Journalist and podcaster Princiotti isn’t ashamed of her pop-music obsession, and thinks you shouldn’t be, either. She traces her love of the genre back to 2003, when she was 9, and “Hilary Duff was the single most important person in the world to me outside my immediate family.” The subject of Princiotti’s book is the […]
Designated “Driver Eight,” 15-year-old Shiloh attempts neural linking with “the machine.” This giant robot landed on Earth long ago, and scientists from around the world have gradually recovered scattered parts. In the U.S., Synap Technologies, run by Shiloh’s father, Director Raguel, oversees each new robot-operating “Driver.” Shiloh, like others before them, uses something called the […]
It’s 2212, and 17-year old Earther Weslie has won the Interplanetary Alliance Life Support Bot competition for her bot named ILSA, or Individualized Life Support Assistant unit 001. The prize is a first-class ticket on luxury starship The Boundless, scheduled to embark on its maiden voyage to Mars, a five-week trip. In this future, the […]
German journalist and author Wittstock tells an irresistible story. He begins in the summer of 1940. Most of his subjects had fled Germany in the 1930s, then fled again, to Vichy France, unoccupied but submissive. Jews and intellectuals knew that their days were numbered. Although shocked by France’s collapse, most Americans opposed helping refugees. Running […]
The year is 4050, and there is a serial killer on the loose. The Family Guy—so called because he murders entire families—is such an elusive and dangerous criminal that the authorities decide the only way to capture him is to build a real-life synthetic investigator designed with the mind and memories of fictional Scotland Yard […]
The author, who appears throughout the illustrations with light-brown skin and long, dark brown hair, introduces herself as Jess. She’s a welcoming guide, who opens by describing her goal of “normalizing the conversation about porn,” which “nearly 3 in 4 teens” have been exposed to. Throughout the book, she encourages readers to discuss the contents […]
Eager to cultivate his image, Johannes Brahms destroyed much of his early work before it could get out into the world. The composer felt the same about his correspondence. “A person has to be careful about writing letters,” he told a friend. “One day they get printed!” The man had a point. This enjoyable collection—part […]
Readers first meet the four Heppenheimer cousins in Frankfurt in 1930, where they have gathered for their grandmother’s funeral. Gertrude, the youngest, is just 10 years old, and she’s excited because she’ll get to see her father, Robert—a rare occurrence since he moved to Strasbourg three years ago, after he and Gertrude’s mother, who’s Lutheran, […]
Curtis’ opening discussion draws on many disciplines as she distinguishes hope from faith, pure positivity, and optimism. Ultimately, she notes, hope is “leaning in and working toward something meaningful to you—even if you’re not sure it’s going to happen.” Curtis considers beliefs about hope held by those in Japan, India, and ancient Greece, as well […]
Glicksman, an American English professor and jewelry importer before his death in 2021, recaps three decades of periodic sojourns in the Middle and Far East starting in 1971. The author usually traveled on his own, in threadbare circumstances. His destinations included Turkey, where he encountered “hashish of a legendary quality” that made “the air…thick and […]