The book’s opening essay, “Breakfast for Dinner,” sets the tone for the rest of the work with its blend of childhood trauma, comedic storytelling, and poignant reflections. The essay opens with the inaugural family dinner in Staples’ new home. In attendance with his wife and in-laws was the author’s mother, who (with “the calm of …
Saunders acknowledges that Athens was part of a larger world but largely confines herself to the city in surveying “Greek” art and thought, political institutions, home life, and social customs. The picture she draws isn’t entirely idyllic, as she points to sharp class divisions and repeatedly contrasts the very different lives boys and men could …
Readers will encounter some widely recognized figures in this remembrance, such as Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel, but Roland draws from many decades of recorded testimonials, offering space for a chorus of less well-known voices. Paraphrasing and utilizing short quotes, he chronicles thematically the rising tide of Nazi repression, the brutal and terrifying roundups, life …
Eleven-year-old Tilly has a lifetime of fond family memories, especially solving puzzles with her grandmother Nana Mae and cousin, Finn, who’s also 11, in the woodland behind the family farm. After Nana Mae, who’s struggling with memory loss, moves into a care home, Tilly and Finn, who read white, find one last challenge she’s left …
Several years after evacuating, Yori returns to Tokyo hoping to reunite with Haru, the woman she’s in love with. The family living where Haru used to live holds a clue—a letter from Haru explaining that, although she regrets never reuniting with Yori, she married an American soldier and moved to the United States. Devastated, and …
This has held true for most of the history of Boneyard, “a wild, unpredictable sea wracked with storms and shipwrecks”—even before the gaping Breach split open the seafloor, releasing sea monsters into the island-spotted waters. But 18-year-old Captain Rayleigh doesn’t need to be warned about Maren, whose personality is hotter than her red hair. Even …
These horror, science fiction, and fantasy tales include many encounters with the divine and demonic, as well as parallel worlds where people have multiple souls or can grant part of their life span to their loved ones. A recognizably twisted version of our own government and a faraway space colony face crises. There are people …
The chaotic opening scene gives readers a clear indication of what they’re in for: Contract killer Azure, attempting to complete a mission, is involved in a life-or-death battle with a multieyed biomachine called an Argos. “The thing’s bipedal but has six gorilla-like arms that end in half-metre-long claws,” he complains. After Azure barely dispatches the …
The ship Meridian Star departs eastern Russia unknowingly carrying a pair of containers with radioactive cesium chloride. The vessel is hijacked and scuttled in Micronesia near the Mariana Trench, and the crew is murdered. A huge insurance claim results, and Jack, an accomplished deep-sea diver who works for Hendley Associates, is there to investigate. The …
Rose’s childhood has been plagued by nightmares in which she dies “in different, terrifying ways.” Then there’s the near-death experience: She’s nearly hit by a truck and saved just in time by a beautiful boy whom no one else saw. Her insistence that he was real leads to her becoming a viral spectacle, exacerbating her …
