One might assume that training brains towards perfection is a worthy goal, but German neuroscientist Henning Beck’s "Scatterbrain" promotes a different perspective. The book refutes received opinions about the brain’s apparent... Read More

In Mark Barr’s engrossing historical novel "Watershed", personal and social changes lead to tension in a rural Tennessee town where a post-Depression federal dam project brings work, strangers, and electricity to the region. Claire is... Read More

There’s something a little mysterious at work in Hebe Uhart’s "The Scent of Buenos Aires", but it’s the ordinary mystery of other people. These thirty-eight short stories function like a panopticon, each dipping into one person’s... Read More

A dark and comic family drama, Ronit Matalon’s "And the Bride Closed the Door" takes place in Tel Aviv and begins with Margie making a big announcement through her bedroom door: “Not getting married.” The ensuing action takes a few... Read More

Camden is an anthropomorphized cat attending high school. He grapples with his sexuality and how to reveal it to his best friend in Jon Allen’s graphic novel "The Lonesome Era". Camden inhabits a late-1990s American Rust Belt town that... Read More

The accumulation of the small daily events and exchanges that make up a life are the focus of Glynnis Fawkes’s Persephone’s Garden, a collection of comics written from 2012 to 2018, some previously published in magazines, journals,... Read More

“The sky above us holds limitless wonder,” astrophysicist and television producer Sarah Barker declares. Technology may have made it easier to spot and understand heavenly bodies, but it will never explain away their magic. Barker... Read More

Bursting with enthusiasm at the first signs of spring, Miyuki ignores her grandfather’s reminders to be patient and wanders far from home in search of the purest water to entice a promising bud to blossom. The book’s springtime... Read More