Bill Schutt’s "Pump" is an entertaining survey of the evolution of the circulatory system. From grasshoppers to whales, it explains how hearts and other analogous structures... Read More

Polly Samson’s escapist novel "A Theater for Dreamers" is set in 1960 on the quaint Greek island of Hydra—a haven detached from the rest of Europe, where artists roam free... Read More

In Kaitlyn Greenidge’s powerful coming-of-age novel "Libertie", a freeborn Black girl’s hunger to define her own boundaries carries her across an ocean and back. The darker... Read More

Unsparing but sympathetic, and with journalistic details, "At the Edge of the Haight" begins on an ominous note: a young runaway, Maddy, and her rambunctious dog, Root, happen... Read More

Jeffrey H. Jackson’s "Paper Bullets" is a captivating tale of queer love and resistance during World War II. From Paris’s Jazz Age through the war and beyond, Jackson tracks... Read More

A brave young woman confronts modern-day sexism and classism in Peace Adzo Medie’s novel "His Only Wife". Left penniless after her father’s death, Afi and her mother survive... Read More

Kendra Atleework’s radiant, wrenching memoir "Miracle Country" probes a home and its heartbreaks for meaning. Atleework was raised in the Eastern Sierra, in spaces threatened... Read More

Powered by intense imagery and jolts of frank sexuality, Shruti Swamy’s "A House Is a Body" blurs the line between fantastical and naturalistic storytelling with its tales of... Read More

A story about sisters and undocumented immigrants, Julia Alvarez’s "Afterlife" evokes the loneliness of grief. A recent retiree and a writer, Antonia is coping with the loss... Read More

Ten people drown every day in the US, one hundred around the world. Humans, the evidence shows, are not natural born swimmers. But swim we do. It’s the second most popular... Read More

Gabriel Bump’s Everywhere You Don’t Belong is a spiraling coming-of-age tale about abandonment and perseverance that highlights the moments that made its lead—and some... Read More

Forty miles and a scenic ferry ride from Los Angeles lies Winter Island, whose residents can be transported back to the mainland in the case of an emergency. But it’s... Read More