Margaret B

Both mother and daughter get the escape they want. But, like the novel only starting after it's too late to save Earth, the most exciting changes in Dylan's life happen after she achieves her goal, and her journey is laid out in the sharp, evocative style that makes Deb Olin Unferth a master of the craft... this is Unferth's best work yet.

Prophecy's scope is wide; it is simultaneously a book about technology, business, politics, history, philosophy, and personal development. In the hands of a less skilled teacher, it might become a "Book of Everything", and thereby nothing, but Véliz is an engaging professor, who knows how to introduce multiple sides of a complicated debate without losing her audience.

This is an earnest autobiography, one that does not shy away from the complex, contradictory feelings that make the human experience worth spiraling about. She writes with a candor that can be startling, like a stranger confessing a real mid-life crisis when asked, "How are you?" That self-disclosure has a way of winning you over, though, and West's anxieties are endlessly relatable. She writes Adult Braces "the same way I write about everything else: like a dork who's trying to say somet

A polder, from Clute and Grant's Encyclopedia of Fantasy, is the term for an enclave of "toughened reality," separated from the outside world by carefully maintained borders. A liminal threshold must be passed to enter a polder, whether it's Avalon, Tom Bombadil's cottage, or the members-only Costco food court. In Emma Straub's American Fantasy, that liminal threshold is the metal ramp of a cruise ship. Aboard the American Fantasy&mda

Tina Harnesk imbues each character with complexity and charm, deftly switching between perspectives and showing you the truth of who someone is by their actions, rather than telling you what to believe...This is a novel that rewards paying attention: both for those kinds of character beats, as well as for twist-foreshadowing turns of phrase that an overzealous reviewer has to shy away from describing.

One of the book's biggest strengths is the combination of the authors' expertise. Both have written previously about decision-making and about the shortfalls of human thought... Tetlock dives into the quantitative science behind forecasting and how individuals and groups can improve their prediction skills. After all, he writes, "it is one thing to recognize the limits on predictability, and quite another to dismiss all prediction as an exercise in futility." And Gardner turns all of Tetlock's r

Over the course of Indignity, Lea Ypi mixes three different methods of storytelling: a first-person narrative of her time at archives looking for clues; a third-person, fictionalized retelling of her grandmother's life through various characters' eyes; and selected primary source documents, like embassy telegrams and espionage reports. Ypi's ability to flow naturally and smoothly between these narrative threads verges on the superhuman. In three sections, the story progresses from searchi

How far would you go for family? For the Shimizu sisters of Yume Kitasei's brilliant Saltcrop, that answer lies somewhere between oceans, across borders, and through irreversible decisions. This epic explores the height of familial love and the depths of corporate cruelty in a thrilling, character-driven story. Kitasei's skillful handling of limited-perspective narration reveals a lot about each person telling the story. Skipper is a spot-on youngest sister, going into great detail about