When Callie aces her Briarwood entrance exam (thanks in part to having studied the science journal belonging to her great-grandfather Teodore Gartzia, who worked with Nikola Tesla), her teacher accuses her of cheating and withholds her results from the contest. But when a personal invitation arrives from the camp director, her summer takes an unexpected […]
Yun’s third novel is set on the Sonata, a stand-in for television’s “Love Boat” of the 1970s and ’80s, here hosting a themed cruise where passengers can hobnob with former cast members of the show, renamed Starlight Voyages. The five-day cruise begins on Sept. 16, switched at the last minute to embark from Boston instead […]
While preparing for ballet class, Neela spies her Indian dance clothes. She loves ballet and the new friends she’s made since moving from India, but she misses the jingle of her ankle bells. They remind her of the raga her grandmother sang and the bansuri flute her uncle played—and of Kathak, an Indian classical dance. […]
The table is where this loving Black family enjoys the first meal of the day; it’s where the children do homework and make cookies and where everyone prepares for fish fry Fridays. Extended family shares space here during somber moments, such as deaths, and on happier occasions, including birthdays, Kwanzaa, and other holidays. Grandpa regales […]
Irene Sartori sells foreclosed houses—from a palazzo in smoldering Rome to an expensive property in sinking Venice—to wealthy foreigners impervious to the dystopian climate catastrophe befalling Europe. Renowned in her field, Irene gets a mysterious call beckoning her to help sell an “unsellable” property in her hometown of Milan. The enchanting yet haunting spot, known […]
“Underwater pastures, / ancient as dinosaurs, / vital as trees, / filled with wonders,” Schaub writes as she tantalizingly beckons young audiences to join the racially diverse set of young snorkelers and beachcombers in Le’s flowing marine scenes. Slipping in explanatory notes between lines of sonorous free verse, the author begins by differentiating seagrass—flowering plants […]
This extraordinary volume of letters offers an intimate portrait of Ludwig Wittgenstein, not as the granite logician of legend, but as a man unguarded, needy, joyful, and often undone by love. Written between 1946 and his death in 1951, the correspondence with Ben Richards, a medical student 35 years his junior, documents what Wittgenstein called […]
It takes time, Barack Obama warned, for a community to recover from disaster, discarding poor prior practices and experimenting with new ones. Vigliotti’s on-the-ground account suggests that at least some of the Los Angeles fire disaster of 2025 was the result of a rush to rebuild in the same old ways and in the same […]
Samson, associate professor of anthropology, University of Toronto, and author of Our Tribal Future (2023), explains that sleep alternates between stages of rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM (NREM). NREM repairs tissues while the body itself (heart rate, breathing, brain activity, muscle tone) slows down. During REM sleep, dreams occur while the body consolidates memory […]
Navya’s aunt—whom she calls Athai—and cousin Shruti have come all the way from India to celebrate Navarathri. Athai suggests that Navya sing the song that Athai taught her last month. Navya demurs, saying that she’ll sing next time. On the nights that follow, Navya visits friends’ houses and listens to other girls and women sing […]