Through her exploration of Karagümrük, a historic neighborhood in Istanbul, Hansen provides an immersive experience of a rapidly evolving landscape. We meet Ismail, the longtime muhtar (“elected village elder”); Majed, a Syrian transplant; Murat, a barber resentful of secularism; Ebru, a “humanist” real-estate agent running for muhtar; and others as they navigate the changes wrought by the country’s strongman president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as well as by an influx of migrants, over-development, and globalization. The mosaic painted by Hansen, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, captures “how ordinary people experience authoritarianism in the twenty-first century.”

Though the author provides readers with a nuanced and authentic depiction rarely found in the press, the vignette she produces lacks narrative drama. The primary source of tension in Karagümrük arises from the surge of Syrian refugees. While Turkey accepted far more Syrians than any other country, its anti-Arab racism is both deeply rooted and widespread. Turks, Hansen explains, considered themselves “white, not brown or…Middle Eastern.”

For the most part, the captivating sections of the book center on the larger forces rocking Turkey: Erdoğan’s authoritarian streak, rampant corruption, and questionable elections capped off by the 2016 coup that Erdoğan exploited to purge his opponents before dismantling “Turkey’s state institutions and the organs of its democracy.”

From Life Itself shines when contextualizing Erdoğan’s reign within the broader historical currents overshadowing Turkish society. When the Turkish Republic emerged from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1920s, it had lost its status as a leading global power for the first time in five centuries. Under his leadership, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, popularly seen as Turkey’s founding father, injected a new sense of honor and pride while refashioning his country into a Western-oriented, secular state.

Following Atatürk’s death in 1938, a flailing quasi-democracy — marked by four military coups between 1960 to 1997 — stumbled in his larger-than-life shadow. No matter who was in charge, autocracy remained the norm. “A deep current of fascism ran through the Turkish republic from the beginning,” Hansen notes.

After a brief interlude that saw a more open society emerging under Erdoğan, he too embraced authoritarianism. But unlike previous power grabs, Erdoğan transformed Turkey into a regional — often anti-Western — power that has embraced Islamism and abandoned Atatürk’s tenets. “He was fracturing and reinventing Turkey’s seemingly unassailable national identity,” the author writes.

He has done so through systemic corruption, unbridled development that has profited his corporate allies, a Tammany Hall-like machine doling out favors and goods, control of the media and judiciary, and the empowerment of working-class Turks, who’d been looked down upon by Atatürk’s cosmopolitan adherents. “Erdoğan was Turkey’s revolution,” Hansen explains.

“The question,” she poses in positioning Turkey’s slide into authoritarianism within a global continuum, “seemed less why democracy was failing, and more why twentieth-century nation-states weren’t surviving the twenty-first.” These international comparisons are par for the course these days. There’s some truth to how political movements can traverse borders: Fascism and communism, in particular, spread like wildfire in their heyday.

But one risks resorting to oversimplifications when comparing disparate populations with widely different histories. Hungary and Russia, two countries often cited for democratic backsliding, had few democratic foundations to build upon. India, as the largest and possibly most diverse nation in the world, has unique demographics that make it difficult to compare with other countries. Turkey, for its part, has never been a functional democracy. And the United States, despite its centuries of democratic governance and enviable constitutional guardrails, is a different matter altogether.

Hansen is on firmer ground when her focus remains on Turkey. By the end of her stay in Karagümrük, she reports, its residents were disoriented and unable to recognize their country. “In a blink, Erdoğan had ended Turkey’s century-old political system.”

Given the corruption, authoritarianism, and rampant inflation ravaging the nation, how does Erdoğan remain popular? To explain his success, Hansen points to his ability to tap into something deep within the Turkish psyche that emerged from the loss of empire. “Erdoğan’s Turkish Islamism was a civilizational movement, not a national project,” she writes, “and that made Turkey neither empire nor nation, but something else entirely, a whole new invention, an imperial fantasy through which one man could return to the Turkish people something they believed they lost: their dignity.”

Michael Bobelian has written about human rights, legal affairs, and politics for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Forbes, and other publications. He’s the author of Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-Long Struggle for Justice.

So head to Montgomery County next weekend for an unforgettable afternoon filled with all things literary! And be sure to stop by the Independent’s table — in front of the activity center — to grab some candy, enter our raffle, and chat about your favorite reads!

The 2026 Gaithersburg Book Festival is Saturday, May 16th, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at Bohrer Park, 506 S. Frederick Ave., Gaithersburg, MD. Learn more here.

This podcast comes courtesy of Additions to the Archive with Sullivan Summer. Listen to it here.

On Adora’s floor in her condo are Emily Ann (“widowed lawyer”) and Minna (“divorced theater director”). Adora is a Stoic philosopher who does research, writes, and “provide[s] moral training” for the twin tween sons of the wildly wealthy Lionel and Layla Lockwood, a couple who married a few days after they met at Burning Man. They live in Lionel’s childhood home, “five combined townhouses across the street from the Lockwood Library.”

A horrible accident occurred when the twins were 5 and the family was in Aspen. Lionel “emerged with his left arm amputated and right side paralyzed,” and Layla says she’ll “stop at nothing to make my husband happy.”

With Emily Ann and Minna, Adora has formed a “coven.” There’s a condo newly available for purchase on their floor, and plans are afoot for them to buy it together. There are several advantages to this arrangement for women of a certain age, says Adora:

“Plus, we get to die at home. Plus, we’re not a burden to our kids. Plus, no Florida. Plus, compared to nursing homes, it’s a huge money saver.”

Semple’s compelling characters come at the reader fast and furious. Her descriptions are original and attracting. Here’s landscape architect Blanche, a possible new member of the coven: “Her whole air was a throw-down that said, ‘Come at me, haters.’” Regarding admission to the coven, Adora tells Blanche that they want women who “despite our age, share a dirty little secret: we’re just getting started.”

Empowering, indeed. And then Semple hits readers with a viewpoint delivered in laugh-out-loud style by Blanche. The subject is Blanche dabbling in lesbianism after her divorce because “it seemed like a solution.” In Blanche’s case, one that didn’t stick:

“Turns out, I like dick. Even though the only way I’ll get any at my age is if one falls out of the sky into my vagina.”

Into this coordinated if unusual life comes a handsome man Adora encounters at the ballet in what seems to be a chance meeting. Epic sex (dropping from the heavens only as a metaphor), international intrigue, and an active threat to the Lockwood Library and home — triggered, somehow, by a misinterpreted lunch item — soon follow.

Semple employs an interesting approach in her plot structure. Go Gentle is divided into five parts, the third of which is “The Untitled Adora Hazzard Project.” In it, readers are taken out of the present day and transported to Los Angeles in 1998, when Adora is a writer for “Laugh Riot,” a television show that calls to mind “Saturday Night Live.”

While the timeline shift may feel abrupt, it’s easy to become absorbed in this past version of Adora and all the people surrounding her, as well as in her humiliation and anguish at the hands of her writing-team bros. Plus ça change.

The information provided about a grotesque old-boys-network debacle in Adora’s past is infuriating and also essential to her story. It’s what leads her to Stoicism — and to Yale, where she met her future ex-husband.

Readers may find themselves writing down the quotations from the Stoics that Adora shares. She presents their precepts and the life lessons she’s learned from studying them in an inspiring way. Adora herself has written a book about Epictetus. An unexpected success, the work is what launched many new chapters of her life.

(Some readers might hope the book really exists and is available at a local shop. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t and it isn’t. More’s the pity.)

Stateside locales aren’t the only places Semple takes us. Adora and Viv visit Paris in a mother-daughter journey that will sound familiar to parents and their offspring (teens can be insufferable, and it’s sometimes impossible not to respond in kind). This trip across the pond also brings Adora to the “chateau Montfort” in the beautiful French countryside, a charming location for some very satisfying confrontations.

There are quirks with this novel, as there always are in tales written by human hands. Characters disappear and then reappear. The tone of the storytelling shifts. But who cares? This is a book about second chances! And female friendships! And hot romances! And secret finances! And art theft!

Wait, is that character with Interpol?

That this distinctive approach works in such a captivating and entertaining way is testament to Semple’s skill as a writer. She makes you care about Adora — a lot — and the people around her. She also makes you want to discover what’s going to happen next. It’s highly advisable to go right ahead, gently or otherwise, and find out.

Heidi Mastrogiovanni is the author of the comedic novel Lala Pettibone’s Act Two (finalist, Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Awards) and its sequel, Lala Pettibone: Standing Room Only (Chicago Review Press). Heidi is part of the triumvirate behind “The Classics Slacker Reads...” series. She is the co-ambassador for the Los Angeles chapter of the Authors Guild and a member of the Writers Guild of America. A dedicated animal-welfare advocate, Heidi lives in Southern California with her musician husband and their rescued senior dogs.

London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday). Reviewed by Mariko Hewer. “If the narrative seemed suspect, the police were equally unhelpful. They declined to share significant details of their investigation with the Brettlers, and what they did make available gave the grieving parents more cause for worry: It seemed the case was being bungled — or worse, intentionally sidelined. Rachelle and Matthew soon realized they’d have to do their own legwork and uncover their own answers. It’s largely their journey that Keefe, a friend of the Brettlers, chronicles so meticulously in London Falling. Fans of rigorous reporting, multilayered true-crime stories, and portraits of families in crisis will find something to love in this tour de force.”

Alaska Literary Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry, edited by Marybeth Holleman, Nancy Lord, and Shaelene Grace Moler (Skipstone). Reviewed by Tara Campbell. “The most immediately striking feature of the guide is its full-color format, showing the artwork off to its greatest advantage. The imagery accompanying each entry is vibrant and precise in depicting the state’s diverse regions and lifeforms (except for a tiny blip in which a halibut is rendered with its eyes on the left instead of the right). The work of 20 different artists has been curated for an overall effect of warmth and fullness. The visuals alone are worth the price of the book.”

The Shock of the Light: A Novel by Lori Inglis Hall (Pamela Dorman Books). Reviewed by D.A. Spruzen. “Compellingly presented and beautifully written, The Shock of the Light is a story of heroism, the barbaric toll of war, and the unbreakable bond of twins. It mines the uplifting spirit of love and redemption that can arise amid extreme circumstances. This meticulously researched book is at once informative and engaging. Theo and Tessa will linger in the reader’s memory long after the last page has been turned.”

Sisters in Yellow: A Novel by Mieko Kawakami; translated by Laurel Taylor and Hitomi Yoshio (Knopf). Reviewed by Madeleine de Visé. “Mieko Kawakami’s Sisters in Yellow is one of those novels that raise their audience for slaughter. I lay still as a corpse after I finished it, both hands clasped to my copy as I considered the life I was leaving behind: the story’s still-beating heart. At over 400 pages, it is neither Kawakami’s longest novel nor her most disturbing, yet I found myself gasping for air between one wrenching scene and the next. Tension radiates from the page like oppressive heat, forcing the reader’s nose to the grindstone alongside Hana, the narrator, who never seems to catch a break.”

The Keeper: A Novel by Tana French (Viking). Reviewed by Bob Duffy. “French has written 10 successful novels, the first five of which fall squarely in the realm of character-driven crime fiction. The more recent — including this series — involve crimes or serious transgressions that demand unraveling. But they also bristle with the deepened attention to character portrayal more often associated with literary fiction. Most prominent on this measure: French’s interest in and insight into her characters’ psychology go beyond the immediate exigencies of plot progression that motor the standard whodunit.”

Those Who Are About to Die: A Day in the Life of a Roman Gladiator by Harry Sidebottom (Knopf). Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski. “From the rousing to the ribald, Sidebottom hews closely to ancient Greek and Latin sources and, like a seasoned codebreaker, unlocks long-ago texts to bring their wit, grit, and humanity to his narrative. The level of scholarship is impressive and multifarious: from eyewitness accounts and tombstone inscriptions to sculptures, frescoes, and excavated mosaic pieces, Sidebottom explains what is happening in a given image or inscription in a direct yet playful way that’s easy for contemporary readers to absorb and enjoy.”

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Your career as an educator obviously informed the narrative in Taught, but what was the actual moment that moved you from thinking about the story to writing it?

The shift from thinking about the story to writing it happened in the early months of 2020. The pandemic moved schools online, and my kids and their friends were taking virtual classes in our basement. Through my work, I was in regular conversation with principals and teachers while reading what educators were sharing online. Beneath the breakdown of our medical and education systems, there was a deeper collective grappling with authority, responsibility, grief, and moral clarity. I started writing to process these challenges.

At first, it was reflective, trying to make sense of what I was seeing and hearing. Over time, those early reflections faded, but the larger questions remained. What obligations come with authority? Where does accountability lie when harm occurs? What does it mean to be responsible for another person’s growth?

The novel, Taught, grew out of those questions. Writing became a way to explore these questions and topics without trying to resolve them. That sense of unresolved tension stayed with me throughout the story. While the work is informed by my experience in education, fiction allowed me to place characters in moral and emotional situations I haven’t personally lived through. That freedom, to move beyond reflection into story, is what ultimately shaped Taught.

You’re a white man, but one of your main characters, Malik, is Black. Did you feel a special responsibility to portray him and the other Black characters respectfully?

I think any time a writer steps into a character whose lived experience is different from their own, there’s a responsibility not just to be respectful, but to be honest and restrained. That responsibility isn’t unique to Malik. It applies across the novel.

The characters in Taught represent different races, backgrounds, ages, and political beliefs, and each of them carries a life I couldn’t fully see or explain. My goal wasn’t to define Malik, or any characters, exclusively by those categories. I wanted Malik, and every character in the novel, to be revealed through their choices, their relationships, and their contradictions, while recognizing how identity shapes their lived experiences.

With Malik, I was especially aware of not wanting to speak for him. I also wasn’t trying to reduce him to any single aspect of his identity but to write him as a young person wrestling with purpose, perspective, and his place in a world that doesn’t feel stable or fair. I was drawn to his growth, particularly as his questioning shifts from what he can rely on from the adults around him to what he must take responsibility for himself.

In shaping Malik, I stayed in conversation with former students, which helped ground the work in a way that felt more honest. So, yes, there was a responsibility in writing him. It’s the same responsibility I held for every character: to write each with care, complexity, and restraint, without reducing anyone to a single dimension.

Often, especially in older stories with white protagonists, there’s an uncomfortable “white savior” vibe at play wherever characters of color are involved. But your narrator, JB, who is white, doesn’t pretend to be anybody’s savior. Was it important to you that he have such self-awareness?

There’s been an important shift in how readers and writers think about those dynamics, and that awareness was with me throughout the writing. But I was careful not to let it define the story. I didn’t want that awareness to turn the novel into a response to a “white savior” trope or push the story toward easy conclusions. The novel isn’t trying to avoid discomfort. If anything, I think discomfort is necessary, especially when you’re writing about race, power, and responsibility.

With the protagonist, JB, it was important to me that he not see himself as a savior, nor be written as someone with complete self-awareness. That meant leaning into the messiness of his perspective, in what he understands, in what he misses, and how those gaps shape his relationships with his wife, his students, and Malik.

Like the other main characters in Taught, the goal wasn’t to position JB as good or bad, or to resolve those tensions neatly, but to let readers sit with a character navigating complex realities without fully understanding them. That felt like a more honest way to approach questions of responsibility and self-awareness.

Aside from your own, which novels do you feel handle social-justice issues and matters of race particularly well?

I’m not sure I think about novels in terms of whether they “handle” social justice or race well as a category. What I value most are books that expand my perspective and deepen my empathy. I’m drawn to books that allow me to inhabit lives and experiences I wouldn’t otherwise fully understand.

A few that stayed with me this year are A Particular Kind of Black Man by Tope Folarin, James by Percival Everett, and Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby. They’re very different books, but each creates space for reflection on how race, identity, and injustice shape people’s lives, without losing sight of vivid storytelling.

That balance is what I’m drawn to as a reader and a writer. With Taught, my goal wasn’t to deliver a message about race or social justice, though those themes are certainly present. I was drawn to writing characters who are trying, and often struggling, to understand themselves and the world around them. I’m interested in those moments of growth and self-discovery, whether they’re realized or still unfolding.

Finally, as a debut author, you know how difficult it is to bring a book into the world. Can you share something from your publishing journey that might give an aspiring novelist a little hope?

I think writing a book at its core is an act of hope, but bringing it into the world can test that hope in real ways. What helped me was clarity about my expectations and defining success early in the process. I didn’t begin Taught with the goal of getting it published. I started writing to process a complicated moment, and finishing the manuscript became meaningful on its own. That sense of accomplishment stayed with me as I moved into the complicated publishing phase.

At first, I pursued a traditional publishing path, and in one conversation, an agent told me she admired the writing but that her firm wasn’t looking for a novel like this from a middle-aged white man. It was an uncomfortably direct moment but an important one. It helped me better understand how the industry positions writers and books, and it forced me to clearly define my goals.

Ultimately, I chose a different route. I partnered with a colleague to launch an independent press, One Long Road, and we published Taught as its first title. That decision allowed me to stay aligned with what mattered most: my time, my family, and how I wanted the work to exist in my life. For me, hope came from having a clear plan rather than an endless push for more. Once I was clear about what I wanted from publishing, the process became more manageable. The uncertainty didn’t disappear, but it became easier to make decisions based on my priorities rather than external expectations.

Holly Smith is editor-in-chief of the Independent.

Junod is a longtime magazine writer, perhaps most famous for an article about his friendship with Fred Rogers that was turned into the Tom Hanks movie “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” Given what Junod writes in his memoir, the movie bears little relation to his actual life. (I recommend you skip the Hollywoodification and instead watch the heartwarming Mister Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” in which Junod is one of the featured interviewees.)

Still, it’s hard to deny that the title In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man serves as a coherent summary of Junod’s memoir of his love/fear/revulsion relationship with his profligate but oh-so-stylish father. Lou Junod, a disappointed singer, was a handbag salesman back when handbag salesmen pulled in more than stockbrokers. Indeed, he was a salesman to the core — movie-star attractive, charming, and unwilling to take no for an answer.

Here was a man who preened in his black bikini underwear in front of a full-length mirror, needed his own bathroom to store all the unguents he slathered on each day, and spent hours lying out in the sun with a reflector to keep his perpetual tan. “He was a scrupulously superficial man,” writes Junod, “believing so fervently in the magic of surfaces that his fervor almost passed for profundity and he was able to wear his soul quite literally on his sleeve, like cuff links.” He pursued women, women threw themselves at him, men sometimes threw their women at him (cue the still-repressed homosexuality of the 1970s), and his arms were open to receive them all.

Lou was undoubtedly charismatic, capturing the attention of every eye in any room he entered, but on the page, he comes across not only as cruel to his wife, Fran, and entirely self-involved but as thoroughly irritating. In replicating his father’s speech pattern, Junod uses ellipses to indicate the constant dramatic pauses. “Are you ready for…a hot fudge sundae?” (Said after Lou has used Tom to cover for an assignation with one of his conquests.) “She had quite a little thing…for your father.” (Said of a woman who’d committed suicide.) “Why don’t we take it out…in trade.” (No explanation needed.)

He employs the device liberally throughout. It’s really…annoying.

Junod was his parents’ “love child,” purposefully conceived when his twin siblings, Michael and Cathy, were already 10 years old. That means he was becoming self-aware around the time they were older teenagers and spending much less time at home. Thus, Little Tommy had a very different experience of childhood at home with Fran and Lou, with no filter between him and his increasingly unhappy mother and increasingly philandering father. He saw himself as his mother’s protector, while his father saw him as a project. The challenge: to build this scrawny, weepy little boy into an ideal, real man.

At its heart, though, Youth is something of an advertisement for 23andMe-like testing, or perhaps an argument against it, depending upon one’s tolerance for facing unsavory truths. Junod portrays himself as an inveterate questioner from the start, a spy within his family, taping dinner conversations, nosing into every private corner of the house to discover its occupants’ secrets, trying to understand his parents. As an adult who put that investigative impulse to professional use, he started to delve more deeply into stories he’d heard as a child about his father’s family.

It turns out that Lou is a chip off the old block, but in this case, the block is his mother, a woman who was a major figure in a nationally notorious murder, was married to two men at the same time — though neither of them, including Lou Junod Sr., was the father of Lou Junod Jr. — and was apparently pimping out her eldest daughter and herself to make rent. The author susses out several heretofore-unknown relatives across two generations, including at least one half-sibling. Still, we’ve been reading stories about the exposing of ugly family secrets since genetic testing became widely available to the general public; it’s hardly earth-shaking news (unless, of course, it’s your family).

More problematic is Junod’s insistence on sharing his discoveries with people who might not be thrilled — might, in fact, be traumatized — by the unsought revelations. That things seem to have turned out mostly okay in this respect doesn’t erase the Lou-like sense of entitlement that drives the author to press his information where it may not be welcome. I wonder how all this lands with his brother, Michael, who had a much different experience of Lou, revering him as a wonderful man and father to the day Lou died. Is it helpful to him to be forced to stare into this sun?

Junod has written about his father twice before: in the Mister Rogers story and in a profile in which Lou gives sage fashion advice to men. That all the major players in those pieces have now passed gives him the freedom to write the truth, as he understands it, in unvarnished detail. Youth may draw readers in because Junod is a known name and tells a good story. Perhaps readers will feel a sense of relief in thinking, “Wow, at least my family isn’t as effed up as this one!”

To which the author might reply, “Are you sure?”

Jennifer Bort Yacovissi’s novel, Up the Hill to Home, tells the story of four generations of a family in Washington, DC, from the Civil War to the Great Depression. She reviews regularly for the Independent and serves on its board of directors as president. Follow Jenny on Bluesky at @jbywrites.bsky.social.

This last piece — the cheating — receives the most discussion. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Colleges have struggled to manage the rise in academic-integrity complaints involving generative AI, which stretch the bounds of policies that were crafted primarily to deal with plagiarism.” Assuming the posture of the professor, the Chronicle also asks, “Are we grading robots?” The answer is yes. Sometimes, we are.

This begs the question: Could we be shoved further aside as robots begin to grade robots? Sure we could. An MFA student of mine told me recently that the school district in which she is employed as an English teacher requires her to “grade” the work of her 200+ students using AI. 

The mother of a student whom I once tutored was upset about the state of things in her son’s public school. The day she reached out for my support, she said that his English teachers weren’t assigning literature anymore. “Literature teaches us so much about how to be human, though!” she said. But, as the scholar Jeod says to the dragon rider in her son’s favorite fantasy novel, Christopher Paolini’s Eragon, good books impart wisdom: “These books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life.”

For this reason — making sure our students are reading and writing — many of us in the academy have gone back to basics. We make sure that we see every stage of our students’ work, ask them to write some assignments on paper, give oral instead of digital exams, and so on. We don’t want to grade the work of robots. We want to continue the work that has always involved our minds and our students’ minds interacting with the world through sources created by thinking, feeling, and researching. 

During our time together, that mother’s son and I read Eragon, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and even most of Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. Over the course of our study together, the student did all the things that young people do when they read great books. He thought. He felt. He wondered. He cross-compared. He disagreed. He agreed. He imagined. Then he wrote his own words about it all. And they were good!

But not every kid is doing this kind of work before they get to college. For this reason, I’ve heard my colleagues discuss ways that we can help our college students learn to “think.” Not so much think well, think critically, or think about something in particular. Just think. In one of these meetings, a colleague emphasized the importance of keeping the “human” in the humanities. 

Many of our students, however, are concerned about the manner in which algorithm- and AI-laden platforms affect their emotional health, cognitive processing, and social wellbeing for the worse. Not all of them are passively participating in the industry-driven deterioration of their minds. Such critically engaged students are speaking common sense into this strange landscape. 

One of them writes:

“If I could contribute to changing anything in today’s society, I would focus on reducing the harmful effects that certain forms of social media have on younger people’s self image. Certain platforms [driven by larger social-media companies] promote unrealistic standards and change how younger people view themselves and others [and are] very harmful…I would [like to] push for stronger media literacy in schools and support changes to these platforms to benefit everyone.” 

Another concurs: 

“[I]f I could make a difference in some of the issues of today’s world, I would be committed to alleviating the pressure that young people feel when following the ‘perfect’ life path shaped by social media. This pressure often leads to anxiety, self-comparison, and fear of failure. [I would like to exert] greater pressure on social media platforms to prompt them to change their algorithms that promote unhealthy comparisons.”

Another writes: 

“If I could change anything in today’s society, I would focus on reducing the spread and impact of political misinformation, especially among young voters who are increasingly forming their beliefs through algorithm-driven social media. Misinformation distorts political reality, weakens democratic participation, and makes it harder for people to make informed decisions. [But researchers] are already working within the system to study how misinformation spreads and how it influences public opinion, while journalists and fact-checking groups also attempt to counter false narratives.”

One student linked in an assignment a source called the Center for Humane Technology. I clicked on it, read through the site, and found out that it is a nonprofit founded and run by tech workers “dedicated to ensuring that today’s most consequential technologies, such as AI and social media, actually serve humanity.” I joined the group, feeling grateful to the student writer. Then I felt a bit better about the fact that AI is deeply problematic, that overreliance on it is causing major problems, that its seeds are too deep to uproot, that its momentum is unstoppable, and that its use and development are going to continue. As Atticus said in Mockingbird, though, “Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”

I like these odds when I focus on my critically engaged students. I think I can make more of them like this one, who writes:

“[If I could], I would prioritize building stronger and clearer artificial intelligence guidelines…due to AI currently developing at a rate which outpaces any attempt to establish rules governing AI. As a result, AI will have significant effects on issues such as privacy, employment, and the spread of false or misleading information. Presently, OpenAI and governments, particularly in the case of the EU, are developing policies and regulations regarding the use of AI (including a proposed law called the AI Act) in an effort to ensure that it is utilized in a responsible manner…I would advocate for increased transparency and ethical standards in how AI systems are developed and the ways in which they operate plus ensure that citizens comprehend how decisions are reached and how their data is stored.” 

Parts IV and V of this five-part series, then, will survey the advice of those organizations and individuals calling for us to slow down, retain our thinking skills, increase transparency and ethical standards, and “ensure that AI is utilized in a responsible manner.” These final articles will include bullet-listed “best practices” for educators and others who want to be a part of retaining and developing the human in the digital age.

[Editor’s note: As a postsecondary educator and an educational researcher, Dr. Trembath applied for and received Institutional Review Board (IRB) exemption amounting to permission to use student anecdotes as data in her research and writing, provided that students quoted remain anonymous, as here. She wishes to thank her students for their candor, compassion, and foresight.]

Sarah Trembath is an Eagles fan from the suburbs of Philadelphia who currently lives in Baltimore with her family. She holds a master’s degree in African American literature and a doctorate in Education Policy and Leadership. She is also a writer on faculty at American University. She reviews books for the Independent, has written extensively for other publications, and, in 2019, was the recipient of the American Studies Association’s Gloria Anzaldúa Award for independent scholars for her social-justice writing and teaching. Her collection of essays, This Past Was Waiting For Me: A Chronicle at Quarter Century, is forthcoming this month from Lazuli Literary Group.

As many guys might do if given the chance, Hebert has made his alter ego, Gabe Sanders, an extraordinary baseball player of interest to pro scouts. That’s greatly exaggerated, the author admits, but he really did once deliver pizzas in an ugly yellow Plymouth Horizon TC-3, just like Gabe. (If you don’t remember the Horizon TC-3, imagine a Tesla Cybertruck left in the dryer too long.)

Delivery is set in summer 1993, just before Gabe’s senior year. The entire story, save for a few flashbacks, takes place between 3:09 p.m. one afternoon and dawn the next morning. Time-stamped chapter heads seem to strain credulity, until you recall just how much could happen in a single epic night when you were a teenager in an era before cellphones or GPS.

This particular night, Gabe’s one of only two delivery people on the job for Apollo Pizza. The other is Lena, a woman who’s a few years older and a few years wiser. She’s put a CB radio in Gabe’s car so the two of them can stay in touch as they hurry square boxes to hungry customers all over the greater Syracuse area. She often provides him with directions (in more ways than one) when he gets lost.

Although they’re competing to beat the record for the most deliveries in a single shift, she does her best to motivate him to be speedy — in part because she’s desperate (for her own reasons) to finish at a very specific time. But it’s tough because despite Gabe’s good intentions, he’s all too easily distracted.

Somehow, his detours include visits with the girlfriend he seems to be losing, as well as with teammates eager to talk him out of skipping tomorrow’s game. He also spends time with a few quirky customers; provides dating advice and a set-up for a shy friend; argues with a vegan about pepperoni; manages to put in an important appearance at a parents-are-away party; convinces a cop not to give him a ticket; and even squeezes in a trip to the gym.

It’s no wonder, he observes, that “the pizzas were getting cold. The pizzas were always getting cold.”

There are moments when a reader might think, “Get back IN THE CAR, Gabe!” (This one did.) But even if things sometimes get a little hard to believe, you’ll want to know how the story ends.

Despite Lena’s teasing that Gabe spends too much time in his car thinking about nothing — which she characterizes as “the universal condition of teenage boys” — that’s not quite true. He enjoys reciting pizza prices because they’re “like police code, meaningless unless you were in the know. $13.80 meant large, one topping, tax included.”

He also notes how really good ballplayers all “went to high schools in one of those ending-in-a states we stole from Mexico so old people wouldn’t have to be cold all winter long: Florida, Arizona, California.” And a friend’s truck model name “was one of those long strings of letters and numbers that was supposed to make you feel like you were in a serious machine capable of serious things.”

These are the sorts of shallow-end observations a young man might confidently make while quietly struggling to determine what’s truly important in life.

Reading a book written by a guy, and about a guy, felt a bit unusual for me. I realized that most of what I’ve read lately has been by women, and the trend is clear: In 2020, the majority of new books was written by women (versus 18 percent in the 1960s), and, as of 2021, books by women outsold those by men.

While it was a surprise to learn the pie is, indeed, being sliced differently these days, there’s still plenty of room on the shelf for this fun, nicely written male tale of a simpler time not all that long ago. Like a good pizza, Delivery is quite tasty without being too cheesy, and at just 216 pages, it’ll probably be consumed nearly as fast.

Randy Cepuch is a member of the Independent’s board of directors and a frequent reviewer who once owned a yellow Plymouth Horizon TC-3.

1. The 2026 Washington Writers Conference. “Join us for the premier writing event in the DC area to network with fellow writers, learn from publishing pros during panels and workshops, and, most importantly, pitch directly to literary agents!”


2. Madeleine de Visé’s review of Heap Earth Upon It: A Novel by Chloe Michelle Howarth (Melville House). “I almost wish I hadn’t read Chloe Michelle Howarth’s debut novel, Sunburn. I liked it so much that I leapt at the chance to review her second, Heap Earth Upon It, hoping for more of the same. Unfortunately, these books are as different as the seasons. Where Sunburn is an overexposed photograph of an endless summer afternoon, Heap Earth Upon It evokes the cruelest days of early spring. It’s all melting snow and naked earth — the land at its ugliest.”


3. Terri Lewis’ review of Canticle: A Novel by Janet Rich Edwards (Spiegel & Grau). “In a surprise near the end, a fourth character is introduced: Marte, an innocent who takes us inside the power and danger of translation. Her version of the story of Lot, his wife, and the pillar of salt is telling and hilarious. It’s clear that she understands the world and how it’s set against women. (And the reader will understand how women who believe in God might come to doubt scripture upon hearing it in their own language.)”


4. Mariko Hewer’s review of London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday). “If the narrative seemed suspect, the police were equally unhelpful. They declined to share significant details of their investigation with the Brettlers, and what they did make available gave the grieving parents more cause for worry: It seemed the case was being bungled — or worse, intentionally sidelined. Rachelle and Matthew soon realized they’d have to do their own legwork and uncover their own answers.”


5. “An Interview with Desiree Cooper” by Mary Kay Zuravleff. “Summer can be complicated. We romanticize it as a season of freedom and fun, but for adults making a living — and for children growing up without access to summer programs or safe places to play — it rarely is. Readers with their own strong memories of summertime will find 28 versions of what summer means to people who are like them and people who are different. The writers are aged 16-74. They are queer and Afro Latinx. Many write about childhoods, but many write about how they embrace summer joy as adults. Together, they offer a view of Black life in the urban outdoors.”

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“Simplified spelling is all right, but like chastity, you can carry it too far.”

– Mark Twain

What words in the English language do you think should be spelt, er, spelled differently? No matter which ones they are, you’re likely to have notable allies — perhaps even including Andrew Carnegie, Benjamin Franklin, C.S. Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, and Upton Sinclair, all of whom advocated for simpler spelling.

And it’s not that they (and you) don’t have a point: English spelling is often illogical and even nonsensical. As author Gabe Henry observes in enough is enuf, we have 26 letters but 44 sounds, with so many letters doing double duty — such as c in cup, lace, and charge, or h in honor, thicket, and laugh. Also, there’s an average of four ways to spell each of those 44 sounds; consider cat, kid, chrome, and queen.

Hundreds of years ago, nobody cared. Shakespeare wasn’t consistent with the spelling of his own name. But as books became more common and literacy more widespread, adhering to standards made life easier for printers and readers. In 1755, British writer Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of the English Language — eight years in the making — then by far the most ambitious effort to establish what words meant and how to spell them.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the Revolutionary War was underway, and Americanisms were evolving, partly out of hatred for the British enemy. When the war ended, still angry but newly independent Americans talked of adopting a language other than English.

Noah Webster, who’d previously peddled spelling books based on Johnson’s dictionary, suggested a more manageable compromise: no-nonsense spelling. He set to work on an American Dictionary that dwarfed Johnson’s project, including more than 70,000 words versus Johnson’s 40,000. Its publication in 1828 effectively launched American English, generally by simplifying British English. Among the examples: “Draught” became “Draft,” “Cheque” became “Check,” “Programme” became “Program,” and “Colour” became “Color.” (Founding Father Ben Franklin, a budget-conscious printer who complained that silent letters were costly, would’ve approved.)

Still, it wasn’t enough for some people, and their stories — mostly well-intentioned but amusing failures — fill the remaining pages of enough is enuf. Brigham Young, for one, promoted a new alphabet he felt would help distinguish the Mormon Church and serve as “a symbol of unity and a barrier to assimilation,” but his flock chose not to follow.

Andrew Carnegie, responsible for building more than 2,500 libraries across the country, formed the Simplified Spelling Board in 1906 and was roundly ridiculed by the press. Less than 30 years later, though, the Chicago Tribune introduced what it called Saner Spelling — changing the way 24 words were spelled in the daily paper (e.g., “hockey” became “hocky” and “definitely” became “definitly”). Readers didn’t respond favorably.

Mark Twain waffled on the desirability of consistent spelling. At one point, he opined, “Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing.” But he also said, “Simplified spelling is all right, but like chastity, you can carry it too far.”

George Bernard Shaw did go too far, endowing part of his estate to fund the construction of a new alphabet with at least 40 letters. We still use the same old 26.

Of course, English evolves. New words appear and old words change: “aeroplane” became “airplane,” for instance. And advertisers have long teased us with creative spellings (Cheez-It, Tastykakes, Kleenex, Kool-Aid, Krispy Kreme, Kit-Kat) and claims of services that will make your life “EZ.” Prince was using “U” for “you” well before texting arrived to make that terser alternative near-ubiquitous.

For its part, rock ‘n’ roll has given us band names like U2, Split Enz, and Def Leppard, plus song titles like “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and “Cum on Feel the Noize.” In most cases, these represent intentional rebellion and haven’t spread. But only a pedant would argue that the Who’s “The Kids Are Alright” isn’t spelled just as it should be.

Whether or not you’re one of those people who’s even now turning the aforementioned into “all right,” you’re likely to enjoy this book if you’re curious about our language. A minor caveat, however: If you have some pedantic leanings (guilty!), there may be a few too many “cleverly” spelled bits, including several chapter titles (“A Nue Merrykin Dikshunary,” “The Sentinial Ekspozishun,” “Ruzevelt Spelling,” etc.). Proceed with cawshun.

[Editor’s note: This review originally ran in 2025.]

Randy Cepuch is a member of the Independent’s board of directors, a frequent reviewer, and a big fan of Cheez-Its. He has a list of the 28 different ways he’s seen his own last name misspelled — most more or less plausible and a few that might be distinct improvements.

The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu (Tor Books). Reviewed by Andrea M. Pawley. “Infinite universes and skunkworks exist, and maintaining them is crucial. The universes’ physics will be compromised if anomalies in the skunkworks’ gates and valves aren’t fixed. When Ellie encounters one such anomaly keeping her comatose mother alive, she knows that leaving the faulty area alone is out of the question; Vera would never let such an irregularity persist. So, Ellie corrects it, and her mother dies. The fix was the right thing to do. Vera’s illness had gone on for an inexplicable amount of time, after all, and caused a great deal of suffering.”

Brand New Beat: The Wild Rise of Rolling Stone Magazine by Peter Richardson (University of California Press). Reviewed by Douglas C. MacLeod Jr. “But Brand New Beat is more than a sweeping chronicle of a magazine and its creators. Richardson’s impressive work is also a timeline of what was happening in America during the 1960s and 1970s. By weaving a chapter-by-chapter tapestry that expertly combines popular culture, economics, politics, and social shifts, the author has crafted an able study of American-style capitalism and the volatile space it inhabits.”

Tailbone: A Novel by Che Yeun (Bloomsbury Publishing). Reviewed by Alice Stephens. “With her ill-begotten gains, the girl blows her money on junk food, makeup, and cigarettes. Free to be an ‘irresponsible selfish slob,’ she fritters the days away, eating corn dogs, dyeing her hair, and aimlessly riding the metro. On a train, an older man asks if she’s being sex-trafficked. ‘We really used to be a country full of girls like that,’ he tells her. ‘Sold all over the country…That’s how poor they used to be. How poor we all used to be. Before the war and after. But all that’s gone now. Now it’s just girls like you, healthy and educated and sure and lazy. That’s what happens when you’re free to go anywhere you want.’ Despite South Korea’s hard-won prosperity, women are still selling their bodies to survive.”

The Winter Warriors: A Novel by Olivier Norek (Atlantic Monthly Press). Reviewed by Lawrence De Maria. “The Finns battled the elements, too, of course. But they had warm clothing and fast skis, the latter of which they utilized masterfully. By the end of the brief war — which concluded in March 1940 after diplomatic maneuvering by the Allies, whose attention was focused warily on the Nazis — Finland had suffered around 70,000 casualties. Unofficial reports put the Soviet Union’s casualty count exponentially higher. Stalin had expected a walkover. Instead, he got a wake-up call.”

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What does it mean in 2025 to be a Jew in America? It is sometimes to be demonized by the far right and the radical left. Or to be a pawn in the political wars, where antisemitism has become not so much anathema as, in the hands of demagogues, opposition to it has become a cynical tool, an excuse to achieve other ends — like withdrawing federal funds from universities or criminalizing free speech.

*****

Kate Clayborn’s The Paris Match (Berkley) shines as a beautifully written, emotionally layered tale set in the City of Light.

Physician Layla Bailey travels to Paris for her former sister-in-law’s wedding, forcing her to confront the reality of her so-called “amicable” divorce. What begins as an uncomfortable reunion quickly becomes more complicated when Layla finds herself clashing with Griffin Testa, the groom’s brooding, fiercely loyal best man. After a misunderstanding leaves the wedding in jeopardy, the two are reluctantly thrown together in order to smooth things over — though their growing connection soon overshadows the festivities.

Clayborn excels at crafting complex, mature characters, and both Layla and Griffin feel vividly real. Layla’s emotional journey — reckoning with loss, identity, and the cost of staying “friendly” after heartbreak — is handled with care. Griffin, bearing the physical and emotional scars of past trauma and living with chronic pain, is equally compelling. He’s guarded yet tender, with a quiet intensity that makes his vulnerability all the more powerful.

Their relationship blossoms at a slow burn, with plenty of sharp banter, mutual respect, and an intimacy that develops in an authentic and honest way. The dual perspectives enrich the story, allowing readers to fully appreciate each of their viewpoints and the depth of the bond they’re building.

With all the beauty and elegance of Paris as a backdrop, The Paris Match delivers romantic escapism with a heartwarming emotional center. Reflective, poignant, and ultimately hopeful, it’s a standout story about second chances, self-discovery, and the courage it takes to open your heart again.

*****

Alisha Rai takes readers on a whirlwind road trip in the fast-paced romantic adventure Enemies to Lovers (Avon).

When con artist Sejal Chaudhary crosses paths with Krish Anand — who is very much not the FBI agent he claims to be — the two form a reluctant partnership and embark on a cross-country mission driven by desperation and laced with danger. With Krish’s FBI-agent brother Avi missing, the criminal syndicate once led by his mother involved, and Sejal’s dangerous ex closing in, their uneasy alliance quickly turns into a string of narrow escapes, clever twists, and undeniable chemistry.

What makes the story special is the emotional depth Rai brings to her characters. Shaped by a lifetime of instability and betrayal, Sejal is street-smart, guarded, and self-reliant. Krish, despite his deception, is an unexpectedly sensitive hero determined to find his brother and quietly courageous in his growing desire to protect Sejal. Their dynamic unfolds beautifully, shifting from suspicion to trust, with a romance that builds through small, meaningful moments as they begin to see and understand each other beyond their defenses. The enemies-to-lovers arc is deftly paced, and the mounting anticipation of their revealed vulnerability feels well-earned.

Rai also weaves in thoughtful explorations of family — both the ones we’re born into and the ones we choose. Balancing humor, action, and romance, Enemies to Lovers is as entertaining as Rai’s previous caper, Partners in Crime. Readers who enjoyed the first book in the series will appreciate revisiting familiar characters and will be eager for the next installment.

*****

Mallory Kass’ sparkling debut, Save the Date (Atria), is a wedding-weekend romance that weaves humor and heart into a delightfully messy story of love in all its forms.

Set on a picturesque island off the coast of Maine, the novel follows three women — bride Marigold, maid of honor Natalie, and Marigold’s older sister, Olivia — as the celebration begins to fall apart in increasingly dramatic ways. When a secret from Marigold’s past threatens to derail the nuptials entirely, the weekend spirals into a series of unexpected detours, forcing each woman to confront long-buried truths about love, loyalty, and the lives they’ve built.

Kass’ careful development of her central characters elevates this tale beyond the usual romcom. Chaotic Marigold grapples with putting her past behind her in order to move forward into the life she thinks she wants; devoted best friend Natalie is determined to get through the wedding despite her quiet, long-held passion for the groom; and no-nonsense Olivia finds herself in an opposites-attract, fake-dating scenario that challenges her in unexpected ways. Each woman’s story unfolds over the course of the weekend, and their different perspectives allow for complex explorations of romance and self-discovery.

The seaside setting provides a breezy backdrop as the protagonists juggle complicated family dynamics, the weight of others’ expectations, and the yearning to choose their own happiness. Warm, witty, and heartfelt, Save the Date is a perfect feel-good read for spring.

Kristina Wright lives in Virginia with her husband, their two sons, two Goldendoodles, and a ginger cat. She’s a regular contributor at BookBub and a lifelong fan of romance fiction. Find her on Bluesky at @kristinawright.

(I was reminded of my favorite optometrist joke: A Czechoslovakian sits in the chair, and the doctor asks him to read a line on an eye chart. “Read it?” the man replies. “I know that guy!”)

Aside from being overwhelmed by monikers as lengthy as a Siberian winter, I had shivers down my spine while reading this excellent book. Literally.

It was cold when Stalin invaded Finland in November 1939. How cold? The cannon-fodder conscripts (usually Ukrainians and other non-Russian minorities deemed expendable) froze to death in large numbers because the Soviets failed to provide them with proper winter garb. When these men were shot, their chances of making it often hinged on whether the wound froze before they bled out.

Like I said, it was cold.

Stalin’s unprovoked attack found most everybody sympathetic to Finland. Hardly anyone could understand why the gigantic Soviet Union (population 170 million) would manufacture a border crisis with a young, tiny nation (population 3.7 million) and then invade it. More confounding, the Great Leader in Moscow didn’t bother with logistics, skimping on medical and other supplies for his poorly trained troops.

When it’s 50 degrees below zero, the ability to keep moving is vital. Many Red Army soldiers who fell asleep on guard duty froze solid. And if it’d been their job to keep their comrades awake? Well, it was icicle city for the whole platoon. (Further accelerating the Soviet mortality rate: Each unit had a resident political commissar who thought nothing of summarily executing soldiers — including officers — whose performance made Mother Russia look bad.)

The Finns battled the elements, too, of course. But they had warm clothing and fast skis, the latter of which they utilized masterfully. By the end of the brief war — which concluded in March 1940 after diplomatic maneuvering by the Allies, whose attention was focused warily on the Nazis — Finland had suffered around 70,000 casualties. Unofficial reports put the Soviet Union’s casualty count exponentially higher. Stalin had expected a walkover. Instead, he got a wake-up call.

There are several outstanding characters here, first among them Simo Häyhä, the uncannily skilled Finnish sniper dubbed (with grudging respect) “the White Death” by his enemy targets. There’s Lieutenant Aarne Juutilainen, a drunkard who’s so mean and reckless that he’s nicknamed “the Terror” by his own men (but who’s also a whiz at killing Red Army soldiers). And there’s Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, a decorated military leader revered in Finland to this day.

All of these people were real, and the internet makes it easy to find out what happened to them. But don’t go looking online — at least, not until you’ve read this terrific novel. In skillfully retelling their story, Olivier Norek reveals that Finland’s sons didn’t die in vain during the Winter War. In fact, when Hitler foolishly invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he was met by brutal cold and scores of appropriately clad Reds on skis. A Russian soldier said his unit had learned it from the Finns.

Since 2005, Lawrence De Maria has written 40 thrillers and mysteries on Amazon.

Usually, such a tale is told solely from a viewpoint sympathetic to the Nazi opposition, as in the Willi Geismeier series I recently wrote about. That one starred a veteran of World War I who moves onto resisting the Nazis in WWII. Hearts sets up an archeological dig in Greece and features a Berlin professor keen on finding Odysseus’ grave. The narrative is framed by a modern-day history teacher in England who’s also the granddaughter of a Greek resistance fighter.

That’s plenty of material for a long story. The Nazis here are still brutal, but some of the protagonists — including the Berlin professor and his conflicted son, as well as the would-be German boyfriend of the present-day teacher — are quite sympathetic.

Scarrow is a bestselling Sunday Times author who has also written a series set in wartime Berlin, as well as an earlier series anchored in Roman times. He’s prolific, so anyone looking for true depth is unlikely to find it here.

Still, this standalone novel is absorbing and intriguing. It takes you to a little-known episode in history and stands out for its brave characters and complex plot. It also informs readers about Greek resistance to first Italian and then German occupation. (Both sets of invaders come off pretty badly.)

I’ve enjoyed archeology and books about it since reading Agatha Christie, whose second marriage — to archeologist Max Mallowan — had a significant impact on her mysteries. Simon Scarrow’s Hearts of Stone is a worthy addition to this particular canon.

Darrell Delamaide has written a novel of historical fiction, The Grand Mirage, and the financial thriller Gold. He has also written two books of nonfiction.

Che Yeun’s debut novel, Tailbone, depicts this precipice through the first-person lens of an unnamed teenager struggling to survive the global recession of 2008. In her final year of high school, her grades plummet, and she drops out. There is no refuge at home. After losing his managerial job in the financial crisis of 1997, her father toils as an underling to much younger bosses, spending his nights pouring drinks for them, returning home drunk and angry to take out his frustration on his wife. She despises her mother for her weakness, hating her acquiescence to her father’s abuse and to her sad and lonely life.

One sticky summer day, the girl runs away from home and rents a room in a women’s boardinghouse where the only rule is no smoking and the stairwells are strewn with cigarette butts. The place is in a decaying, dead-end Seoul alley, with neighbors who illegally dump their garbage on each other’s property. Even the landlady warns her away:

“None of you girls should be living here. I would rip out my eyes if I knew my daughter was living like this.”

The girl finds a role model in Juju, who is approaching 30 and, along with the rest of the boarders, “dated old desperate idiot men to feed their hunger for pretty things. When the hunger grew, they added new idiot creeps to their contact lists on their phones. When even that wasn’t enough, they fooled around with credit cards and payday loans. As the bills mounted, they hunted down even more lonely idiot creeps to settle their accounts for them.”

From her blonde dye job to her tinted contact lenses to her surgically enhanced bust, Juju is a do-it-yourself Frankenstein’s monster. Like that doomed creature, she is desperate for human love, which she thinks she has found with Min, who drives a flashy car, wears fancy suits, and is engaged to a woman from a wealthy family.

Juju shows the girl how to apply for loans under the protagonist’s mother’s name. When she suggests using her father’s name instead, Juju advises, “Always go with mothers…Mothers comply. Even after they find out you’ve thrown them in debt, they just quietly accept the situation and pay off the loan themselves. Mothers don’t call the police or fight back.”

With her ill-begotten gains, the girl blows her money on junk food, makeup, and cigarettes. Free to be an “irresponsible selfish slob,” she fritters the days away, eating corn dogs, dyeing her hair, and aimlessly riding the metro. On a train, an older man asks if she’s being sex-trafficked. “We really used to be a country full of girls like that,” he tells her. “Sold all over the country…That’s how poor they used to be. How poor we all used to be. Before the war and after. But all that’s gone now. Now it’s just girls like you, healthy and educated and sure and lazy. That’s what happens when you’re free to go anywhere you want.” Despite South Korea’s hard-won prosperity, women are still selling their bodies to survive.

The only path out that the protagonist can imagine is to become a flight attendant. Then, she might find a rich man and trap him into marriage, or at least be kept in a nice apartment. But she can’t afford the tuition for the training, and Juju tells her she’s too short, anyway. A departing boarder has left behind a flight-attendant uniform, which she wears around town as a status symbol, basking in the looks of admiration it garners. She also wears it when she engages in sex work for the first time.

When she returns home with the cash she has just earned, her mother refuses her money and turns her away:

“After you left, the house got quiet. That’s when I realized, you were such a loud child. Not your mouth. But your whole body was loud. Everything you needed was screaming at me all the time. A respectable family. A nice bed. A cozy dinner. We never got you that digital camera. There was too much I couldn’t give you.”

Through the blunt yet incisive narrative of one teenage girl, Tailbone presents a frightening portrait of a nation whose rapid economic success has been achieved at the cost of rapid social disintegration. A society built on relentless competition means close bonds — between women, romantic partners, and even parents and children — are tested to the breaking point. Yeun’s bleak and all-too-plausible novel warns us that at the bottom of South Korea’s precipice yawns a very dark abyss.

Born in Korea, Alice Stephens is the author of the novel Famous Adopted People. Her historical novel, The Twain: A Tale of Nagasaki, is forthcoming in February 2027. 

That’s why Peabody — who is also the author of myriad works of prose and poetry — will receive the Independent’s Lifetime Achievement Award during the 2026 Washington Writers Conference.

The award, presented annually by the Independent’s board of directors, recognizes “a DC-based or -focused person who has made a long-term, significant contribution to the readers and writers of the Washington, DC, area and beyond, especially in ways that encourage others to contribute to and grow a literary community rich in independent thought and boundless curiosity.”

Past recipients are former Maryland poet laureate Grace Cavalieri; bestselling biographer Kitty Kelley; celebrated poet E. Ethelbert Miller; prolific author Paul Dickson; longtime Washington Post reporter/editor Eugene L. Meyer; author, teacher, and co-founder of the Hurston/Wright Foundation Marita Golden; and author and co-founder/first president of the Independent David O. Stewart.

The Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented by noted poet, novelist, and playwright Rose Solari during the 2026 Washington Writers Conference on Saturday, May 2nd, in Rockville, MD.

Before the age of AI, easy-to-scroll-through websites, and impersonal Zoom meetings, scribes like Cameron Crowe, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, and others sat in front of beat-up typewriters in drug-fueled hazes and pecked away until they came up with their next pieces of precise prose. Their ideas were original, their interviews were raw, and their hands hurt. Throbbing with piss and vinegar, these journalists were ready to sound off with hard-hitting critiques and commentary.

Richardson appreciatively points out that Rolling Stone’s editors and contributors opined — with panache and a great deal of care — on whatever pop-culture topics suited them, and he demonstrates his admiration via his book’s four distinct parts. He first explores the magazine’s 1967 birth in the Bay Area; next, its slow but steady move into the mainstream; then, its continued expansion and editorial shift during the 1970s; and, finally, its gonzo leanings during what co-founder Jann Wenner would call the magazine’s golden age.

As well-known and influential as Rolling Stone was and is, Richardson is honest about its tumultuous and “sprawling” history, while also praising it for being a staple of the American zeitgeist since its inception. According to the author, four things have kept the magazine relevant: its complicated relationship with the counterculture; its “conception of rock music and its significance”; its connections with the Free Speech Movement and with Ramparts, another San Francisco magazine; and its unique narrative take on politics, which exposed how unobjective the mainstream media could be.

Each of these themes is carefully presented in extreme detail, and Richardson attempts to blow any misconceptions about Rolling Stone out of the water — the most egregious being that it’s a magazine about the music industry written by a bunch of hippies. Perpetuating this calumny would, he claims, “underestimate both the counterculture and the magazine that covered it.”

Rolling Stone’s early contributors, including Ralph J. Gleason, Ben Fong-Torres, Robert Christgau, and Jon Landau — many of whom lived in San Francisco during the apex of Haight-Ashbury’s Beatnik scene — were polished pros who understood that rock ‘n’ roll, politics, and culture were linked. This led to erudite but accessible articles devoted to a variety of noteworthy topics that just so happened to revolve around music: the Summer of Love; LSD; conservatives’ outrage over hippies; John Lennon; the deadly stabbing at Altamont; Woodstock; the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin; Vietnam — the list goes on.

But Brand New Beat is more than a sweeping chronicle of a magazine and its creators. Richardson’s impressive work is also a timeline of what was happening in America during the 1960s and 1970s. By weaving a chapter-by-chapter tapestry that expertly combines popular culture, economics, politics, and social shifts, the author has crafted an able study of American-style capitalism and the volatile space it inhabits.

In his final chapters, Richardson speaks of how, in the magazine’s early days, misogyny was the norm. The 1960s workforce, after all, was male-dominated and patriarchal. But the rise of the feminist movement in the 1970s meant a tonal shift was needed. Rolling Stone changed with the times by hiring more women writers and editors. With these changes came a rise in the magazine’s readership and more diversity in its tone. Marianne Partridge, Judith Sims, Ellen Willis, and others joined the team, making the magazine more inclusive by broadening its editorial remit.  

Richardson spends much of the book speaking about Rolling Stone as a juggernaut of publishing, one that seems always to have its finger on the pulse. Throughout Brand New Beat, he offers a master class in how to tell the story of a cultural icon. When singular voices and quality material come together, magic can happen, and Rolling Stone is testament to that.

Dr. Douglas C. MacLeod Jr. is a professor of composition and communication at SUNY Cobleskill Ag & Tech. He is also a freelance book reviewer who has worked for both peer-reviewed journals and periodicals. He writes regularly for Rain Taxi, the Feathered Quill, Kirkus, On the Seawall, and ArtsFuse, and his work can be read in a variety of other online and print publications. He lives in New York with his wife, Patty, and his dog, Fifi.

Ellie knows how to keep all the universes running. Her mother, Vera, taught her everything about being a builder who repairs the skunkworks, the ancient plumbing of Ellie’s universe and every other universe nested inside it. Infinite universes and skunkworks exist, and maintaining them is crucial. The universes’ physics will be compromised if anomalies in the skunkworks’ gates and valves aren’t fixed.

When Ellie encounters one such anomaly keeping her comatose mother alive, she knows that leaving the faulty area alone is out of the question; Vera would never let such an irregularity persist. So, Ellie corrects it, and her mother dies. The fix was the right thing to do. Vera’s illness had gone on for an inexplicable amount of time, after all, and caused a great deal of suffering.

Still, few see Ellie’s action as a professional responsibility or a necessary kindness. Now, her colleagues don’t trust her. Worse, she’s blamed by much of her Taiwanese American family for causing Vera’s death. Ellie’s sister, Chris, piles on the guilt with a ferocity even greater than what she uses to stage assassination attempts of Ellie. The intriguing relationship between the sisters provides the novel’s emotional heart. Chris says the assassination attempts are to keep Ellie sharp in case isolationists try to kill her. In reality, she’s jealous of Ellie’s bond with their deceased mom.

For her part, Ellie suspects something more was going on with her mother’s anomaly, and her cousin Daniel thinks the same. He’s the only one who understands why Ellie did what she did. The two have been friends since they were kids. Daniel is a skunkworks verifier, someone who checks “whether architects have designed the right thing and whether they have designed the thing right.” His reputation is for sternness, but he’s kind to everyone — from his sad, often-rejected cousin, Ellie, to his hot, opera-singing boyfriend, Belt.

The skunkworks may appear chaotic, but the way Daniel probes anomalies and verifies corrections appears perfect. Most verifier reports come out as something crystalline; his manifest as food, perhaps even a “bright yellow custard” that “sits inside a pale, blonde serrated crust.” Sumptuous dishes appear not only in Daniel’s verifier reports but also in elaborate meals that might include “chili-flecked cucumbers next to thin slices of radish next to tangles of sesame-specked pig ears” or “garlic fried rice with soy-ginger glazed tilapia.”

The reader may struggle to recall Ellie’s appearance, but through her eyes, everything about Daniel is known. He’s “lithe and stocky at the same time, as though he were the runt of a family of impossibly elegant giants.” His voice is “the rustle of leaves and the rush of water as it smooths rocks.” When Daniel lifts a car so that a jack can be placed underneath, “The only giveaway that it takes him any effort at all is that he lifts the car with exquisite form.”

Like Ellie, Daniel wonders who installed the anomaly related to Aunt Vera and why it was allowed to persist. A larger conspiracy is suspected, perhaps even one that includes isolationists. Just like her efforts to connect with Chris, Ellie’s attempts to investigate the anomaly’s origins keep coming to nothing. Only when the Chief Architect of the skunkworks brings her and Daniel into her confidence is it clear that various factions are hiding something.

To uncover what’s going on, Ellie will need to embrace the mysteries of the skunkworks and those of her broken family. Watching her face her insecurities and use her technical skills to forge ahead makes The Subtle Art of Folding Space a fast-paced adventure that is both wildly creative and fully absorbing.

[Editor’s note: John Chu will appear at the Gaithersburg Book Festival in Gaithersburg, MD, on Saturday, May 16th. Learn more here.]

Andrea M. Pawley lives and writes in Washington, DC, her favorite city in the whole world.

First of all, I’m so sorry you had to weather such heartbreak. In the midst of caring for your daughter, Anna, until her death at 20 years old, your wife, Kate, died of lung cancer. Thank you for writing this tribute to your family, an account I found both honest and helpful (if that’s appropriate to say).

It is a little odd, perhaps, for me to be sharing the calamities of my life, but as my daughter Jane points out, “That’s something you do.” I have some mild hopes that others suffering grief and loss might possibly find some solace in the book.

Hundreds gathered to commemorate Kate in 2012 and Anna in 2015. You understandably report that you remember nothing from either funeral. Well, you remember the “hugs I received, joyful anecdotes shared.” How were you able to excavate memories of your struggle and joys to write this book?

I started writing Ribbon during covid, so I had plenty of time to pore over my thoughts. I did a lot of roaming through the nearly empty streets of Greenwich Village (where I have lived for the past 30 years) thinking aloud. I also literally paced around my apartment, free-associating into my phone. Eventually, images and phrases and encounters started flowing back into my consciousness.

As many books on grief are a compendium of platitudes, I appreciated your writing that “sometimes I did not wish to be consoled, wished only to remind myself how sad I was.” You add, “Grief is like weather; you live in it, you notice it sometimes, and sometimes it is just there.” That struck me as insightful, and so I was amused to read the follow-up: “OK, I said that.” Can you talk about being wry and even funny or silly in these pages?

Well, humor has always gotten me through.  And since the book is, to some extent, about finding a way back into semi-normal life, it was important to me to let some humor, some wry observations into the mix. I did not want this book to be merely bleak and sorrowful, because life is also absurd and even sometimes beautiful despite the darkness.

I scribbled on the top of page 94, “How I wish this were a novel.” I didn’t want this account to be nonfiction, let alone to have happened to you. Since the “horrible stupid” deaths of your loved ones, you wrote a novel, Dangerous Blues, that visited sorrow and ghosts. Did that inspire you to face the past head-on in nonfiction?

I am more attuned to writing fiction, but when I thought about Kate’s life and Anna’s life being cut so short, I knew I could not do it justice without actually writing what happened. Especially for Anna, whose sweet voice was obliterated by this dreadful and obscure illness. I wanted to be her voice, to illuminate her life truthfully. I like to think I have used my novelist’s instincts to capture details and give the story an arc, but I always sensed it would be a memoir.

You and Kate decided to adopt a second child from China, whom I can attest has grown into a lovely, engaging adult, a credit to Kate and you! Early in the book, you talk about guiding her through the “morass of loss” and describe how “helping her helped me.” Later, she says, “Despite Mommy and Anna dying, I sometimes think I have the least dysfunctional family of any of my friends.” How has she responded to the book, and do you think she might ever write about those years?

She has already told me that she probably won’t read the book. But she comes to all my readings and brings her friends, so I know she understands what I do and why I do it. I would not be completely surprised if she someday wanted to write her version of this difficult time in her life. But she is much less haunted by the past than I am (and thus a healthier person, no doubt), so maybe not. Of course, I hope that her life is happy enough that she won’t need to unearth this sorrow. 

You and Kate went to the ends of the earth — and your budget — to help Anna. When she was diagnosed with NPC at 4 years old, the geneticist said, “Sorry about that,” and the Mayo Clinic specialist, who spoke of experimental drugs in the pipeline, said, “Positive thinking is what we all need right now.” Amid this grim prognosis, Anna attracts amazing friends and devoted helpers. Rather than railing against the healthcare system and lack of disability care, you wrote a patient-advocacy manual alongside a celebration of Anna’s uncanny ability to enjoy herself and others. Was that always your writing plan?

I certainly have railed about our healthcare system to friends and family, mostly about Kate’s care. Anna got fairly good care considering the obscurity of her illness. Sadly, patients with lung cancer are treated as if they have willed their own deaths, and Kate got pretty terrible care. But this was not the book I wanted to write. Anna was so much more than the terrible symptoms of Niemann-Pick C. The joy she found in life — even as she struggled to live — was inspiring. Kate and Anna were both larger-than-life personalities whose lives present the case that celebrating is better than mourning. I still mourn their deaths, but I also wanted to honor the beauty and delight they found in even the banal moments of everyday life.

What is the story behind the book’s title?

I struggled with that. At one point, I was going to call it Grief Collage, but various people told me that might not exactly draw readers in. I also considered Box of Rain, a Grateful Dead song beloved by both Kate and Anna, who frequently bellowed along when we played it. But that seemed too opaque. The final verse of that song suggests that life is somehow like a ribbon for your hair, which resonated because Anna loved sparkly ribbons and bows, and because the image seems profound — the ribbon of life, the ribbon of time. I added the subtitle, Loss. More Loss. And How We (Sort of) Went On, which sums up the story. The “(Sort of)” is one of the points the book makes: If you survive grief and loss, it is always only sort of. 

Mary Kay Zuravleff is the author of four novels, including American Ending, an Oprah Spring Book Pick, and Man Alive!, a Washington Post Notable Book.

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In How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy’s Guide to Silencing Women, Zoe Venditozzi and Claire Mitchell remind us of the term’s origin: In the 1500-1600s, thousands of people (mostly women) were accused and convicted of witchcraft. They suffered the insult of having their names, and often those of their families and acquaintances, dragged through the mud based on vague, spiteful allegations.

As if that weren’t enough, many of them were strangled to death and then burned so their bodies wouldn’t reanimate as zombies. (Yes, you read that right.) These victims weren’t simply killed; religious and secular authorities removed them wholesale from the historical record as punishment for their imagined sins.

Good thing those days are long behind us, right?

Here’s what Mitchell and Venditozzi have to say about the people convicted under the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563:

“[N]owhere in the legislation does it mention that witches were most likely to be women. Indeed, the wording is entirely gender-neutral. How odd then that of the four thousand or so people accused of witchcraft in Scotland between 1563 and 1736 (when the act was repealed), 85 percent of them were women. It’s almost as if there was some inherent bias against women in this patriarchal society.”

Unfortunately, that doesn’t sound so old-fashioned or far-fetched. In fact, women are still being accused of (and persecuted for) witchcraft — as in the case of a Nigerian child known as Miss B, who, in 2023, was tortured by fire for hours in front of her horrified father, then forced to flee her home with her family for fear of further retribution.

Although an elder relative has been charged with attempted murder in the Miss B case, it was only made possible through the ongoing monetary support of Advocacy for Accused Witches, a group that seeks to intervene in such cases and to foster better critical-thinking skills in children.

Let’s revisit that information: Five hundred years after witch trials ran rampant, people are still being burned alive because they’re suspected of being witches. Have we learned nothing?

Women are also still being “otherized” today in less overtly horrifying but more insidious ways. If a woman is too sexually open or exploratory, she’s a slut. If she doesn’t have “enough” sexual experience, she’s a prude. Seeking a high-powered job can be perceived as cutthroat or unfeminine (where a man would be lauded as ambitious), yet stay-at-home moms are equally devalued and dismissed.

In short, conformity remains a prized quality for women, and those who act outside the system continue to be punished — if not by fire, then in other damaging ways (including physical violence).

How do we address these continuing inequalities? “Take up space, get involved in grassroots politics, educate people around you about what happened during the witch trials, and draw the parallel with today [emphasis mine],” counsel Venditozzi and Mitchell. “When you are met with resistance, call it out.”

In a time when each day seems to bring a new calamity, keeping the past alive can seem a futile aspiration, yet it is vital. Only by honoring those who came before can we help those who follow achieve more equitable outcomes.

Mariko Hewer is a freelance editor and writer as well as a nursery-school teacher. She is passionate about good books, good food, and good company.