Book of the Day Roundup: March 31-April 4, 2025
The King and Nothing
Olivier Tallec
Milky Way Picture Books
Hardcover $21.99 (40pp)
978-1-990252-38-9
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A king with everything goes in search of nothing in this picture book with a philosophical twist. The king travels to the not-quite-barren expanse of the desert and gazes into the not-quite-emptiness of the night sky, but still, nothingness eludes him. Even when he tries to burn a tiny leaf, he finds there are ashes left. The king’s quest for nothing takes him to whimsical extremes in illustrations that use warm, bold colors and play with white space.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (February 17, 2025)
Tastes and Traditions
A Journey Through Menu History
Nathalie Cooke
Reaktion Books
Hardcover $45.00 (192pp)
978-1-83639-067-1
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Nathalie Cooke’s culinary history text Tastes and Traditions explores menus as strategic documents—much more than simple bills of fare. Menus, it says, do not always present their wares in a straightforward way; some go off the beaten path, becoming almost as important as the food itself.
Each chapter explores the material life of menus by examining them as historical documents, with various themes played out over the years. “Menus for Children And For The Children We Once Were,” for example, includes a nod to famed English restaurant The Fat Duck’s Anthology Menus, whose dessert “Like a Kid in a Sweetshop” included an audiovisual element with appeals to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Elsewhere, menus designed by famous artists—indeed, pieces of art in themselves—and menus from important events appear, as well as menus used in prisons and hospitals. All are a delight to read through: Dishes like cantaloupe puree appear on an 1889 vegetarian menu; there’s a menu printed on playing cards.
In Tastes and Traditions, menus from across history are shared as an opportunity to “to take a leap of imagination,” vicariously peering over the shoulders of the guests who read them and experienced the inventive meals they represent.
ERIC PATTERSON (February 17, 2025)
Nine Minds
Inner Lives on the Spectrum
Daniel Tammet
The Experiment
Softcover $16.95 (288pp)
979-889303073-0
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Daniel Tammet’s Nine Minds is a biographical mosaic of neurodivergence built of stories of individuals whose struggles and achievements defy the clichés surrounding autism.
The book presents autism not as a “disorder” but as a “natural cognitive difference” occurring in 1–2% of the population, spotlighting nine neurodivergent people. These include Canadian actor Dan Aykroyd, Irish novelist Naoise Dolan, and French politician and mathematician Cédric Villani. Hand and wrist surgeon Vaughan Bowen excels at pinpointing the source of his patients’ pain; Amanda Tink, an Australian disability researcher, is blind.
The subjects vary in age and upbringing, and the book introduces diversity via chapters on two twentysomething women: Kana Grace studies loneliness in Japan, while Ayo Sokale is a civil engineer from Nigeria. A complementary caregiver perspective emerges in the section on Billy Megargel, who lives with his mother, who advocated for her son’s education and physical health through years of undiagnosed symptoms. His chapter reveals how much has changed since the 1990s in terms of information, support, and adaptive technology.
Interviews and research alike inform the profiles. In a few gratifying instances, the form suits the contents. The segment on Dolan, in a clever recreation of her wandering thoughts, emulates the tone of her fiction. A chapter on retired Detective Inspector Warren Hines, who solved 91 of 92 assigned murder cases, plots his investigation of a body found in a lake in 2012; Hines’s obsession with CCTV footage was the key to cracking that crime. Tammet is a background presence, meeting or corresponding with subjects and deciding how to shape their narratives. Sidetracks reveal his special interests. For example, he and Tink connected over a shared appreciation of autistic poet Les Murray.
As Villani insisted in a 2019 speech, “being different is a strength.” Nine Minds is an impressive composite biography that emphasizes the beauty of difference.
REBECCA FOSTER (February 17, 2025)
Mrs. Nobody
Y. S. Lee
Marie Lafrance, illustrator
Groundwood Books
Hardcover $19.99 (32pp)
978-1-77306-836-7
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A girl learns about setting boundaries with a close imaginary friend in this ethereal picture book. Mrs. Nobody always has the best ideas, from haphazard haircuts to drawing on walls. When Alice disagrees with what they should do next, Mrs. Nobody threatens to leave—forever. By recognizing her worth and sticking up for herself, Alice retains both her friend and her boundaries. Evocative illustrations—as with one in which Mrs. Nobody’s flowing blue dress transforms into a stormy sea—are a beautiful complement.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (February 17, 2025)
Beasts
Ingvild Bjerkeland
Rosie Hedger, translator
Levine Querido
Hardcover $17.99 (128pp)
978-1-64614-513-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Set in a postapocalyptic world, Ingvild Bjerkeland’s chilling novel Beasts is about children who hope to reunite with their father.
Thirteen-year-old Abdi is the guardian of his five-year-old sister, Alva, since a beast killed their mother. These beasts struck in cities across Europe, and power outages and shortages exacerbated the fraught situation. “Selfishness spreads like wildfire,” as their mother once observed. Armed survivors loot abandoned buildings, looking for food and medicine. With Alva feverish, Abdi is anxious to find supplies and travel to the remote island where their ornithologist father is stationed.
The creatures the siblings encounter in the eerie forest are both real and metaphorical. After they see crows around a beast-slain deer, Abdi confesses that “Fear flapped its black wings within me.” The beasts themselves might have come from a dark fairy tale: Six feet tall and covered in black fur, they have hoofs and curling claws that unfurl for attacks. Although the beasts could be symbols arising from nightmares, the carnage they wreak is all too real.
Short chapters and taut prose set a frantic pace. There is no extraneous backstory and details of the ongoing emergencies remain hazy. The novella becomes an allegory for a world in peril. Certain scenes have particular resonance, as when fifty people seek to escape their country on a small inflatable boat. The best and worst of human impulses are on display: Raiders embrace violence in the competition for resources; an older woman, Lucy, offers the siblings shelter and embodies altruism. Throughout, Alva’s innocence is a foil for Abdi’s unease. The book’s inconclusive but hopeful ending invites a sequel.
Beasts combines the timelessness of a fairy tale with the stark immediacy of contemporary dystopian fiction.
REBECCA FOSTER (February 17, 2025)
Kathy Young
