There are authors who stick to what they know, carving out careful niches for themselves. And then there are the ones who obliterate boundaries. Tanith Lee was in the second camp. An eclectic and prolific writer, she penned more than 90 novels and hundreds of short stories, ranging from fantasy and science fiction to horror, … Read more
SURREAL: The Extraordinary Life of Gala Dalí, by Michèle Gerber Klein What is the value of a muse? That’s the central question of Michèle Gerber Klein’s biography of Gala Dalí, “Surreal.” Dalí was known as “the Mother of Surrealism,” the wife of Salvador, an adviser, a seductress. But as with so many influential women, her … Read more
Fortunately, Bev’s jagged relationship with her mother proves more complex. Even after she became a pioneering female lieutenant, Bev still failed to win approval from her traditional Ma, who considers wardenship unwomanly. (“Do you wish to be a man?” Ma asks in a flashback.) Nonetheless, Bev is married to her job, and she finds fulfillment … Read more
Dear readers, Do you know the difference between an astronaut and a cosmonaut? The distinction rests on where the -naut was trained: Cosmonauts hail from Russia and astronauts from the United States, Canada, or Europe. Not China, though: The Chinese version is a taikonaut. If there exists another job with three different names of equally … Read more
by Alex Grecian ROSE OF JERICHO (Tor Nightfire, 335 pp., $28.99) continues what Grecian started with his 2023 novel “Red Rabbit,” and that’s a good thing. “Red Rabbit” introduced readers to Sadie Grace, who is wanted for witchcraft; Rabbit, the ward of a hunter who is tracking Sadie Grace; and Rose, a widow who eventually … Read more
THE SNARES, by Rav Grewal-Kök Rav Grewal-Kök’s intriguing novel seems intent on unsettling us from its opening pages, with coolly precise prose that sneaks nimbly around the periphery of its characters’ darkest thoughts and actions. In that sense, you might say that this accomplished debut, “The Snares,” has adopted the techniques of the world it … Read more
What’s remarkable, in retrospect, is not that she and 248 other noncitizens were sent away, but that it took more than 30 years of agitation, dating back to the Chicago Haymarket bombing of 1886, before it happened. Remarkable too — it is the crux of Willrich’s story, and the fresh layer he has added — … Read more
THE MYSTERIOUS MR. NAKAMOTO: A Fifteen-Year Quest to Unmask the Secret Genius Behind Crypto, by Benjamin Wallace A few years ago, I met up for coffee in Miami Beach with a person named Keith Rabois. Along with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, Rabois is a member of the so-called PayPal Mafia — the group that … Read more
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | How to Listen The novel “We Do Not Part,” by the Nobel laureate Han Kang, involves a pet-sitting quest gone surreal: It follows a writer and documentarian whose hospitalized friend beseeches her to take care of her stranded pet parakeet on an island hundreds of miles away. When she … Read more
In 1938, when the American Library Association introduced the world’s first award for children’s book art, it named its prize the Randolph Caldecott Medal, for one of Victorian England’s most celebrated illustrators, and stipulated that only a U.S. citizen or resident could win. The point was made. America’s illustrators owed Mother England gratitude for the … Read more