In a world populated by mambabarang—sorcerers with the ability to communicate with and control insects—12-year-old Yumi is a lowly Cricket who can’t wield her powers. Yumi longs to be in the capital city of Tinanglawan, where the revered Fireflies, who can manipulate light, live. When the rajah, the husband of the ailing empress, calls all […]
The book opens with an introduction that encourages readers to explore its contents however they wish rather than feeling constrained to read in order from beginning to end. Science writer Thomas divides the information into six sections: “Earth,” “Near-Earth Space, “Our Solar System,” “Stars,” “Galaxies,” and “The Universe.” Readers can tighten their Kuiper Belt and […]
“The week I shot a man clean through the head began like any other.” With that opening sentence, Stonex plunges us into the mind and world of Bridget “Birdie” Keller, a wife and mother in the rural countryside of Wiltshire, England. But Birdie’s world is not quite so tranquil: 18 years earlier, a man was […]
Matthews revisits themes from his earlier biography, Bobby Kennedy: Raging Spirit (2017), condensing them into 10 brief “lessons” meant to show why RFK’s character and ideals remain relevant in a fractured America. The narrative, barely 90 pages, padded with generous white space and followed by a lengthy appendix of Kennedy’s speeches, reads like a quick-to-market […]
Auld focuses on an African beetle, but as her information-packed book notes, similar species are found on every continent but Antarctica, and “in forests, farmland, and deserts,” as well as in the savanna. Among the many books about the dung beetle, this one stands out for tracking a particular beetle’s life cycle, but without giving […]
Mira can neither forget nor forgive the Moon family and its cruelties. Both pushed her impoverished mother to open the gas in her apartment, dying by suicide and killing her son, leaving Mira utterly alone. So, when she finagles a job tutoring Yujae, the youngest Moon son, she finds herself well-positioned to seek revenge. Her […]
Charlie Wags may appear to be an average golden-brown puppy, but he has a very special trick: with a wag of his tail, he can travel the world. In a departure from previous titles, the most recent of which is The Tales of Charlie Wags: London (2025), the Christmas season inspires Charlie to visit several […]
Tussling with the unknown always comes with inescapable risks, but men generally only find madness and heartache when they start looking for meaning in an impossible universe. Gentler than Melville but less redemptive than Coelho’s magnum opus, The Alchemist (1993), this unpredictable adventure novel offers a heady reflection on science, faith, and the necessity of […]
Although he hasn’t seen his spacefaring military father (who may or may not be dead) in years, Kael Vallen wants to follow in his footsteps—and does just that when he turns 18.As a recruit in the God Ruler’s forces, Kael dreams of sharing the transcendent light of the Starlit Covenant with what he sees as […]
This fascinating biography by British historian Tremlett gives us dictator Francisco Franco’s Galician childhood, military school, and the “Africanist” apprenticeship in Spanish Morocco before the civil war that brought him to power. The book is also, inevitably, a concise history of Spain during the first three-quarters of the 20th century. Unlike Hitler and Mussolini, Franco […]