Reviews+

This highly entertaining and fun book is especially recommended for educators and caregivers of school-age kids.

English PEN Translates winners are announced. NYT releases its readers’ picks for best books of the 21st century. The winners of the Oklahoma Book Awards are revealed. Emerald ᏃᏈᏏ GoingSnake and Kira Hayen win Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Awards for Indigenous writers. Plus interviews with Lorrie Moore, Jasmine Graham, and Howard Blum and Page to Screen.

New York Magazine’s summer book club pick is Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. The Night Field by Donna Glee Williams wins the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation’s Manly Wade Wellman Award. Wales Book of the Year winners, American Manga Award nominees, and shortlists for the UK’s Forward Prizes for Poetry are announced. London Libraries creates a reading app inspired by the “Couch to 5K” training program. Critic Maris Kreizman spills the details on the making of the NYT Best of the 21st Century list. 

Speaking to Jew and Gentile, believer and nonbeliver, this poetry collection makes our hungers radiant. Highly recommended.

Foodie memoirs, an indie rocker's life story, and multiple books that wrestle with racial justice are on offer this month, along with a memoir from The Book Thief author Markus Zusak.

Based on extensive primary research, this detailed case study will magnetize readers interested in U.S. Civil War history and politics.

SFF highlights include dystopian fiction, a West African–based epic fantasy, a queer fantasy set in the Appalachian mountains, and a novel of vampires, werewolves and sorcerers; plus a list of forthcoming series titles.

From the workplace to the Amazon rainforest, second chances, enemies turned lovers, fake dates, and a marriage of convenience pave the way to these happily ever afters.

Genre-bending literary horror, a winter monster, social horror, and more feature in these novels, which include books from big names Eric LaRocca and Clay McLeod Chapman.