Sejal Shah’s intrepid short story collection "How to Make Your Mother Cry" is a polysemous encounter connecting auditory and visual modes. Interspersed with ephemera—memory-photographs, childlike drawings, Indian dance notations, a... Read More

Set in the Netherlands, Jaap Robben’s novel "Afterlight" is about an elderly woman’s work to discover what happened to her child. In the book’s present, Frieda is in her eighties. After her husband, Louis, dies, she is deemed too... Read More

Set in the Canadian tundra and propelled by a twenty-five-year-old mystery, Gerard Beirne’s exquisite novel "The Thickness of Ice" is a love story that’s also about culpability and redemption. Jack, Wade’s best friend and a... Read More

The freedom to live life on its own terms is at stake in Omar Youssef Souleimane’s novel "The Last Syrian", about the Arab Spring in Syria. When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in desperation over the situation in his native... Read More

This self-aware picture book turns “The Three Little Pigs” on its head. A writer starts writing the traditional story but keeps being interrupted; the pigs and the wolf have other ideas for the plot, setting, and their characters. In... Read More

"Bitterroot" is an intricate novel—a tapestry of family dynamics, generational trauma, and the pursuit of social justice in a small town. In Steeplejack in Idaho’s Bitterroot Mountains, Hazel, a forensic artist, is used to seeing... Read More

K-Ming Chang’s "Cecilia" is a surreal novella about the intense, intoxicating memories that surface when an outcast reencounters her childhood best friend. In childhood, Seven’s friendship with Cecilia was passionate to the point of... Read More

National Book Award Finalist Kekla Magoon’s "The Secret Library" is a spellbinding tale of self-determination and family history. Eleven-year-old Dally seeks a new escapade after the death of her grandfather, who inspired her... Read More