Terence Keel is a professor of human biology, society, and African American studies at UCLA. His latest book is The Coroner's Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence and he…
Christopher Huang grew up in Singapore, an only child in a family tree that expands dramatically sideways at his parents' generation. He moved to Canada after his National Service, studied…
Ryan Douglass is a queer author and poet from Atlanta, Georgia. He is the New York Times bestselling author of The Taking of Jake Livingston, and his short fiction appears in All These Sunken Souls…
Tom Lutz is the author of many books on literature and culture, as well as several books of travel writing and two novels. He taught, formerly, at UC Riverside, the University of Iowa, CalArts, the…
Rosie Grant is the creator behind @GhostlyArchive on TikTok and Instagram, where she researches and re-creates recipes found on gravestones. She works at the Center for the Study of Women at UCLA and…
Kamilah Cole is the bestselling author of So Let Them Burn and This Ends in Embers. A graduate of New York University, Kamilah is usually playing Kingdom Hearts for the hundredth time, quoting early…
Brad Meltzer is the Emmy-nominated, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lightning Rod and twelve other bestselling thrillers. He also writes nonfiction books like The JFK Conspiracy, and the…
Tod Goldberg is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen novels, including the Gangsterland quartet: Gangsterland, a finalist for the Hammett Prize; Gangster Nation; The Low Desert, a…
World Fantasy, Locus, and Mythopoeic Award–winning author and poet Theodora Goss was born in Hungary and spent her childhood in various European countries before her family moved to the United States…
Season’s Readings everyone! As is generally true, there have been some marvelous books published in 2025, and I’m thrilled to share my favorites with you. I’ve listed these books in alphabetical order…
We all know the story of Peter Pan, the boy who refuses to grow up. J.M. Barrie wrote and published a play and two books about Peter and his adventures in the early 20th century, recounting how Peter visited the Darling children: Wendy, John, and Michael, and spirited them away...
In early 2020, Margarita Montimore published her debut novel, Oona Out of Order. It followed a woman who awakes every January 1st at a different point in her life. She lives in that year, and in that body, until December 31st, only to awaken the following morning beginning a different...
In the late afternoon, Todd sits on the beach watching 6-year-old Anthony, his son, play in the surf. A man approaches Todd, and, after a minute, he recognizes him. It is Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly during their senior year in high school. In spite of their shared history, Jack...
In early March of 2020, Jamie Gray is unceremoniously demoted from marketing executive to “deliverator” at füdmüd, an internet startup company in New York City. As the COVID pandemic worsens, Jamie struggles to get by until a chance delivery happens to be to Tom Stevens. Tom tells Jamie that he...
In 2021, Becky Chambers introduced readers to the moon of Panga, where, centuries ago, the civilization’s robots gained consciousness and, en masse, walked off into the surrounding wilderness and were never heard from again. Until the day a robot named Splendid Speckled Mosscap walked up to Sibling Dex, a tea...
After her husband’s death, Tova Sullivan took a job cleaning the Sowell Bay Aquarium. She works evenings after the aquarium has closed to the public, mopping the floors, clearing the trash cans, and cleaning the glass walls of the exhibition tanks until they shine. As she works her way around...
Monster. The word brings to mind ugly, misshapen creatures wreaking havoc wherever they go. Perhaps the most famous monster is Frankenstein’s monster from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s been over 200 years since the teenaged Shelley created one of the most enduring tales of all time. And over the last two...
On a whim, a young Chinese-American girl pays with an inch of her hair so that she and he sister can see Romeo and Juliet at the new nickelodeon in their neighborhood. From that moment on, she has a single desire: to be a motion picture star. Not simply an...
As Wren Roland celebrates his 22nd birthday with his best friends and roommates, Mateo and Avery, he begins to lament the fact that he has never been kissed. He’s been close, but has yet to experience what his degree in film studies has convinced him will be a life-altering and...
Joan believes herself to be a typical teenager. She spends her summers in London visiting her maternal grandmother, while her father visits his family in Malaysia. During this visit, she has been volunteering at Holland House, a historic home and museum in Kensington. Holland House is where she met Nick...
