Stephen T. Asma’s "Why We Need Religion" describes itself as “a Darwinian defense of religious emotions and the cultural systems that manage them,” and that’s an accurate assessment. The book is less an endorsement of religion... Read More

Stuart David’s character Peacock Johnson has already been through a bit, appearing in an earlier David novel and an actual Ian Rankin crime novel (it’s a long story). Now he’s back in Peacock’s Alibi, a fun caper highlighted by... Read More

If Babe Ruth had not captured the public imagination when he did, odds are baseball would never have become the national pastime and the multibillion dollar industry it is today. However, as Edmund F. Wehrle thoroughly details in... Read More

In his new novel "Everything Is Borrowed", Nathaniel Popkin looks through the eyes of a modern-day architect to explore how a city’s history can echo through the years. Popkin expertly plays with time. His writing is beautifully... Read More

In Hilary Plum’s "Strawberry Fields", myriad memorable protagonists report on tragedies from hotspots around the world with vivid language. Though many of the point-of-view chapters are only loosely connected, they add up to a bleak... Read More

A poet as well as a pastor and farmer, Philip Britts was only thirty-one years of age when he died in 1949. His poetry and life story are collected for the first time in "Water at the Roots", a slim volume that uses his own words to help... Read More

In "The Merchant of Syria", Diana Darke uses the true story of Abu Chaker, a cloth merchant who began his career in Syria before expanding into Lebanon and later the United Kingdom, as an entry point to discuss Syria and how it developed... Read More

Mark Twain famously spent his later years writing his autobiography, which per his instructions was published a full century after his death, but he always spun stories about his life with varying degrees of accuracy. In the lengthy and... Read More