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UNCERTAIN LIVES https://ift.tt/uTZNkDy

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Devra Denniston is a very successful (and very private) scientist and academic, who, as the story opens, is at her 75th birthday party. Her best friend, journalist Alison Mellows, wants to write Devra’s biography, which she proposes as a gift. Devra resists strenuously at first, but later she falls mysteriously ill with a malady whose severity fluctuates dangerously. Alison (whom Devra calls “Angela”) later discovers a cache of her friend’s writings. Devra is not only a respected scientist but a talented wordsmith, and the bulk of the book consists of selections of Devra’s writings, which serve as fodder for Alison’s research into her subject. Some are clearly fictional tales, others are transcriptions of dreams, and still others lie in a tantalizing gray area. Devra may, in fact, be a fabulist of the first order, and neither Alison nor the reader ever really knows the truth. The key term here is uncertain —a term that permeates everything. Devra never warmed to her parents, for examp...
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UNSHAMING https://ift.tt/B1L0TyE

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Bydlowska became a self-proclaimed “mid-list author” with her book Drunk Mom (2013), which chronicled her journey to sobriety as a young mother. Her latest memoir opens with a vivid description of a biking accident that occurred while she was secretly drunk. The accident was a result of a relapse during the Covid-19 pandemic, one of at least 20 relapses she’s had throughout her life. To help pay for the dental surgery she needed after crashing into a wall, she started a GoFundMe campaign for which she lied and claimed that her injuries were the results of a series of bad decisions rather than an end to her sobriety. As the author of a memoir about sobriety, she felt deep shame about the “optics” of relapsing. “Most addicts, unlike me, haven’t told the entire world of their sobriety, and then published a book about it,” she writes. Recounting the GoFundMe campaign led her to examine the many other sources of shame that continued to affect her, including her feelings about dating a man...
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POWER PLAYS https://ift.tt/QsbnAot

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Beaudry-Losique, who has worked in the North American energy field for years, describes himself as an energy geek who lives and breathes electrons, molecules, and all things related to energy technology. He opens his book with a dire warning: The next energy crisis is already here. The U.S., he contends, bogged down by obstructionist legislation, byzantine regulation laws, and a cumbersome industry structure, is facing an oncoming disaster comparable to those experienced by the many countries dealing with chronic energy shortages and rolling blackouts on a regular basis. The nation’s demand for electricity is growing at a far greater pace than its aging and patchwork energy grid can handle, per the author; to fill in this picture, Beaudry-Losique provides a quick but detailed rundown of the energy demands now growing in the modern world and the industries and systems currently in place to fulfill those demands. Using copious amounts of data and plenty of charts and graphs, the author ...
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THE LAST SYLLABLE https://ift.tt/P4uZrVG

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Society, after suffering various crises (including pandemics), has returned from the brink via a carefully controlled, male-dominated technocracy called the “SCS.” Only “Upper Sphere” elites have the right to easily marry, bear children, and serve useful functions as artists, planners, legislators, and the like. “Outcastes,” at the opposite end of the social spectrum, are simply housed, tolerated, and kept amused. Former soldier John Wilson—who was raised in reduced circumstances in embattled Chicago, distinguished himself in military service in a war against an Islamist empire, and was rewarded with a Harvard Law education—has a modest legal practice. But he secretly opposes the establishment’s foundations, particularly its religious aspects. Though he cooperates with SCS strictures on “pragmatic” grounds, he avoids opportunities for coveted class advancement, dwelling in a condo in a committed relationship with a sex robot. After Wilson transgresses an absurd tangle of laws by preve...
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MISLED https://ift.tt/v1Sekfd

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Victoria Barrón was born in Mexico but was orphaned when she was 8 years old. Her paternal uncle, Elias, and his wife, Marta, adopted her and raised her in El Paso, Texas. Now, she’s an immigration attorney in that city with her own law firm called the Center for Help. In her office, she finds an envelope postmarked as coming from Zacatecas, Mexico; inside is a mysterious letter from a woman named Clarita Dávila, who claims that Victoria has a relative in Zacatecas whom the lawyer needs to see. Victoria soon travels to the small town, where a stranger named Eduardo Duarte meets her; he takes her to the Casa del Conquistador, where she’s introduced to the frail, elderly Doña Antonella Duarte—her maternal grandmother, whom she’s never met. She adopted Victoria’s mother, Estima, when she was small. Eduardo is also Antonella’s grandchild—the son of her oldest son—making him Victoria’s cousin. As the tale unwinds, the attorney learns that her grandmother has many secrets. Meanwhile, a grou...
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MIKE MONGO'S KID ASTRONAUT TRAINING MANUAL https://ift.tt/aVCgIhx

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The author, a self-described “Astronaut Intelligence” teacher, prepares kids who might be interested in space travel with what they can expect if they become astronauts—and what they can do to prepare. He reminds readers that space travel for kids is not a very far-off possibility, especially when it involves the space around the Moon and Earth—or what Mongo dubs “MEarth.” The book offers a blend of practical advice that readers will need to achieve their astronaut-related goals (such as pursuing STEM courses in school), as well as introductions to technical terms related to space travel, including “gravitational sweet spots” known as “Lagrange points.” Mongo also frequently injects humor and helpful tips into his discussions, including the idea that even the smallest things can make a big impact: “Real talk, future Kid Astronaut: nobody’s going to remind you to shower when you’re floating in a space station. Master the small stuff now, because in space, the small stuff keeps you aliv...
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MOST LIKELY TO MURDER https://ift.tt/R2SZbdG

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Social outsiders Rick Hicks and his best friend, Martina Lopez, just need to get through senior year—and hopefully along the way they won’t get into any fistfights with classmates or be expelled. Maybe they’ll even find girlfriends and avoid being murdered. That final task soon becomes their primary assignment in this steadily suspenseful and occasionally gory thriller. Soon after school starts, the previous year’s yearbooks arrive, and everyone discovers a shocking prank: Someone replaced the yearbook superlatives with descriptions relating to death (“Zara Moxley, Most Likely to Choke on Her Own Words”). Rick and Martina appear as “Homecoming’s Cutest Corpses.” When the body of grouchy guidance counselor Mr. Stephens (“Most Likely to Sleep with the Fishes”) is pulled out of a local lake, the other potential victims team up to find out who’s behind the gruesome stunt. Before they can solve the case, a few of the amateur sleuths meet their predicted creepy, bloody, or strange ends. McB...
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