This dystopian novel is poetic even in its austerity. Andrew Valencia’s dystopian "Lord of California" is set in rural, isolated California a few decades after it disbands from the United States. When Elliot Temple dies, each of his... Read More

The true allure of the book is in its artfully chosen details, taken from sources ranging from court transcripts to personal memoirs. Richard H. Underwood’s "Gaslight Lawyers" is an intriguing collection of stories profiling some of... Read More

A great memoir offers the-rest-of-the-story appeal, and when the CIA, 9/11, waterboarding, whistleblowing, scapegoating, coverups, and federal prison all factor in, the page turning reaches hyperdrive. John Kiriakou spent fifteen years... Read More

Food becomes a vehicle for grief in this fascinating, sympathetic family story. Macabre in its gastronomic obsession and sometimes hyperbolic, Noley Reid’s Pretend We are Lovely reveals a fascinating slide from self-punishment to... Read More

"Didn’t Get Frazzled" is by turns sardonic, touching, raucous, sexy, and sometimes downright gross. It’s also hugely entertaining. Who knew that going to medical school was so funny? David Z. Hirsch’s "Didn’t Get Frazzled" spins... Read More

Intricate world-building makes this complex fantasy a fun and rewarding undertaking. Members of a medieval royal family and their followers encounter more than they bargained for when their invasion of a distant province unearths deadly,... Read More

"Two Tales of the Moon" is a thoughtful portrait of a modern woman who must choose between the burden of memory and a future of her own making. In "Two Tales of the Moon", forty-seven-year-old Li Lu confronts the damage China’s... Read More

What brand of privileged namby-pambiness will we get out of the twenty-something-year-old Theodore Roosevelt’s diary, he of Harvard and Columbia and the just-another-night-at-the-ball trappings of great family wealth? Here’s a taste... Read More