Editor’s choice: ‘The Story of Land and Sea’ by Katy Simpson Smith
This may be a novel of ships and sea adventure, Revolutionary War battles and the brutality of slavery, but it is no period-piece costume drama. Far from the power centers...
All Stories
Editor’s choice: ‘All Our Names’ by Dinaw Mengestu
At first glance, "All Our Names" seems to be a straightforward immigrant story. A young man, carrying the name of Isaac on his passport, has come from Uganda to Laurel,...
Editor’s choice: ‘Flying Shoes’ by Lisa Howorth
In the opening pages of Lisa Howorth's "Flying Shoes," it seems that we're heading into a crime novel. Mary Byrd Thornton is unloading the dishwasher, half-listening to NPR when she...
Editor’s choice: ‘The Stager’ by Susan Coll
"This elegant 4.5 bedroom, 4 full and 2 half bath Flemish Villa sits on 1.5 meticulously landscaped acres in the private, gated enclave known as The Flanders!" Welcome to a...
Editor’s choice: ‘Last Night at the Blue Angel’ by Rebecca Rotert
The floorboards are rotting, the plumbing pipes drip and tables are stabilized by matchbooks jammed under their legs. The Chicago jazz club may be in decline, but on stage a...
Editor’s choice: ‘Last Night at the Blue Angel’ by Rebecca Rotert
The floorboards are rotting, the plumbing pipes drip and tables are stabilized by matchbooks jammed under their legs. The Chicago jazz club may be in decline, but on stage a...
Editor’s choice: ‘Last Night at the Blue Angel’ by Rebecca Rotert
The floorboards are rotting, the plumbing pipes drip and tables are stabilized by matchbooks jammed under their legs. The Chicago jazz club may be in decline, but on stage a...
Editor’s choice: ‘Revolutionary Summer’ by Joseph J. Ellis
For "Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence," Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Joseph J. Ellis time-travels to the summer of 1776, when the 13 colonies agreed to...
Editor’s choice: ‘The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street’
From this opening line — "We'd been in America just three months when the horse ran over me" — it's clear that this is not a familiar immigration novel of...
Editor’s choice: ‘The Shelf’ by Phyllis Rose
How I miss the random discoveries of the library card catalog. The pull of the drawer, the worn edges on the cards, how the row seemed to fall open on...