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 […]
In her first book, the author, a scientist and co-founder of Philippine Global Explorers, presents a narrative about overcoming a midlife crisis and gaining global perspective. Following the death of her mother, a struggle with infertility, and a marital breakup, Rasco reexamined the life she’d built that had been defined by conventional ideas of success; […]
After 23 years of working to create a life-saving swimsuit, grieving-yet-determined inventor Claire is abruptly fired when a model is injured by her latest faulty prototype. Still mourning the death of her beloved sommelier husband, David (who died of a rare genetic disorder called Sitosterolemia), Claire now faces unemployment, financial uncertainty, and the fear of […]
George is the author of Ninety Percent of Everything (2013), a revelatory and unexpectedly funny book about the shipping industry. In her latest work, she returns to the sea to focus on the fishing industry, another subject that, despite the prevalence of seafood, most of us know little about. It’s a startling account; much of […]
Readers who fell in love with Just Kids (2010), Smith’s National Book Award–winning memoir of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, but were less taken with follow-ups—featuring a lot of elegant writing about very little—are advised to give her another shot. The question of that grave, seemingly Victorian young woman who materialized on a park bench […]
This emotionally intricate novel follows three 20-something women who were strangers until an investigation revealed that all three share the same biological father: Raymond Corning of Sydney, Australia, who “runs a prestigious school and is a local leader.” Each woman lives in a different country, and none are aware of the others’ existence until the […]
Early in this sometimes difficult text, which owes much to fellow Collège de France professor Michel Foucault, Boucheron distinguishes analytical logic from fiction, noting that whereas the former gives the illusion that the world is logical, the latter “reveals to us the possibilities of thought.” The stories that critique or shore up political discourses, whether, […]
Weaving her impressive debut around the true story of the 1919 wreck of the Valbanera, “the poor man’s Titanic,” Ojito follows the epic journeys of two women, 100 years apart: journalist Mara Denis, a 55-year-old widow with a 19-year-old son, sent to cover a story in the Canary Islands, and her great-grandmother, Catalina Quintana Cabazas, […]