Any time Michael Osterholm needs inspiration to continue fighting for public health, he glances at a gift on his desk, a Christmas present from his two adult children.

“It’s an electronic picture frame and they keep putting in pictures of my five grandkids,” said Osterholm, an internationally renowned epidemiologist who leads the “...Read more

How pervasive is the “Thursday Murder Club” universe? Consider this: The fifth book in the bestselling series, “The Impossible Fortune” (out Sept. 30), includes a joke about an actor who stars in the movie version of the first book, which zipped to the top of Netflix playlists last month.

That Pierce Brosnan inside joke in “Impossible...Read more

Stacey Abrams is known as a gifted debater, a voting rights advocate credited with helping turn Georgia blue(ish), a nimble politician and a fluid writer. But if you want to hear about her screw-ups, talk to her five siblings.

Abrams, who will kick off the Minnesota Star Tribune and MPR News’ Talking Volumes series Sept. 10 with a discussion ...Read more

I loved “Buckeye,” by Patrick Ryan. In fact, if I were talking to you about this book instead of writing about it, I would add a few more “loveds,” accompanied by gestures emphasizing how much.

Saying I loved it is the easy part, of course. Telling you why I loved it won’t be difficult, either. The hard part might be shutting up about...Read more

It’s understandable if you know Bill Kurtis only as an anchorman.

That was his profession for decades, polished with that sonorous voice and often in the company of Walter Jacobson on WBBM-Ch. 2, or nationally alongside Diane Sawyer on the CBS Morning News or, on the less serious side of things, narrating the Will Ferrell romps “Anchorman�...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Aug. 30, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "Katabasis (...Read more

In 1992, a Baptist pastor named Gary Chapman published a book titled “The 5 Love Languages,” about how to categorize different ways we express and receive love. You might know or have heard of Chapman’s theory of the five languages, because they’ve become a kind of cultural touchstone in the subsequent years since the book came out: ...Read more

“You’re a woman, obviously.” This dialogue appears on page 99 of “Porthole” and it’s quite helpful because, in the previous 98 pages, I literally kept flipping back and forth, trying to figure out the gender of our narrator.

This is interesting in a few ways. For one thing, Joanna Howard’s novel is a reminder not to make any ...Read more

Jennifer Givhan, a Mexican American and Indigenous poet and novelist, grew up in Southern California’s Imperial Valley. She holds a Master’s degree from California State University, Fullerton, and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Warren Wilson College, and she’s been the recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the ...Read more

It was a cold early morning, Jan. 8, 1993, and it was shattered by six words blasting from a police radio: “Five in the cooler at Brown’s.”

Quickly, the details emerged, the horror spread and things got worse. There were seven people dead, the owners of a Palatine restaurant and five of their employees, fatally shot with a .38-caliber ...Read more

If it seems like books and movies get longer each fall, it’s not just your imagination.

Publishers and Hollywood execs figure we spend more time indoors as the temperatures start to dip and that we have more bandwidth to immerse ourselves in books and movies that require (or think they require) a little extra space to unveil their stories. ...Read more

Mars, our reddish-hued neighbor in the solar system, oh how you have captivated us earthlings, fueling an obsession at the turn of the last century that David Baron documents in his oh-my-goodness-they believed-what? romp “The Martians.”

Hindsight is 20/20, as they say, and never more so than in recounting the endeavors of yesteryear’s ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Aug. 23, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "Quicksilver (...Read more

Gregory Galloway wasn’t sure he could write anything after the death of his father.

“He lived to be 94, so if you can have that, he had the sort of demise that he wanted,” says Galloway, recalling that he and his two siblings had gathered to be with their father at the hospital.

“We sort of knew it was the last day, and the nurse came ...Read more

Elaine Hsieh Chou’s clever and beguiling short story collection “Where Are You Really From” explores issues of identity and belonging with a speculative twist.

In six stories and one novella, Chou takes on Western-centered notions of beauty, mail-order brides, massage parlors, generational trauma and artistic license. She flips ...Read more

Walking in nature for as little as 15 to 20 minutes can improve your attention span — even if you don't always enjoy it.

In his new 324-page book, "Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being" (Simon & Schuster), environmental neuroscientist Marc G. Berman lays out how our natural ...Read more

In structure, tone and theme, “Ruth” owes a debt to Evan S. Connell’s wonderful 1959 novel, “Mrs. Bridge” — a debt author Kate Riley freely acknowledges.

Like “Mrs. Bridge,” “Ruth” is written in close third person and structured in short, flat chunks of anecdote and description. The story follows a slightly baffled but ...Read more