Book Reviews

Bilbo Baggins joins dwarves and Gandalf on a quest to reclaim Erebor from Smaug.

Gregor Samsa wakes transformed; family duty and alienation collapse around him.

Frodo and the Fellowship bear the Ring toward Mount Doom as Middle-earth darkens.

The story of a prophet in a strange land and his conquering of fate.

Holmes and Watson unravel treasure, betrayal, and murder in colonial London.

A boy chosen to hold a community’s memories discovers the price of sameness.

More unconventional economic angles on behavior, risk, and public problems.

A novel within marginalia: two readers decode a mysterious book and each other.

Two migrant workers dream of land and independence during the Great Depression.

A creator abandons his creature; ambition and isolation lead to mutual ruin.

Firemen burn books in a society of screens, speed, and enforced conformity.

Ted Chiang's second collection of short works exploring free will, time travel, artificial intelligence, and the limits of knowledge.

Notes and accounts related to the Elan School and its legacy.

How cod shaped exploration, trade, war, and the North Atlantic economy.

An almanac of calamities, blunders, and darkly amusing historical misfortune.

An argument that industrial-technological systems constrain human freedom and autonomy.

A young wizard names a shadow and must understand power, balance, and the self.

Childhood in the Depression South and a trial that exposes racial injustice.

A philosophical fantasy about memory, identity, and consciousness set within an infinite House of statues, tides, and collapsing perception.

First contact, the Cultural Revolution, and a civilization trapped in chaotic suns.

An account of the murders and personal life of Theodore Bundy a famed convicted Serial killer

Uta-Jima is an idyllic town unaffected by the changes of modernization. Shinji the protagonist has a blossoming love story with Hatsue. The simplicity of the characters fits them into traditional Japanese stereotypes and allows a simple, feel-good story. The whole book was simple, and steady like the tide.

Seven principles for taking control of decisions, habits, and life direction.

A staged manual for shamatha meditation integrating neuroscience and Buddhist practice.

Linked stories of human colonization, wonder, and ruin on Mars.

Absurdist space comedy after Earth is demolished for a hyperspace bypass.

Nick Carraway observes Jay Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy Buchanan and the hollow glamour of the Jazz Age.

A recap of the murders, investigation, and capture of the Golden State Killer a serial rapist and murderer who went by many monikers.

Psychohistory and the long collapse and rebirth of galactic civilization.

Wrongful imprisonment, hidden treasure, and a patient plan of revenge in post-Napoleonic France.

Anecdotes from the physicist’s life: curiosity, mischief, and unconventional thinking.

A VR treasure hunt through eighties pop culture for control of a vast digital empire.

A philosophical fantasy about memory, identity, and consciousness set within an infinite House of statues, tides, and collapsing perception.

An olfactory genius in eighteenth-century France pursues the perfect scent at any cost.

A dyslexic twelve-year-old learns he is the son of Poseidon and enters Greek myth.

A panoramic social history of a single summer of fame, flight, crime, and spectacle.

An aging fisherman battles a giant marlin and the limits of pride and endurance.

Totalitarian surveillance, language control, and the annihilation of private truth.

An account of a member of Manson's famous family which participated in famous murders

Boredom, desire, and debt destroy a provincial doctor’s wife who romanticizes escape.

Autobiographical accounts of yogic training and masters in the Himalayas.

A boy discovers he is a wizard and enters a hidden world of magic and danger.

Final book of the Leviathan trilogy: war, revolution, and engineered beasts in WWI.

A story of an escaping russian soldier and his finding of a mutal companion.

Natural history and ecology of beavers as keystone engineers of landscapes.

A linguist’s fieldwork among the Pirahã challenges assumptions about language and culture.

A forensic blood-spatter analyst leads a double life as a serial killer with a code.

Translation and silver-powered magic underpin empire, privilege, and revolt at Oxford.

A dystopia of engineered happiness, consumption, and the cost of stability without freedom.

A critique of Amanda Montell's argument that language reinforces patriarchy, examining the evidence, linguistic claims, and limits of language reform.

A young orphan trains as a Ranger and is drawn into the kingdom’s hidden conflicts.

Professor Challenger leads an expedition to a plateau where dinosaurs still survive.

A sixth grader investigates a manual that seems to orchestrate who becomes the class victim.

A guy wakes up inexplicably and is forced to investigate the seemingly unstoppable murder of Evelyn Hardcastle.

A horror novel weaving together a haunted painting, true-crime podcast, and occult history.

A 24 year-old returns to high school undercover and gives an account of the experience

A companion to The Giver: art, disability, and power in a harsh future community.

An academic romantasy about a Cambridge scholar cataloguing faeries in a remote village.