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SECOND POCKET FIRST

Issey is an enthusiastic burglar living in an attic apartment in present-day Boston. He’s part of a collective of crooks who rob and fence delicate valuables, priceless heirlooms, and other items from the ritzy neighborhoods and campuses of Boston and Cambridge. Unfortunately for Issey, the group has had enough of him bringing only knickknacks of […]

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CHINA’S QUEST FOR MILITARY SUPREMACY

Wuthnow and Saunders, of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, emphasize that just as the 2008 Olympics marked China’s emergence as a global heavyweight, the recent military demonstrations against Taiwan symbolize a new era for the People’s Liberation Army. It’s stronger, more modern, and more confident today, yet there remain intrinsic flaws that neither technology […]

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THE BOY AND THE BIG WHITE ROCK

In some ways, the author’s childhood was like one long summer at camp—he and his seven siblings were raised on a sprawling 84-acre Community Conservation Corps–built park property his parents bought at the end of the Depression and rehabilitated over the course of the 1940s. The seventh of eight children, Antil enjoyed an idyllic upbringing […]

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THE HEART IS MEAT

Through an unfolding series of raw moods and memories, author Backus transports himself back to 1983, when, as a young man out of college, he’d just arrived in Manhattan from Indiana, driving his dead grandmother’s 1968 Chevy Caprice to work at a pork-packing company with dreams of becoming a writer. His mundane work of meat […]

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A SOLDIER’S LIFE

Cummings, who grew up in a military family, honors the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, a division of the WACs, the only Black unit that served overseas. Made up of women of color, with 855 members, its mission was organizing, sorting, and moving out mail to soldiers during World War II. In a segregated army, […]

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THE TALE OF MR. CROCODILE TAKES TEA

The author returns to the world of anthropomorphic animals, this time in a transcontinental adventure that explores what it means to be human—even for members of other species. The story opens in an unnamed African village on the banks of the Sillibilli River, where a family of crocodiles, led by the very large Mr. Crocodile, […]

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BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS

FBI forensic linguist Raisa Susanto greets the news that her sister, Isabel Parker, has died in prison with a combination of relief and skepticism. Could the nightmare that began when 15-year-old Isabel killed her parents and brother—in The Lies You Wrote (2024)—and then embarked on a quarter-century career of murder finally have come to an […]

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A DAY FOR LEADERSHIP

Ungashick takes the story of Operation Overlord and the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France and maps its lessons about strategy and logistics onto the business world to highlight leadership principles. D-Day, the author writes, “was the greatest combined amphibious-airborne invasion in history and the most complex military operation ever executed”; analyzing that operation, he stresses […]

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KICKTURN

Lindy and her family started their travel adventure after her dad quit his job as a software engineer to avoid “melting down faster than a computer with no fan.” Her mom is “trying to life-coach through lifestyle,” generating content as she poses in front of scenic vistas in national parks and curating flawless images of […]

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A HAPPY MARRIAGE

Yet Dinah and Joe Marino really are happy together. She’s a homicide detective with the LAPD; he’s a psychologist who left the police to open his own clinic. They may not have much of a sex life, but they’re so mindful, attentive, and solicitous of each other that, as Dinah says, “He’s the best part […]