Tim Allis’s fascinating biography of American fashion and retail pioneer Henri Bendel, inventor of the clearance sale, asserts that much of what is taken for granted in modern retail can be attributed to Bendel, whose in-store fashion... Read More

In Renée D. Bondy’s historical novel about clerical sexual abuse, "[non]disclosure", a survivor finds the courage to tell her story. As a girl at a Catholic school, the unnamed narrator is taught that the reward for confession is no... Read More

Biology professor Sönke Johnsen’s "Into the Great Wide Ocean" is a compelling work of oceanography that reveals the greatest unexplored areas on Earth. Covering the open ocean—the most abundant source of life on the planet—and... Read More

The fictions that underlie racism and how they affect the way Americans perceive reality are dissected in Sarah Lewis’s eye-opening history text, "The Unseen Truth". In his 1861 speech “Pictures and Progress,” Frederick Douglass... Read More

Acclaimed scholar Roberta Mazza’s thorough true crime investigation "Stolen Fragments" brings the underground papyrus manuscript trade to the fore of an oft-overlooked antiquities market. In 2012, Mazza launched an investigation into... Read More

Canadian actor Layne Coleman’s "An Open-Ended Run" is a reflective memoir-in-essays. From the vantage of his sixties, Coleman grapples with childhood trauma, the death of his wife, and how loss shaped his and his daughter’s lives.... Read More

In Lynn Stegner’s novel "The Half-Life of Guilt", a couple’s personal and professional relationship is tested as they protest the endangerment of a whale population. Clair is a biologist and botanist who grew up on her family’s... Read More

Sneed B. Collard III took up birdwatching in his adulthood, when his son developed an interest in birds. He records his own experiences and shares plenty of tips for fellow late bloomers in "Birding for Boomers", extolling the variety of... Read More