Getting in Her Head MYSTERIES By ANNA Munpow A detective is haunted by a case that involves a familiar suspect. IN DERVLA MCTIERNAN’S “Three Reasons for Revenge” (Morrow, 336 pages, $30) the unquiet past haunts both the victims of crime and those working to solve cases. Judith Lee, a police detective in Mel- bourne, Australia, still blames herself for having once dis- missed an abused woman’s comp…
children’s book of the week A punky, stylish rip through the cosmos. By Lucy Bannerman et’ hit the accelerator and get straight to it: Star Breakers is brilliant. Lots of graphic novels have been proclaimed as the next fix for Bunny vs Monkey fans, but this space adventure is a witty rip through the cosmos that soars above the rest. It’s got sass, swagger and a likeable hero in Zeke Zero, a wisecr…
What’s the Point? Early instances of written language were lists. Ancient scribes needed a way to indicate where a reader should stop. On the Mark By Florence Hazrat Basic, 352 pages, $32 By MEGHAN Cox GURDON HE SUCCESS of Mark Kurlan- sky’s 2002 microhistory, “Salt,” has given rise to a great profu- sion of narrative-nonfiction works that have as their start- ing point an ordinary thing. An autho…
Harder times Claudia Rankine’s hybrid of poetry, fiction and memoir asks us to consider what kind of world we want to live in. By Max Liu he Jamaican-American poet and playwright Claudia Rankine is best known for Citizen (2014), her prize- winning work of prose poetry about Black experience in the US. As the middle part of her American Lyric trilogy, which began with Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (2004) …
Books Harder times Claudia Rankine’s hybrid of poetry, fiction and memoir asks us to consider what kind of world we want to live in. By Max Liu he Jamaican-American poet and playwright Claudia Rankine is best known for Citizen (2014), her prize- winning work of prose poetry about Black experience in the US. As the middle part of her American Lyric trilogy, which began with Don't Let Me Be Lonely (…
Balkan Lifelines By Julian Hoffman Godine, 320 pages, $30 By Davip Mason ULIAN HOFFMAN'S remarkable new memoir begins with birds: “The sky was a harbor all of a sudden. Wher- ever you looked, wings furrowed wakes in the air.” The setting is the Prespa lakes region, a mountain valley where three countries—Alba- nia, Greece and North Macedonia—share bor- ders, a park and abundant natural resources. …
Isabel Berwick ona compelling call to engage with the goals that were once the backbone in the fight for women's rights atasha Walter's Feminism for a World on Fire arrived just in time for the apocalyptic summer of 2026, as wild- fires burn in Europe and drought ravages harvests. Her book is, in some ways, as alarming as these times. The reader feels a little of the heaviness carried by the autho…
Books storyteller named Aesop spun fable after fable fea- turing foxes and lions, tor- toises and mice in Greece around the sixth century BC; in ancient India, Pandit Vishnu Sharma smuggled lessons on statecraft and political guile into the urbane tales of the Panchatantra, starring jackals and crocodiles, elephants and crows. This yearning among writers to expe- rience our world through the gaze …
After the genocide An unflinching exploration of a nation’s violent past and enduring generational scars. By Lucy Popescu he shadow of the 1994 geno- cide against the Tutsi peo- ple hangs over Gaél Faye's second novel, Jacaranda, published in French in 2024 and awarded the Prix Renaudot. It opens in a psychiatric hospital in Rwanda where 21-year-old Stella, born after the atrocities, has been inte…
33 SATURDAY 15, AUGUST 2026 CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE A WORK IN PROGRESS exhausting. One chef is asking for turkey bacon. Another wants beef pepperoni. Someone else is using an ingredient that can only be found after a three-hour drive and two visa applications. Before long, the average Nigerian quietly closes Instagram, reaches for garri and sugar, and accepts their fate. Tew days, watching Nigeri…
