Tuscany and Provence—does anywhere else on earth deserve equal standing alongside those two glorious places? Beautiful, of course, but also fertile, temperate, and richly cultured with longstanding traditions in agriculture, cuisine,... Read More

Parts per Million veers back to the early 2000s, as America somberly moves into a new millennium already shadowed by 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Three activists have banded together in Portland, Oregon, sharing a house and a passion for... Read More

Heather Chisvin’s pensive, eloquent novel traces the paths of two Russian Jewish sisters: one based in Winnipeg, the other in Manhattan; one who commits suicide, one a survivor left with unanswerable questions. It reveals the trauma... Read More

Loaded with action and intrigue, "The Ways of Heaven" fields multiple stories at once—an engaging secondary love story, a murder case, a love triangle, and the racism of the West in the late 1800s. Rose Walker defies convention when... Read More

Masatsugu Ono’s "Lion Cross Point" is an atmospheric, melancholy tale about memory and absence. Ten-year-old Takeru arrives at his mother’s childhood village by the sea. Under the care of a relative, Mitsuko, he settles into a... Read More

What would we do differently if we knew where we were going? Crackling with detail, Courtney Kersten’s memoir "Daughter in Retrograde" explores her relationship with her mother through the lens of horoscopes, astrology, and other... Read More

In Jessica Levine’s absorbing and entertaining "Nothing Forgotten", a middle-aged woman’s past intrudes upon her present, despite all of her efforts to leave it behind. Anna Stark leads a calm, seemingly happy life in California. She... Read More

Humans “imagine every adoption of their behaviors to be an advancement. I see it otherwise, as downdrift, the seepage of traits across species.” So posits the Archaeon, the 3.8-billion-year-old creature who narrates Johanna... Read More