In the 2020 graphic memoir "They Called Us Enemy," George Takei took readers into the U.S. government’s internment of approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent in American concentration camps during World War II. Takei, best known for his role as "Star Trek’s" Hikaru Sulu, can claim an unfortunate degree of authority on the topic. He ...Read more

Whether there’s a plane trip, a hammock, a corner of a library or a bus ride to work in your immediate future, July has something for you to read while you are there.

Two of the books we can’t wait to devour this month come from Minnesota authors (and one of them comes with a bold endorsement from another Minnesota favorite, beloved mystery...Read more

A comfy chair, sunglasses, an Arnold Palmer and these 24 books — from S.A. Cosby, Rachel Joyce, “one of the best books of the year” and more — are your ticket to a great season.

Endling

By Maria Reva. Doubleday, 352 pages.

Set in Ukraine in 2022, Reva’s magnificent “Endling” follows Yeva, a rogue conservationist trying to rescue...Read more

It seems like yesterday that everyone was complaining about millennials: their alleged laziness, self-absorption and general snowflakery. Time flies, though, and now the first wave of this much-maligned generation — those born between 1981 and 1996 — has hit middle age.

If recent coverage is any indication, millennials — famous for their ...Read more

A San Francisco bookstore has announced it will no longer carry “Harry Potter” following author J.K. Rowling saying she’ll dedicate her private wealth to developing an anti-trans organization.

The Booksmith, an independent shop that has been open in Haight-Ashbury since 1976, posted a notice informing customers of its decision to stop ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, June 21, 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. "Atmosphere: A...Read more

Summer reading, if you ask me, should meander, without a plan. Pick up, put down, misplace, leave crusty with sand or warped with humidity. Fall is for rigor, winter for hunkering down, spring for peering ahead, but the right summer read is a promising dirt road in a field. Someday, when I open a bookstore and the big bucks roll in, I’ll ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- If your name is Kathleen West and you’re part of a class action suit or you’ve been mailed a coupon for new gutters or offered an exciting opportunity for a time-share in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, there’s a decent chance the Minneapolis writer who shares your name has your mail.

“I have never met a Kathleen West in ...Read more

While Los Angeles bands like The Germs, The Go-Go’s, X, and Bad Religion drew the spotlight to Southern California’s punk rock scene, their iconic larger-than-life presence may have inadvertently cast a shadow on the suburbs of Orange County, whose teens were ready to prove that rebellion thrived outside of La La Land.

In “Tearing Down ...Read more

Caroline Fraser has pulled a major switcheroo with her new book, “Murderland.”

Fraser’s last book, “Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder,” won a Pulitzer Prize for its portrait of the folksy writer and her daughter, whom Fraser demonstrated was heavily involved in her mom’s writing. But, whatever else he may ...Read more

The worst possible thing has happened to Corby Ledbetter, and he has only himself to blame.

No spoilers but the tragedy is such, in Wally Lamb‘s “The River Is Waiting,” that Corby will forever be wracked by whether he can be forgiven — by himself, his wife, his small daughter or the rest of his family. The court, however, is not in a ...Read more

After 15 years spent investigating organized crime in Liverpool, Detective Sergeant Nicola Bridge has returned to her childhood home on England’s southwest coast. In the sleepy village of Fleetcombe, she hopes to patch up her marriage and enjoy a calmer pace of life, far from lawless gangs and brutal murders.

Her best-laid plans are quickly ...Read more

John Adams, a founder of the United States and its second president, privately expressed doubts that the republic would survive its own design flaws. Yet the Constitution, its blueprint, has proved more resilient than just five pages of parchment, despite inflamed schisms and the brutal Civil War.

A key player in that strengthening was ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, June 14, 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. "Bury Our ...Read more

Robert Macfarlane has climbed to the icy summits of windswept mountains and plunged into the darkened depths of the earth to research his books, and he says that may have given people the impression that he was a bit of a loner.

“There was a time, maybe 15, 20 years ago, when I was reputed as somebody who wrote about being alone — and alone...Read more

If “This Dog Will Change Your Life” were a dog breed, it would be a border collie: sweet, fun to be around, a little hyper.

The book comes from Elias Weiss Friedman, who bills himself as the Dogist on social media, where he has 7.6 million Instagram followers. Friedman photographs dogs he meets and interviews their owners about the dogs’ ...Read more

In her “Meet Me at the Crossroads” Megan Giddings thanks people you’d expect a writer to acknowledge, including readers and University of Minnesota English department colleagues V.V. Ganeshananthan and Julie Schumacher. There’s also at least one you might not expect: an Uber driver.

That driver, who drove the creative writing and ...Read more

Claire Lynch’s debut novel, “A Family Matter,” is built around a dark fact, stated plainly in an author’s note at the end — in the 1980s in the U.K., 90% of lesbian mothers in divorce cases lost custody of their children.

Such a terrible injustice is hard to imagine, which is surely why Lynch has imagined it — to understand how ...Read more