The Chicago transit system is the nexus of two seemingly unconnected murders in Tiffany Cates’s unsettling, satisfying novel M-Theory. Donovan rides the train every day, taking note of the different people whom he sees on a regular... Read More

"Blue Yonder" is a historical biography that captures the coming-of-age of a young soldier against the dramatic backdrop of World War II. Susan Gemmill’s biography of her military father, Bill Gemmill, reads like a novel; it is a... Read More

Every day, Corey wears a cape to school, and every day, Billy, the school bully, takes his cape away. When a curious classmate asks Corey why he persists, he is so inspired by Corey’s answer that a trend begins: now everyone wears... Read More

"Bride of the Buddha" is a luminous, imaginative story of love, courage, and devotion that brings the turbulent times around the birth of Buddhism to life as they were lived by the wife whom Siddhartha abandoned to follow his spiritual... Read More

Approaching nature from a personal perspective, Bjorn Dihle’s "A Shape in the Dark" overturns the media myth of brown bears as vicious, deranged killers, constructing a poignant portrait of the creatures that recognizes their true... Read More

In Sally Bellerose’s novel "Fishwives", an elderly lesbian couple looks back on their lives together. Regina and Jackie have been together for sixty years. They are in mediocre health, can’t afford groceries without coupons, and are... Read More

When a hit-and-run kills a South Carolina teenager who was bicycling after dark, the fallout leads a community to ruminate. Jon Sealy’s "The Merciful" is a searing novel in which public judgments and personal reckonings spiral from a... Read More

"The Sky Worshipers" is an epic novel that pulls back the veil on the tumultuous life and times of Genghis Khan, the Mongol leader who was intent upon becoming the ruler of the world. In 1209 CE, at the celebration of her father’s... Read More