It’s not unusual to hear of widespread ecological devastation in soundbite horror stories: Amazon rainforests are disappearing at the astonishing rate of an acre a second; the world’s ocean will soon hold more plastic by weight than fish. It’s both shocking and numbing. Lent (The Patterning Instinct, 2017, and The Web of Meaning, 2021) interrupts […]
With regard to his four decades as a Springsteen fan, Pethes knows he’s not special. But the magic of Springsteen is that he makes his fans feel that they are and, often, that he has altered their lives. How does Springsteen do this? Pethes, a literature professor at the University of Cologne, thinks he has […]
In this sequel to Miller’s Out of Patients (2022), Dr. Norah Waters, approaching her 65th birthday, is planning to officially announce her impending retirement, which is scheduled to commence at the close of the year. The stress of caring for and worrying about patients has become exhausting. For the past five years, she’s been in […]
A deadly showdown at an Asian market ends with veteran Anchorage, Alaska homicide detective DeHavilland Beans’ first fatal shooting—of a police informant, no less. Luckily, an unexpected call from an old acquaintance offers the promise of redemption for the devastated detective, or at least an opportunity to clear his head and gain some perspective. Felicia […]
Seventeen-year-old Calico Brown’s 14-year-old sister, Asha, was being treated for cancer when she died. Calico made a hasty deal with an opportunistic man named Lucas Fates and persuades her mum to agree: The sisters will be cryogenically frozen in the hope that Asha can be reanimated when a cure has been found. Calico’s own freezing—assisting […]
Davis writes early in her book, “America has a long and sordid history of mining the value of the art and inventions of Black people for its own benefit and erasing evidence of Black authorship to prop up the myth of white superiority.” It’s impossible to argue with that, as she demonstrates in this well-researched […]
Shuika, whose name means little thorn, goes by Shay, and lives in the city of Nezjar. She’s been raised by the midwife Ghita since her mother, who was addicted to Snow, died in childbirth. The drug temporarily activates Shawafa, an affinity-based magic all women possess—which is illegal to wield. Through her mother’s addiction, Shay inherited […]
Leaving her brother and her love in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Brigid arrives in Salt Lake City in 1881 seeking something better than a remote sod house on the cattle ranch where she solved an earlier murder. She applies for a position at the Deseret Bookstore, which is owned by wealthy Mr. Cutter, a mainstay of the […]
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 […]
Stars shine outside a pale blue room; through a flower-framed door, a darting swallow leads the way to the titular path. A child (seen only from behind) at the foot of a sweeping set of steps is urged to set down a burdensome load as an unseen narrator assures youngsters that “you are not alone.” […]