|
|
Books people are talking about. |
|
|
|
Book Club: Audacious (Roxane Gay)
AN AUDACIOUS BOOK CLUB PICK - NAMED A MUST READ BOOK FOR SUMMER BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, W MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORK POST, LITHUB, BOOKRIOT, AND MORE A sharp, hilarious, unsparing mother-daughter story.--Rachel Khong, New York Times bestselling author of Real Americans It's time we recognize Mary H.K. Choi as an auteur.--Michelle Zauner, New York Times bestselling author of Crying in H MartBestselling young adult author Mary H.K. Choi debuts a brilliantly observed adult novel about mothers, daughters and the complexity of family set against the backdrop of Hollywood Stevie cannot escape her mother. Abandoning college plans to work a dead-end job, her days are a purgatorial bore. Many dream of moving to L.A. and into the spotlight, but Stevie can't wait to move away from it, and her mother's orbit, to start over. Moon is many things: an out-of-work actress, a recovering addict, whatever a mistress becomes when she's widowed, and a mother. Reeling in the aftermath of her lover and TV husband's death, Moon struggles to process her grief. And the last thing she expects is for Stevie to leave her too. Now, neither Stevie nor Moon can afford to quit each other. And their cost of living forces them into a glass-walled pool house in the backyard, while their home is rented out to pay the bills. But when Adam, Moon's former TV son and Stevie's forever crush, arrives for the funeral, the three are pulled into a messy orbit, moving back into the 'Big House' and play-acting a picture-perfect family even as tensions rise and relationships unravel. Pool House is a course charted through the wilderness of motherhood, a story about the challenges of navigating class, fame, burgeoning sexuality, and grief as two women grapple with what it means to grow up and grow older in Hollywood. |
|
|
|
Land by Maggie O'FarrellBook Club: Good Housekeeping
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The award-winning, bestselling author of Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait returns with a soaring historical novel set in Ireland in the years before and after the Great Hunger. A breathtaking hymn to the sanctity of natural spaces, operating on timescales both intimate and geological. I finished Land moved not only by the vivid lives of its human characters, but the thrumming, gorgeous presence of its mosses, waters, winds, and skies. --Daniel Mason, author of North Woods On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tom s and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tom s, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster. The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tom s is unexpectedly sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and the lives of those of his family, will never be the same again. Liam is terrified by the sudden change in his taciturn father. What was it that caused such cracks to open in Tom s, and how is Liam, aged only ten, going to finish the mapping and get them both home? Land is a novel about separation and reunion, tragedy and recovery, colonization and rebellion. It is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away. As spellbinding and varied as the landscape that inspired it, Land is, above all, a story of survival, for our times and for all time.
|
|
|
|
Book Club: Good Morning America
A Good Morning America YA Book Club Pick The future of Blackwood Academy--and the entire afterlife--is at stake in the must-read sequel to the viral dark fantasy sensation Immortal Consequences. This stunning hardcover edition features gorgeous, flower-patterned sprayed edges, colored endpapers, and an exclusive foil-stamped case The Decennial is over, but for the students of Blackwood Academy, the fight for the afterlife has just begun. The infamous school was hiding more secrets--and lies--than any of the Decennial's participants could have imagined. And there's still so much that remains buried beneath its ancient foundations. Now the future of the academy, and all the souls within it, rests in the hands of six former pupils: The charmer and the golden boy . . .The traitor and the girl desperate to save her . . .The Chosen One and the one who would choose her over and over again . . . Any of them could be the hero the afterlife needs . . . or the villain who will destroy it for good. Because the truth is, Blackwood's biggest secret has yet to come to light--and when it does, it will shake the institution to its core. |
|
|
|
Book Club: Good Morning America
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK - NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown (aka Vermont)--a witty and gorgeous (The Guardian) novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason, the bestselling author of North Woods Charming . . . a prescription for summer amusement that takes immediate effect . . . There's so much fine, freewheeling observation and pillowy erudition here, it's tempting just to sink in.--The New York Times Miles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales and increasingly haunted by a sense that he's become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife, Kate, accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the faraway forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be the year to finally move forward with his life. But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, one who possesses, in Kate's words, a great capacity to fall in with anyone, anywhere. And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as those of any of his folktales, from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, from a Shakespearean temptress to a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world's delusions in an Inventory of Wrong Ideas. The new friends, the enchanted woods, the histories: sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre--perhaps ridiculous--local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all. Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world. |
|
|
|
Book Club: Natalie Portman
Set on a Southern army base in the 1930s, REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE tells the story of Captain Penderton, a bisexual whose life is upset by the arrival of Major Langdon, a charming womanizer who has an affair with Penderton's tempestuous and flirtatious wife, Leonora. Upon the novel's publication in 1941, reviewers were unsure of what to make of its relatively scandalous subject matter. A critic for Time Magazine wrote, In almost any hands, such material would yield a rank fruitcake of mere arty melodrama. But Carson McCullers tells her tale with simplicity, insight, and a rare gift of phrase. Written during a time when McCullers's own marriage to Reeves was on the brink of collapse, her second novel deals with her trademark themes of alienation and unfulfilled loves. |
|
|
|
Book Club: Oprah's Book Club
A musical prodigy and his mother spend years searching for each other in this tender, heartfelt novel about love, loss, and the enduring power of a mother's love (Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Women). A SWEEPING NOVEL FROM JENNA BUSH HAGER'S THOUSAND VOICES An immersive journey amid the sights and sounds of urban China as a migrant mother and son follow a seemingly impossible dream inspired by their love of music--and their devotion to each other . . . Keep something handy to dry your eyes.--Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake Song is a nobody--just a food delivery worker from a village in Northeast China--but her son, River, is a little wonder. At the age of four, he toddles to a piano and taps out his favorite song. At eight, he masters Liszt's three Liebestraume; at ten, he blazes through the complete set of Chopin's tudes. And at every step, through the valleys of loss, illness, and poverty, Song is there to light his way--until finally, at the age of eleven, River is invited to study with a preeminent teacher in Beijing. But in the chaos of Beijing Railway Station on the busiest day of the year, Song faces every mother's nightmare: She loses her grip on River's little hand and is unable to find him after a desperate, harrowing search. Over the next days, weeks, and eventually, years, Song and River fight to forge a path back to each other as they carve out new lives that carry them farther apart. An evocative exploration of a mother's love and a son's yearning, Little Wonder takes us on an extraordinary journey through a modern Beijing that pulses with the music of humanity and its impossible--and impossibly brave--hopes. As every musician knows: You start in one key. You wander to other keys, strange and distant places. But in the end, you always come back home. |
|
|
|
The Shampoo Effect by Jenny JacksonBook club: Read With JennaFunny, drama-fueled, and full of Jackson's breezy wit... Brilliant. --Coco Mellors, New York Times bestselling author of Blue Sisters An ambitious young woman insinuates herself into a tight-knit social set, shaking up friendships and marriages in a small seaside town. A frothy novel of love, money, sex, and friendship, from the New York Times bestselling author of Pineapple Street (Laugh-out-loud-good. --Harper's Bazaar) When Caroline Lash arrives in Greenhead, Massachusetts, she falls head-over-heels for Van Whittaker, a fleece-wearing, litter-collecting, kayak enthusiast with long, floppy hair and the personality of a Border collie. Born and raised in this picturesque coastal village, Van runs with the same crowd he did as a kid: His ex-girlfriend, Bailey, a beautiful girl who attracts men like moths to a flame; Augusta, old money, horsey, and snobbish; and Fran, surrounded by brothers and sons, too fed up with boys to ever consider marrying one. Together, the group runs wild through the marshes, beaches, and bars of Greenhead, drinking on houseboats, spending long afternoons sunbathing with their children, and playing games the way they always have. But when Bailey discovers that she is pregnant with Van's baby, the delicate balance of the group's friendship is thrown off. Soon Caroline is cast out of the circle and what she does next--in a potent mix of fury and heartbreak--exposes long-held secrets and works the entire town of Greenhead into a lather. Dazzlingly funny, sexy, and as juicy as it is astute, The Shampoo Effect is a story of late-night parties, early mornings with small children, the dawn of midlife, and a group of old friends finally growing up despite all their best efforts to the contrary.
|
|
|
|
Book Club: Reese Witherspoon
A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICKIn time for the 250th Anniversary of the birth of the United States comes a sweeping, intimate portrayal of Abigail Adams--wife of one president and mother to another--whose wit, willpower, and wisdom helped shape the fledgling republic. A stunning historical novel with modern-day implications from the New York Times bestselling authors of America's First Daughter and My Dear Hamilton.In the heart of revolutionary Boston, Abigail Adams raises her children amid riots, blockades, and the outbreak of war. While her husband, John Adams, rises from country lawyer to nation-builder, often away for years at a time, Abigail builds her own independence--managing their farm, making lucrative investments, amassing savings, battling plague and loss, and defending their home. Unafraid to speak her mind, she famously offers fearless political counsel, urging John to remember the ladies in the new government. Through it all, she becomes his most trusted confidante and indispensable ally.When peace is secured, Abigail steps onto the world stage--exchanging ideas with Thomas Jefferson in the French countryside, navigating court life as the wife of the Minister to Great Britain, and presiding over the parlor politics of the early American republic in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. Even after her husband's presidential administration, she continues battling political foes and working behind the scenes to advance her family, secure independence for the women in her life, and ensure a better life for the next generation of Americans.From war-torn streets to the chandeliered halls of power, A Founding Mother is the unforgettable story of a woman ahead of her time--one whose voice, vision, and valor still resonate powerfully today. |
|
|
|
Media mentions:ABC: Good Morning America (Jul 2026)
From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Sh*t My Dad Says, a fast-paced and hilarious thriller about a young woman who reluctantly teams up with her deadbeat dad to find her missing mom--perfect for fans of Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard. When Lila Dixon gets a call that her mother has gone missing, she initially brushes it off--Mattie's disappearances are a part of life, like earthquakes in their dusty California hometown. But this time the prime suspect is Lila's larger-than-life father: the one-time baseball star, local hero, and fatal charmer John Dix Dixon. Dix's main accomplishment as a dad was finding new ways to disappoint his daughter, but even Lila knows he's not behind this. And when they uncover a $250,000 deposit to Mattie's bank account, and someone slips a threatening note under Lila's motel door, they realize Mattie may be in real danger. Now they're heading down a trail marked by unsavory Russian thugs, fat-cat farmers, and an unseen enemy who's always a step ahead. With crackling banter and characters that leap off the page, Get Lost is a thrilling and emotionally layered mystery. Justin Halpern tells a story that's by turns hilarious and poignant: about fractured families, grudges that last a lifetime, and the unexpected ways we find our way back to the people we thought we'd lost for good. A tense whodunnit filled with so many laughs, so much heart, and so many characters you love that by the end you'll wish they never found out whodidit. --Phil Lord, co-director and producer of Project Hail Mary |
|
|
|
Media mentions:ABC: Good Morning America (Jul 2026)
A NEW YORK TIMES, OPRAH DAILY, CRIME READS, TOWN & COUNTRY, AND BOOKPAGE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK From the New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and Bright Young Women comes a sexy new thriller (New York Post) with a shocking and mindbending (SheReads) last page. It's been twelve years since Faye Heron broke Henry Spalding's heart. Henry was her college boyfriend, her first love, but Faye was in danger of being subsumed by him and the intensity of their connection--a connection that took her beyond boundaries she'd only dreamed of crossing. Now, Faye is one half of a power-producing duo with her Hollywood husband. Henry is a married father running the family business. On the surface, both of their lives have essentially gone to plan. When a former and beloved college professor suddenly passes away, Faye and Henry find themselves back on campus for the funeral, circling something old and dangerous. Something, if Faye is honest with herself, she has been trying to duplicate for years. But Henry is one of a kind. The kind who delivers a hypnotic apology for the way things ended. The kind who suggests they go back to the hotel for a drink. The kind who drugs and kidnaps her. When Faye comes to Henry's remote mountain cabin, she's beside herself. Has Henry brought her here to punish her? She did, after all, write and star in a lauded episode of television based on their indelicate appetites and vicious breakup. As her week of captivity unfolds, Henry's wanton demands intensify, and Faye finds herself pulled back into his irresistible gravity. But as Faye and Henry spiral into their old dynamic, a sprawling, years-old mystery begins to take shape--one that will rewrite history as Faye remembers it and reveal an astounding, cataclysmic truth.
|
|
|
|
Media mentions:ABC: Good Morning America (Jul 2026)
From New York Times bestselling author Dana Suskind, a timely, urgent guide to parenting in the age of artificial intelligence--and protecting what matters most in childhood A powerful, science-based case for why children's developing minds need real human relationships. --Jonathan Haidt Hope is not lost. It's right here. If there is a young person in your life, Human Raised is for you. --Angela Duckworth As AI enters nurseries, playrooms, and classrooms, parents are being sold a smart childhood at every turn. This book is a guide to protecting the most important label of all: human raised. In her groundbreaking book Thirty Million Words, Dr. Suskind revealed the extraordinary power of parent talk and interaction in building children's brains. Now, with the advent of artificial intelligence, the stakes of that nurturing interaction have become even clearer. New AI applications demonstrate what technology can replicate--but they also illuminate what it cannot: the capacity of human interaction to build not just children's skills but their very capacity for human connection. Human Raised reveals the possibilities and perils of using AI and related technologies for child-rearing. From monitors that decode cries, to smart cribs that soothe babies to sleep, to interactive chatbots designed to engage an inquisitive toddler, the parenting landscape is shifting fast--and Dr. Suskind helps parents navigate this uncharted territory with clarity and confidence. Readers will learn four guiding principles for raising children alongside AI: Human connection is irreplaceableOwn your imperfectionsProtect the early yearsEnhance--don't replace--connectionThe book also offers a concrete evaluation framework to help parents (and anyone shaping children's environments) assess individual technologies, along with evidence-based guidance for fostering the skills children will need to thrive in an AI-driven future. Critical thinking, empathy, creativity, and resilience form what Suskind calls the Human Edge--capabilities no algorithm can replicate and no artificial teacher can cultivate. Drawing from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and the lived experience of countless families, Human Raised prepares parents to act as essential guardians to the gateway between AI and their children's developing minds--keeping human connection, in all its beautiful imperfection, at the center of childhood. |
|
|
|
CBS: Sunday Morning (Jul 2026)
In this ambitious and groundbreaking history, Lauren Collins weaves together stories of four Wilmington, NC, families over 125 years to create a full accounting of the long-term effects of the 1898 white supremacist massacre and coup and its critical role in subverting American democracy-- Provided by publisher. |
|
|
|
Media mentions:NBC: Today Show (Jul 2026)
An infectious and utterly charming fictionalization of the iconic Helen Gurley Brown's early years at the helm of Cosmopolitan, and the intrepid group of women she took under her wing to create one of the most talked about magazines of all time.In 1965, Helen Gurley Brown, a soft spoken, self-professed mouseburger, is fresh off the runaway success of her book Sex and the Single Girl, a revolutionary call to single women urging them not to rush into marriage on anyone's timeline but their own, and, even more radically, to enjoy their sex lives, gloriously free of shame. Upon the book's publication, half the country is outraged (her mother, for one, hates it), and the other half will follow her anywhere. Moved by the thousands of letters arriving at her doorstep from readers desperate for advice, she marches from one Manhattan magazine conglomerate to another, looking for a perch from which to dispense her unconventional wisdom. At her last stop, she finally gets her shot: just three issues to turn around the flailing magazine Cosmopolitan.Helen quickly assembles a team of smart, savvy single girls up to the task. Soon, their lives become the stuff of magazine cover lines: the gorgeous Book Editor's doomed romance with a man she didn't know was married--and her bold idea for revenge. The (unofficial ) Sex Editor's trip to soak in the world's first champagne glass hot tub, which takes a very wrong turn. The Entertainment Editor's clash with Joan Crawford and interview with a Park Avenue call girl that leads to unexpected revelations.Single Girls begins at the dawn of Helen's storied tenure and journeys back to her youth, envisioning the devastations and people who forged her into a controversial legend. It imagines the way one unsinkable group of women navigated gender roles and workplace power dynamics long before these issues entered the headlines. With dazzling, high-energy prose, it recreates not just a movement, but a mood: one of ambition, reinvention, and the intoxicating thrill of being young when a new world was possible for a single girl if only she was fearless enough to reach out and grab it. |
|
|
|
All-star Baby Dunks-a-Lot is back and ready to help his team solve a basketball mystery in this hilarious and sporty tale from NBA champion Jayson TatumThere's only one person who can save the game of basketball . . .When all the basketballs in the world mysteriously stop bouncing, the Commissioner of Basketball knows just who to call: Baby Dunks-a-Lot, the world-famous dunking baby Join Baby D, his star NBA teammate, and his big brother as they hop into the Ball-Mobile and set off on a quest to save the game of basketball--one monster dunk at a time.Jayson Tatum returns with coauthor Sam Apple and illustrator Parker-Nia Gordon for another laugh-out-loud adventure, inspired by his own experience as both an NBA superstar and a loving dad.The Boss Baby meets Space Jam in this slam-dunk picture book Also available: Baby Dunks-A-Lot
|
|
|
|
Media mentions:NBC: Today Show (Jul 2026);Book Club: PBS Books Readers (Jun 2026)
From #1 New York Times bestselling author and two-time Pulitzer winner Colson Whitehead, an exuberantly entertaining novel that brings to life 1980s New York in the magnificent final volume of his Harlem Trilogy 1981. New York City is beginning to emerge from financial ruin and decline, energized by rampant real estate development and a Wall Street unchained by Reagan-era predatory capitalism. Up in Harlem, successful business owner/master fence Ray Carney has just been named Sterling Furniture's Dealer of the Month. When the banks won't give his beloved wife Elizabeth a loan for her new travel agency, however, Carney gambles on one last heist, and finds himself entangled with a legendary criminal mastermind. 1983. To some, Carney's friend and partner in crime, Pepper, is a stone-cold sociopath. To others, a top thief with questionable people skills. Either way, he's feeling his age in his troubled gut and his aching bones. When he takes on a bodyguard gig as a favor to Elizabeth, he's plunged into the alien territory of the East Village art and club scene. Luckily for him, whether you're uptown or down, everyone speaks the same language of violence--Pepper is a native speaker. 1986. Carney has always been haunted by his inability to save his cousin Freddie. Now, twenty years after Freddie's death, he has a chance to rescue Freddie's son from the violent forces of the city. But coming out of retirement and teaming up with Pepper again will mean risking the safety and security he's spent decades building for his family, with only one shot to get it right. With his usual pitch-perfect prose, Whitehead paints a portrait of a city in transition, where shimmering skyscrapers rise to the heavens as displaced people huddle in abandoned tunnels below. In a dazzling display of protean imagination, Cool Machine roves all over the city, from Windows on the World to the Meadowlands, to show that in New York, and in the lives of Whitehead's vivid characters, it's what's below the surface that reveals the truth. |
|
|
|
Media mentions: NPR: Fresh Air (Jul 2026)
A collection of reported stories that explore the relationship between mothers and daughters, from the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing for her work in The New Yorker. You Won't Get Free of It tells the stories of mothers and daughters searching for each other and for themselves. Rachel Aviv explores the complexity of this relationship in seven essays, six originally published in The New Yorker and reconceived for this intimate, revelatory book. I wrote some of these stories feeling, existentially, like a daughter, and now I have returned to them with a different identification, Aviv writes. It was as if I had failed to see the drama on the mother's side, too--her particular longings and humiliations and needs. Aviv writes about one mother searching for her vanished daughter; another who sacrifices herself for her daughters by working as a nanny for other people's children. In the final story, a daughter's traumatic experience is erased by her family, only to be recast by her mother, the writer Alice Munro, in stories celebrated around the world. You Won't Get Free of It is an astonishing exploration of the competing dynamics of knowing and unknowing, recognition and refusal, that shape our most foundational relationship. Illuminating ineffable registers of experience, Aviv reckons with the way that disowned knowledge forms and deforms families and lives. |
|
|
|
Named a nonfiction book Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer by the New York Times From Indigenous chef Nephi Craig, a searing personal and cultural reckoning that demonstrates the power of food to heal intergenerational wounds At just eighteen years old, Nephi Craig was facing a felony charge that could have put him in prison for years. Having struggled with substance abuse throughout his teens, his life had come to a dizzying halt. So when a judge ordered three years of probation instead--on the condition he attend work or school--Craig took it as an opportunity for a new lease on life. Not long after, he enrolled in a culinary arts program a few hours from Whiteriver, Arizona, where he had grown up on the White Mountain Apache Tribe Reservation. Expecting little more than a means to an end, Craig quickly discovered a talent and passion for cooking. He also experienced a profound dissonance as the only Indigenous person in the kitchen, preparing European recipes that--disguised by their French and Italian names--relied on ingredients native to the Americas. Craig untangled the buried histories of Indigenous cultivars such as tomato, cacao, and amaranth, each one a portal into possibility as well as a marker of the violent legacy of colonization. As he did so, he found new ways to honor his Apache and Navajo roots and build Indigenous food sovereignty. His journey led him around the world, from top fine-dining restaurants in the United States to high-profile banquets in Brazil, England, Germany, and Japan. All the while, Craig wrestled with addiction, entering one treatment center after another in the hopes that he could get--and remain--sober. In the heat, frenzy, and collaborative energy of restaurant kitchens, Craig found a lifeline. But when he was faced with the difficult decision of choosing between a career-defining executive chef job and an opportunity to serve his community back on the Rez, he realized his true vocation. Interweaving personal reflection with illuminating cultural insight, Our Knives Will Save Us offers a vision of hope: one where food is decolonized and cooking is a pathway to healing for all of us. |
|
|
|
Thirteen of Sigrid Nunez's short stories in one volume-- Provided by publisher.
|
|
|
|
Media mentions:PBS: Amanpour & Company (Jul 2026);PBS: NewsHour (Jun 2026)
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE - A sweeping novel about friendship, love, and the lifelong pursuit of art from Dave Eggers, the award-winning, bestselling author of The Circle, A Hologram for the King, and The Eyes & the Impossible Glorious and captivating, with Eggers' signature humor and precision, Contrapposto tells a big and big-hearted story that counter-positions exquisitely the pain and exhilarations of love and the creative impulse. I loved this novel. --Lily King, author of Heart the Lover In this satisfyingly old-school novel, an artist tries to find his place, and hold onto his spark, in a world that values fads and flash. . . . Contrapposto is an earthy, warm return to form . . . . To call the book 'moving' would be a smelly clich , so let's say undulating, with both despair and hope. --Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times Book Review Cricket Dib, born on the American prairie, has no particular prospects or ambitions until, in grade school, he realizes he can draw. He soon meets a girl, Olympia Argyros, one year older, who is captivating and brilliant and far more worldly. Recognizing his talent, she convinces him to deface, with profound vulgarity, a popular playground. Under her direction, he does it willingly, already in love, and thus begins a sixty-five-year entwining between Cricket and Olympia, encompassing friendship, working partnership and love affair. Together they go to art school--an experience of dubious value--and then navigate the art world for the next fifty years, together and apart. Contrapposto is a moving and very funny novel about allies and art, and what it means to be an artist. All through their lives, Cricket sees Olympia as his soulmate and destiny, and while she is always his champion, romantically her eyes are always seeking something--and someone--else. Their love changes over the decades, but their commitment to each other, and their search for meaning in the making of art, never wanes. The novel spans the globe, from New York to Thailand, Indiana to Paris, and follows Cricket and Olympia through sickness and health, war and death. The novel is a wild and beautiful examination of the rules and market forces of the art world, but chiefly it's about two friends who believe they can change that world, and bring new meaning to it, if only they can start their own movement, dodge charlatans, remain open-eyed and open-hearted, avoid going mad, avoid dying young of rare cancers, stay true to their ideals, and never tire of beauty. Not easy, but not impossible, either.
|
|
|
|
Media mentions:PBS: NewsHour (Jul 2026)
On a crisp September afternoon in 1917, as the country waged war and the national pastime faced questions about its purpose, baseball paused to reconsider what it stood for. At Fenway Park, the game's greatest stars-many of them rivals, some near the end of their careers, others just emerging-took the field together in an exhibition played not for standings or championships, but for a colleague who had died, and for a cause larger than the game itself. Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Tris Speaker, Walter Johnson, Connie Mack, and more. One newspaper called it the greatest baseball show on earth.What unfolded that day was more than a benefit or a curiosity. It was a moment of recognition among players, fans, and the sport's leaders that baseball could be something more than competition. It could be a shared stage. A public trust. A civic ritual capable of carrying the weight of a nation.
|
|
|
|
Every Summer After by Carley FortuneSex and the City producer Amy B. Harris helmed Every Year After, the series adaptation of Carley Fortune's debut romance Every Summer After, about two childhood sweethearts who reconnect as adults.
Where to watch: All episodes of Every Year After are now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
|
|
|
|
Girls Like Girls
by Hayley Kiyoko
Actress/singer-songwriter Hayley Kiyoko directed the film adaptation of her debut YA romance novel Girls Like Girls, itself an adaptation of her 2015 song of the same name.
Where to watch: Girls Like Girls is now playing in theaters.
|
|
|
|
Fire & Blood
by George R. R. Martin; illustrations by Doug Wheatley
Game of Thrones spin-off House of the Dragon returns for a 3rd season set 300 years before the events of the popular HBO series and adapted from Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin's history of the Targaryen dynasty.
Where to watch: Catch new episodes of House of the Dragon weekly on HBO.
|
|
|
|
The Vampire Lestat
by Anne Rice
Season 3 of the critically acclaimed Interview with the Vampire adapts The Vampire Lestat, the 2nd book in Anne Rice's bestselling Vampire Chronicles series.
Where to watch: Catch The Vampire Lestat episodes weekly on AMC.
|
|
|
|
Enola Holmes: The Case of the Missing Marquess
by Nancy Springer
Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge return in Enola Holmes 3, which loosely adapts Nancy Springer's middle grade novels starring Sherlock Holmes' sleuthing little sister. The Case of the Missing Marquess is the 1st novel in the series.
Where to watch: Enola Holmes 3 is now playing on Netflix.
|
|
|
|
Little House on the Prairie
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Alice Halsey stars in the new series adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's semi-autobiographical novels about a pioneer family's experiences in late-19th century Minnesota.
Where to watch: Little House on the Prairie premieres July 9th on Netflix.
|
|
|
|
Lucky
by Marissa Stapley
Anya Taylor-Joy stars in the series adaptation of Marissa Stapley's thriller about a grifter trying to cash in a winning lottery ticket without being arrested for her past crimes.
Where to watch: Lucky premieres July 15th on Apple TV, with new episodes streaming weekly.
|
|
|
|
The Odyssey
by Homer; translated by Emily Wilson
Matt Damon leads a star-studded cast in director Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Homer's epic poem about a hero's journey home.
Where to watch: Catch The Odyssey in theaters July 17th.
|
|
|
|
Heartstopper Volume 6
by Alice Oseman
Kit Connor and Joe Locke reprise their roles from the TV show Heartstopper in the film Heartstopper Forever, which adapts Alice Oseman's 6th and final graphic novel in the YA series about two British schoolboys in love.
Where to watch: Heartstopper Forever premieres July 17th on Netflix.
|
|
|
|
|
|