique twists, as in The Lure, Parallel Lives, and Looking Glass Lives. The plot of Onyx, set in the early 1990s, is deceptively clean: two long-time male lovers are coming to the end of... Read More

“Look. It’s empty out there, & cold. / Cold enough to reconcile / Even a father, even a son.” This epigraph from the poet Larry Levis launches this novel, set in northern Michigan. With prose at once lyrical and plainspoken,... Read More

Lana’s Lakota Moons is an endearing story of two young girls—cousins by birth, sisters by tradition—as they learn the ancient customs of their Lakota Indian heritage. With their new friend Shoua, a Vietnamese refugee, Lana and Lori... Read More

Monster makes the best of a bad situation in this well-done installment of the Monster & Me series. A monster comes up with a creative substitution for a Christmas tree in Paul Czajak and Wendy Grieb’s delightful picture book,... Read More

This young adult title is an engaging story about Miriam Bloom and her family, who set out from their difficult life in czarist Russia to travel across the ocean to America to join their father. Samuel Bloom has already made his way to... Read More

A frustrated PhD student discovers a voracious hole beneath his office in this fun and disturbing work of science fiction. It seems a little bizarre to begin a novel with “then,” as if it’s a continuation of a prior thought, but... Read More

Loss of unstructured time and personal identity often follows the idealistic marriage ceremony, making women vulnerable to automaton behavior. The mundane aspects of maintaining a household and family can override one’s perception to... Read More

Begin reading with The International Code of Signals, published by the Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic/Topographic Center. Start with symbol titles, “I Have Taken the Line,” “I am Going Ahead,” “I Do Not See Any Light.”... Read More