A young child spends the day on the beach and receives advice on how to build the perfect sandcastle. The child is first encouraged to ask a friend to help. The pair then builds a solid base by forming a crater in a sand hill and packing it down. The book offers different options for …
Now living in Germany, Hanefeld, who was born in 1958, grew up in England with her English mother and Czech father. The six relatives she knew on her father’s side were her grandparents, an aunt, and a great-uncle and great-aunt, who’d all resettled in England. The family never spoke of their background, and it was …
A married man (generously called Adonis) engages in various sexual escapades with a parade of different women. Readers begin the story knowing that Adonis has died, and the author uses a variety of different formats to tell the story of his downfall. These include poetry, short prose, quotes (some of which are in French), and …
Brielle Petitfour dreams of becoming a renowned chef, serving up food from her Haitian culture to Miami’s upper crust via her elite supper club. But she’s also a zombie—or a zonbi, as they’re known in Creole. Brielle’s immigrant mother suffers chronic pain from an injury sustained while working for the white Banks family, the same …
November, 1895. Investigators Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn venture to the lively Shoreditch district of London in the middle of the night in search of the infamous Dawn Gang, which has been burglarizing local shops. The duo gets some helpful intel from Dutch, a streetwise beggar. As if on cue, Llewelyn is struck in the …
Melia Raymond is so eager to support her 17-year-old grandson, Droid, né Andrew Morgan, as he enters rehab for his addiction to alcohol and drugs that she tags along with him on the intake bus, allowing herself to be checked in for her own nonexistent addiction. Her decision is a serious mistake, since, under the …
Weiss notes that Caitlin Clark’s intensity sometimes results in her losing her temper; she also touches on the racial double standard that some have claimed to see in her mega-celebrity. Still, the author dwells much more on the positive, from her subject’s strong work ethic, her willingness to be a team player, and her already-spectacular …
Journalist and novelist LeBor, author of Hitler’s Secret Bankers: The Myth of Swiss Neutrality During the Holocaust, writes that losing World War I was no less disastrous for Hungary than for Germany. Formerly a full partner in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it emerged missing 70% of its former territory. LeBor describes Budapest as almost Parisian in …
Seventeen-year-old Rioyn Orro dreams of protecting his realm of Seivan. It would entail joining Sansyre University’s Order of Soldiers, but his father, a general who finds his son too impulsive, won’t approve his enrollment. Rioyn plans to join anyway; histwin, Ayva, who thinks of herself as a “nerdy book girl,” is already signed up for …
As a youngster, writes Specktor, actors and filmmakers were a common happy-hour sight around his home, thanks to a father who worked as an agent for “an insurgent company called Creative Arts Agency.” One memorable visitor was David Lynch, then at the beginning of his career, who sized young Specktor up and pronounced him an …