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The Travel Writer’s Dilemma: Share, or Gatekeep?

KING OF ASHES, by S.A. Cosby S.A. Cosby’s propulsive and powerful fifth novel of Southern noir, “King of Ashes,” begins with a brief, haunting dream of youth, longing and blood. Roman Carruthers — the novel’s protagonist, who escaped his crumbling hometown, Jefferson Run, Va., and now is a wealthy investment manager with a lavish lifestyle … Read more

BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL, by V.E. Schwab I don’t think I’ll ever tire of vampires. I do, however, have my preferences. I like my vampires to be old and sexy and inhuman. I like when their immortality is still a kind of death. To me, a vampire should be a little miserable. … Read more

WAITING FOR BRITNEY SPEARS: A True Story, Allegedly, by Jeff Weiss In 2023, the pop princess Britney Spears published her autobiography, “The Woman in Me.” In its pages, Spears had choice words for the paparazzi who pursued her at the heights and depths of her fame. She described them as enemy combatants, the ghosts in … Read more

Barbara Holdridge, who co-founded the first commercially successful spoken-word record label, one that began with the poet Dylan Thomas reciting his story “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” and that led to today’s multibillion-dollar audiobook industry, died on Monday at home in Baltimore, Md. She was 95. Her daughter, Eleanor Holdridge, confirmed the death. Ms. Holdridge, … Read more

In 2018, the British journalist Dom Phillips joined a 17-day expedition into the Javari Valley, a vast, nearly inaccessible Indigenous land on the western edge of the Brazilian Amazon, tracking signs of an isolated group increasingly threatened by illegal activity. It was a grueling journey: 650 miles by boat and foot, crossing treacherous log bridges, … Read more

by Tom Spencer Sometimes you know immediately that a book is going to get under your skin and stay there. I felt that way only a few pages into Spencer’s tart debut, THE MYSTERY OF THE CROOKED MAN (Pushkin Vertigo, 319 pp., paperback, $18.95), which vaults the reader into the world of Agatha Dorn, an … Read more

When I was young and couldn’t sleep, I’d count the people I’d kissed. Now that I’m, well, a little less young, I count the people I can call a friend. Both lists give me happiness. But I’d argue the second list gives me life. The assessment that friends give life is not hyperbole. In “The … Read more

As a child growing up in Zimbabwe, Peter Godwin saw neighbors murdered by guerrillas during the civil war that broke out during the fight for independence from Britain. Before he turned 18, he was conscripted into the army. Later, he wrote about conflicts from South Africa to Bosnia to Ukraine, practiced human rights law and … Read more

Medieval scribes filled volumes called bestiaries with illustrations and descriptions of fantastic creatures. The manuscripts containing representations of these animals also depended on a menagerie of beasts: The covers of these and other volumes were fashioned from the skins of calves, goats, sheep, deer, pigs and, in some macabre instances, humans. Most of these hides … Read more