The Paris Bookseller - Kerri Maher (Berkley Books)
"If you ever dreamed you could transport yourself to Paris in the twenties, to Sylvia Beach's famous bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, where Joyce, Hemingway, and Pound wandered the aisles, this story's for you. Maher's magical touch brings to life a woman whose struggles resonate in today's world, while also examining the intricacies of friendship, fortitude, and the love of the written word."
-- Fiona Davis, author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue
The Big House - George Howe Colt (Scribner Book Company)
This book is a true thing -- a careful opening into the rooms of origin, a meditation on loss and loving, a tender exploration of the mysteries of family. That George Howe Colt is a poet makes us especially lucky to be privy to his keen and generous company. In the fullness of a narrative fantastic with stories of his extraordinary ancestry, he honors what is precious without sentimentality, expresses intimacy without self-absorption, his wisdom rooted in humor and humility.
The Sweetness of Water - Nathan Harris (Back Bay Books)
"Harris's lucid prose and vivid characterization illustrate a community at war with itself, poisoned by pride and mired in racial and sexual bigotry. Prentiss and Landry are technically free, but they remain trapped by a lifetime of blighted hopes and broken promises. Reconstruction will prove to be yet another lie. Harris's first novel is an aching chronicle of loss, cruelty, and love in the wake of community devastation."
Women On Nature - Katherine Norbury (Unbound)
For the very first time, this anthology collects together the work of women, over the centuries and up to the present day, who have written about the natural world in Britain, Ireland and the outlying islands of that archipelago. Alongside the traditional forms of the travelog, the walking guide, books on birds, plants and wildlife, Women on Nature embraces alternative modes of seeing and recording that turn the genre on its head.
Katharine Norbury has sifted through the pages of women's writing to show the multitude of ways in which they have observed the natural world about them, from the fourteenth-century writing of the anchorite nun Julian of Norwich to the seventeenth-century travel journal of Celia Fiennes; from the keen observations of Emily Brontë to a host of brilliant contemporary voices.
In Praise of Paths - Torbjorn Ekelund (Greystone Books)
Torbjørn Ekelund started to walk--everywhere--after an epilepsy diagnosis affected his ability to drive. The more he ventured out, the more he came to love the act of walking, and an interest in paths emerged. In this poignant, meandering book, Ekelund interweaves the literature and history of paths with his own stories from the trail. As he walks with shoes on and barefoot, through forest creeks and across urban streets, he contemplates the early tracks made by ancient snails and traces the wanderings of Romantic poets, amongst other musings. If we still "understand ourselves in relation to the landscape," Ekelund asks, then what do we lose in an era of car travel and navigation apps? And what will we gain from taking to paths once again?
Water A Biography - Giulio Boccaletti (Vintage)
"Provides essential reading for those seeking to explore how humanity's relationship with nature has influenced the development of legal and political systems and offers invaluable insights into current debates surrounding climate change and sustainability. I couldn't recommend it more highly." --Lee C. Bollinger, President and Seth Low Professor of the University, Columbia University
The Power of Geography - Tim Marshall (Scribner Book Company)
Tim Marshall's global bestseller Prisoners of Geography offered us a "fresh way of looking at maps" ( The New York Times Book Review), showing how every nation's choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas, and walls. Since then, the geography hasn't changed, but the world has.
Now, in this "wonderfully entertaining and lucid account, written with wit, pace, and clarity" ( Mirror, UK), Marshall takes us into ten regions set to shape global politics. Find out why US interest in the Middle East will wane; why Australia is now beginning an epic contest with China; how Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UK are cleverly positioning themselves for greater power; why Ethiopia can control Egypt; and why Europe's next refugee crisis looms closer than we think, as does a cutting-edge arms race to control space.
Innovative, compelling, and delivered with Marshall's trademark wit and insight, this is "an immersive blend of history, economics, and political analysis that puts geography at the center of human affairs" ( Publishers Weekly).
An Atlas of Extinct Countries - Gideon Defoe (Europa Compass)
A hilarious history of short-lived countries and the often eccentric people who founded them. Defoe's skewering of the human ego and the misguided notions behind these unique and often squirrelly nations is enlightening and great entertainment."--Don Luckham
Seven Games: A Human History - Oliver Roeder ( W.W. Norton & Company)
Illuminating...offers powerful insights into why we play games and what we can learn from them...accessible, enjoyable...raises provocative and sometimes unsettling questions about the nature of intelligence and the unintended consequences when machines play better than we do....If you are intrigued by this rare opportunity to pull back the curtain on how humans and computers learn, then you will be richly rewarded.--Lucinda Robb "Washington Post"
On Browsing - Jason Guriel (Biblioasis)
"A defense of the dying art of losing an afternoon--and gaining new appreciation--amidst the bins and shelves of brick-and-mortar shops. Written during the pandemic, when the world was marooned at home and consigned to scrolling screens, On Browsing's essays chronicle what we've lost through online shopping, streaming, and the relentless digitization of culture. The latest in the Field Notes series, On Browsing is an elegy for physical media, a polemic in defense of perusing the world in person, and a love letter to the dying practice of scanning bookshelves, combing CD bins, and losing yourself in the stacks."