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Featured essay

Pack a book for the beach
By Julie McGuire
Summer afternoon—Summer afternoon...the two most beautiful words in the English language.

Non-fiction

Kartchner Caverns
By Neil Miller
Reviewed by Kate Reynolds
One blustery Saturday in the year 1974, a couple of guys in southern Arizona found a hole in the ground.

The Three Trillion Dollar War
By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes
Reviewed by Carter Jefferson
Wars cost lives—and money.

The Man Who Made Lists
By Joshua Kendall
Reviewed by Bob Sanchez
“I classify, therefore, I am.” That, writes Joshua Kendall, formed the guiding principle of Peter Mark Roget’s life.

Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer’s
By Lauren Kessler
Reviewed by Julie McGuire
Lauren Kessler watched her mom die of Alzheimer’s, observing the progression of her mother’s disease with the detachment of the journalist she is.

Your Government Failed You
By Richard A. Clarke
Reviewed by Jack Shakely
Reviewing any nonfiction book that mixes fact and opinion requires going outside the book’s cover to look at the author.

The Future of the Internet
By Jonathan Zittrain
Reviewed by Jane Woodward Elioseff
The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It is a call to protect an open Internet against all of the forces now in motion to put it under strict control.

First Stop in the New World
By David Lida
Reviewed by Rebecca Kellogg
First Stop in the New World is a good survey book for prospective tourists or readers who want to know something about the world beyond their own familiar habitats.

Pretty Is What Changes
By Jessica Queller
Reviewed by David Hoekenga, M.D.
Jessica Queller is hit in the face with those impossible choices in Pretty is What Changes.

Faust in Copenhagen
By Gino Segrè
Reviewed by Ruth Douillette
When you picture a gathering of physicists, what do you see?

Original Sin
By Alan Jacobs
Reviewed by Nancy R. Davison
“All religious beliefs prompt rejection,” is the dramatic but unexplored lead sentence in this book.

Archaeology Matters
By Jeremy A. Sabloff
Reviewed by Brian D. Jones
As an archaeologist, a parent, and a global citizen witnessing the political and economic upheavals of the 21st century, I have been asking myself questions over recent years

Métro Stop Paris
By Gregor Dallas
Reviewed by David Jordan
Books about Paris tend to be idiosyncratic, and this one is no exception.

Lasting Impressions prizewinner

The Handmaid’s Tale
By Margaret Atwood
Reviewed by Marty Carlock
A lover of books whom I trusted recommended The Handmaid’s Tale to me; otherwise I think I would not have read it.

Fiction

Dear American Airlines
By Jonathan Miles
Reviewed by Ann Hite
Jonathan Miles’ debut novel, Dear American Airlines, is edgy and multi-layered, and it introduces a unique new voice to fiction.

The Steel Wave
By Jeff Shaara
Reviewed by Marty Carlock
The Steel Wave is said to be a novel, but in fact it should be classified not as fiction but in a genre we might call “faction.”

Driving Sideways
By Jess Riley
Reviewed by Nancy McKenzie
In her debut novel Driving Sideways, a finalist in the 2005 James Jones First Novel Fellowship, Jess Riley uses the setting of the American road trip for her protagonist Leigh Fielding to search for much-needed answers in her life.

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
By Janelle Brown
Reviewed by Julie McGuire
At first blush, Janelle Brown’s debut novel, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, seems the perfect summer read—a book to take to the beach knowing that the lighthearted story of three women brought together by a shared crisis will have a sufficiently saccharine ending to satisfy the summer reader’s need for escape.

Hallam’s War
By Elisabeth Payne Rosen
Reviewed by Norbert Brown
You only have to make it through a chapter or two of Hallam’s War to realize that its author, first-time novelist Elisabeth Payne Rosen, has a passion for the American Civil War.