Book Reviews

Box Office Poison artist Alex Robinson is back with a new group of likeable, everyday people, mulling over their desire (or lack thereof) for children and family in an episodic, free-floating comic.

Ursula Vernon (writing as T. Kingfisher) delivers a fleet, stripped-down fairy tale with echoes of Bluebeard and Peter Beagle. Critic Tasha Robinson praises Vernon's tough-minded, distinctive women

Illustrator Simon Stålenhag has put together a compilation of short stories to accompany his haunting, gorgeous paintings of an alternate Sweden full of aliens and strange technology. And dinosaurs.

Simon Critchley, a British philosopher, has penned an offbeat essay — or is it an autobiographical novel? A memoir thick with fictions? Whatever it is, Memory Theater makes for a delightful read.

Dominic Ziegler's thrillingly thorough geo-history follows the Amur River from its origin on the Mongolian steppes, along the Trans-Siberian Railway and through centuries of Eurasian history.

Javier Sierra's new The Master of the Prado follows a graduate student — also named Javier — who gets caught up in a web of arcane theories about the paintings in the famous Madrid museum.

Edward Carey wraps up his Iremonger trilogy with a bang, as the mysterious family of the title marches on its alternative version of London; it's that rare third book that sticks the landing.

Curtis White is no enemy of science, but his new book criticizes what he sees as today's overreliance on rigid thinking and social organization, and our unquestioning optimism about technology.