O’Brien, author of The Second Most Powerful Man in the World, offers an exploration of grand strategy: decisions by a supreme authority for actions beyond the command of military forces. Readers will learn more from stand-alone biographies of the author’s five subjects, but he provides solid overviews of their decision-making processes. All maintained that they […]
Canines became a fixture in Leone’s life in 1994, when her then-6-year-old son, Jesse, made it clear he wanted a dog. The author and her husband bought him a bichon frise puppy named Goody, and they nicknamed him the “Prince of Dogs.” Twelve years later—and a few months after Jesse passed away in his sleep […]
As the story goes (related years later by a friend of the writer), once when Franz Kafka was walking in a Berlin park, he met a mother whose child, Saskia, was in tears. Learning that the child had lost her doll Christiana, he began bringing her postcards he’d gathered in his travels with notes from […]
Nina, who was introduced in the first book as a new addition to Ellie’s friend group, hasn’t gelled equally with all the pals and is stirring up drama. The venue where Ellie’s friend Charlie wanted to hold her bat mitzvah party closed, so she may not get to celebrate after the religious service. This leads […]
In 2016, in Cincinnati, voters overwhelmingly approved raising their taxes to fund city preschools, “with targeted resources for poor—mostly Black—communities.” Johns Hopkins political scientist Han took note, especially because the numbers were markedly different in the presidential election: Cincinnati went for Clinton by 10 points, but the voters approved the school initiative by 24, so […]
Boston-based jazz lover and alcoholic Elder Darrow owns a bar—the Esposito—but he’s been slowly losing his passion for the business, and the drinking is starting to catch up with him. When Elder’s best friend, Boston police detective Dan Burton, is gunned down in what appears to be a random liquor store robbery, Elder barely has […]
The political crisis culminating in the deposition of Richard II in 1399 by his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, ignited the issue of sovereign legitimacy between the houses of York and Lancaster for the next 85 years. In her probing work in four parts, with chapters titled after lines from the Shakespeare plays, Castor delves into […]
Mintz begins at a dark moment, when, soon after Lennon was killed, he is charged with inventorying the musician’s countless possessions: roomfuls of guitars, the attaché cases with which he was smitten, boxes of cassettes and their works in progress, granny glasses “in a rainbow of tinted colors.” He came into this responsibility circuitously. As […]
This sweeping, generous narrative takes its title from the Monet’s famous contribution to a groundbreaking 1874 group show in Paris in which he and a group of well-known colleagues, including Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Edgar Degas, introduced the world to impressionism. The author uses the long arc of Monet’s career, his many sales and […]
This anthology, composed of stand-alone entries, spans multiple genres, including realistic fiction, fabulism, and fantasy. Readers meet middle school girls who are dealing with universal issues, such as family expectations, grief and loss, friendship troubles, bullying, and fear of rejection, plus some that are specific to being a Black girl. The stories overwhelmingly refute monolithic […]