Inspired by Julia Sørensen’s experiences as the mother of a child with Down syndrome, this heartfelt picture book addresses the difficulties and celebrates the joys of raising children with special needs. Marcel’s parents are both... Read More

A kindred relationship is severed by a winter storm in Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s novel "Heaven and Hell", about grave losses and lucent beginnings. In a place “built of cod bones,” Bárður and an orphaned boy are outliers among... Read More

In Nanae Aoyama’s droll novella "A Perfect Day to Be Alone", an indecisive girl cohabitates with a woman who challenges her preconceptions and directionlessness. Twenty-year-old Chizu is ill-employed and hard to impress. She wants to... Read More

A young artist is drawn into an epic battle for Earth’s survival in Fernando Llor and Carles Dalmau’s graphic novel "Soma". Maya, a cigarette-smoking comic book artist, is stressed out by her deadlines, low pay, and dissatisfaction... Read More

As a young woman in 1972, Liese Greensfelder took what was supposed to be a short-term summer job working on a sheep farm in the mountains of rural Norway. She recounts what happened instead in her engaging memoir "Accidental Shepherd".... Read More

The eleven linked stories in Teresa Carmody’s novel focus on women engaging in creative writing and processing their traumatic pasts. The central character in the linked stories is Marie, who appears in all but one piece. Marie... Read More

In her outstanding book-length essay "Immemorial", Lauren Markham compares language, memorials, and rituals as strategies for coping with climate anxiety and grief. Monuments to famous men are passé, the work insists; instead, it is... Read More

A beautiful love letter to the power of reading, Katherine Paterson’s biography of Jella Lepman covers how she built a massive literary collection for the children of post–World War II Germany. Lepman endured the death of her World... Read More