One Way Witch is another Nnedi Okorafor classic, a statement on politics, gender and history delivered as an unputdownable sci-fi & fantasy adventure. ... Read full Story
Courtney Gustafson woke up in her new home to find 30 cats living in her yard. She tells their stories in her poignant, beautifully written debut memoir, Poets Square. ... Read full Story
After the hilarious and expressive Spider in the Well, we couldn’t wait to see what Jess Hannigan was going to do next. Luckily, she hasn’t made us wait too long! Yet another delightfully dramatic protagonist greets us in The Bear Out There, this time warning us of a scary bear—but of course, things aren’t that straightforward. ... Read full Story
William Dalrymple’s magisterial history of Indian trade plumbs the depths of scholarship to reveal a new understanding of the ancient world. ... Read full Story
Bonnie Tsui’s multifaceted celebration of muscles is an appealing, enlightening guide to understanding and appreciating our own strength. ... Read full Story
Stephen S. Hall’s Slither will make you marvel at what we can learn from snakes, if only we can swap fear for curiosity and disgust for appreciation. ... Read full Story
The Corruption of Hollis Brown is written in sharply vivid vignettes, like the literary equivalent of macrophotography: intimacy on a grand scale that makes the reader want to both back away and lean closer. ... Read full Story
Sarah Aziza’s stunning memoir, The Hollow Half, traces her Palestinian family’s history of violent displacement and embraces their legacy of survival and love. ... Read full Story
Olafur Darri Olafsson’s deeply authentic performance breathes life into this emotionally rich tale, capturing both its stark beauty and its quiet heartbreak. ... Read full Story
In Gabriele, Anne and Claire Berest limn the life of their great-grandmother, finding a cavalcade of romance and drama at the heart of the European art world. The result is a historical novel unlike any other. ... Read full Story
Jo Harkin’s rollicking saga of royalty, loyalty, lechery and treachery, The Pretender, is fit for a king . . . or a man who was merely told he would be one. ... Read full Story
Stephanie Sabbe’s Interiors of a Storyteller weaves memoir with interior design and is recommended for Southerners, designers and fans of storytelling of all stripes. ... Read full Story
In Pencil, Hye-Eun Kim artfully blends the fanciful and the practical as she invites readers to ponder cycles of destruction and renewal, creativity and inspiration. ... Read full Story
The poetic language in Jamie Sumner’s Please Pay Attention makes the horror of school violence clear without depicting it in a graphic way. ... Read full Story
Prose to the People overflows with photographs, oral histories, essays and interviews that document and celebrate Black bookstores. ... Read full Story
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 30, 2025 is:
insouciance \in-SOO-see-unss\ noun
Insouciance is a formal word that refers to a feeling of carefree unconcern. It can also be understood as a word for the relaxed and calm state of a person who is not worried about anything.
// The young actor charmed interviewers with his easy smile and devil-may-care insouciance.
“Gladiator II is OK when Denzel’s off-screen, but sensational when he’s on it. ... What makes the performance great is its insouciance; it’s both precise and feather-light. And it’s what a great actor can do when he’s set free to have fun, to laugh at himself a little bit. ... Denzel’s Macrinus is gravitas and comic relief in one package.” — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 22 Nov. 2024
Did you know?
If you were alive and of whistling age in the late 1980s or early 1990s, chances are you whistled (and snapped your fingers, and tapped your toes) to a little ditty called “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin, an a cappella reggae-jazz-pop tune that took the charts by surprise and by storm. An ode to cheerful insouciance if ever there was one, its lyrics are entirely concerned with being entirely unconcerned, remaining trouble-free in the face of life’s various stressors and calamities. Such carefree nonchalance is at the heart of insouciance, which arrived in English (along with the adjective insouciant), from French, in the 1800s. The French word comes from a combining of the negative prefix in- with the verb soucier, meaning “to trouble or disturb.” The easiness and breeziness of insouciance isn’t always considered beautiful, however. Insouciance may also be used when someone’s lack of concern for serious matters is seen as more careless than carefree.