BOOKLOVES

Luke Wells is trying to locate his missing Uncle Deke when he makes two shocking discoveries at Deke’s remote mountain cabin. First, his psychic talents tell him that the cabin was the site of violent crime, and second that Deke has been living there with Bea Harper. The Wells and Harper families have been enemies […]

A child with two black buns, whom readers may recognize from Forman and Figueroa’s Like So (2024), is thrilled to greet the day. Accompanied by Mama, the young narrator frolics through lush grass, dances a butterfly ballet, and wades in the sea; at last, the two cuddle together by the shore. Magic and movement are […]

The key lines and uplifting sentiments chosen for this “erasure poem” sometimes show their age, but they still make inspiring reading. The text floats on Lewis’ evocative images of opening doorways and marching footsteps, of small figures standing on a mountaintop or rising through clouds, and of hands shaping a heart or holding a tool. […]

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Lichtblau focuses on Orange County, California, “a petri dish for young white supremacists anxious to take back their culture from minorities they see as an existential threat.” There, one young man—disaffected, taught by his conservative father to despise gay people, obsessed with Nazi ideology—targeted a classmate, gay and Jewish, and murdered him. […]

This Ramadan, neither Malak nor her Teta will be fasting—Malak’s too young, and Teta’s on a new medication. So they decide to find another way to make the holy month special. Malak asks her grandmother to show her how to prepare iftar, the meal eaten to break the fast each evening. But what to cook? […]

This freewheeling tour of human history and psychic life—by a professor of political science at the University of Chicago—invites us to think about our inner beings. The human “self” is no real thing out there, Oliver argues, but rather a complex construction of social, religious, and political institutions. The ancient Greek dictum, “know thyself,” really […]