BookBrowse: Your Guide to Exceptional Books

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Review

The True Happiness Company

As a teenager, Veena Dinavahi was the kind of daughter most parents would kill for. She was heavily involved in extracurricular activities and thriving in her coursework—even taking upper-level ...
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Beyond the Book

Self-help Cults

Self-improvement is having a big moment. Life coaching is a multi-billion-dollar industry with more than 100,000 coaches practicing around the globe, self-help books are all over the bestseller lists,...
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Review

Women of War

The invasion of Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, Pearl Harbor—everyone knows these pivotal battles from World War II. Fewer people, however, might be familiar with the battles that led to the ...
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Beyond the Book

A Women in Resistance Reading List

Suzanne Cope's Women of War details the efforts of four female resistance fighters in Italy during World War II, but it also highlights the efforts of countless unnamed women who supported ...
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Review

Vanishing World

In the alternative version of Japan in Sayaka Murata's Vanishing World, the physical act of sex has become outdated—unnecessary and somewhat taboo. Marriages are purely economic arrangements, ...
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Beyond the Book

Could Artificial Wombs Become a Reality?

In her novel Vanishing World, Sayaka Murata presents an alternate version of the present, in which most children are conceived either via artificial insemination or using newly available artificial ...
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Review

Twist

As Colum McCann's novel Twist opens, Anthony Fennell, a writer struggling with alcohol and career stagnation, has reluctantly agreed to write a long-form journalistic piece on the Georges Lecointe...
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Beyond the Book

The Submarine Cable System

Much of Colum McCann's novel Twist takes place on a cable repair ship sent to locate and fix a breakage in the underwater cables conveying the globe's digital information pathways. For many...
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Review

Blazing Eye Sees All

Leah Sottile's Blazing Eye Sees All tells the story of Love Has Won, the cult started in the mid-2000s by Amy Carlson, a woman who called herself "Mother God" and claimed to be the reincarnated queen ...
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Beyond the Book

The Lost Continent of Lemuria

Amy Carlson, the leader of the Love Has Won cult, claimed to have been many different figures in past lives—Jesus, Cleopatra, and Marilyn Monroe, to name just a few—but one of her most ...
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Review

The Emperor of Gladness

Ocean Vuong's second novel, The Emperor of Gladness, opens with nineteen-year-old Hai about to jump off a bridge in East Gladness, Connecticut when he hears a voice demanding to know what he's doing. ...
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Beyond the Book

How to Become a WWE Star

BJ, one of the characters in Ocean Vuong's The Emperor of Gladness, aspires to become a professional wrestler for World Wrestling Entertainment — more commonly known as the WWE. Merriam-...
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The BookBrowse Review

ezine jacket

May 21, 2025

The BookBrowse Review

May 21, 2025

This issue of The BookBrowse Review contains reviews and "beyond the book" articles for 14 titles, including The Names by Florence Knapp, This Is Your Mother by Erika J. Simpson, and The Afterlife of Malcolm X by Mark Whitaker. We also bring you our list of Book Clubs' All-Time Favorite Books, previews of upcoming books, book club recommendations, and more.

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The Book Club

The Girls of Good Fortune
by Kristina McMorris

Brave the Shanghai tunnels in this tale of love, identity, and resilience passed through generations.

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Your guide toexceptional books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.