Book Reviews

A war college where students ride dragons — and surviving the first year means outwitting the system, trusting your dragon, and not falling for the enemy's son.

Book 2 of the Empyrean. The truth about the Venin is out. Xaden has been keeping secrets. And the war outside Basgiath can no longer be ignored.

After Iron Flame's devastating finale, Violet has to figure out how to love someone who isn't quite the person she fell for — and whether saving the world means losing them.

A mortal girl kills a wolf in the forest and is dragged to a land of dangerous, beautiful faeries. The start of one of the most beloved fantasy romance series ever written.

A broken soldier, a surgeon turned slave, and a young thief on her first mission. Book 1 of the Stormlight Archive — the most ambitious fantasy series being written today.

The greatest hero and villain who ever lived tells his own story. A legend's origin, told in three days. One of the most beautifully written fantasy novels of the century so far.

Aliens have destroyed Earth and turned it into a dungeon-crawler reality show. One guy and his ex-girlfriend's cat are going to make it to the end or die trying.

Huckleberry Finn retold from Jim's point of view. The 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner — a formally inventive, devastating novel that changes how you read the American classic it's in conversation with.

Two game designers, a thirty-year creative partnership, and a love story that refuses to be a love story. One of the most beloved literary novels of the decade.

Two brothers lose their father and handle it in completely different ways. Sally Rooney's most emotionally generous novel — warmer than Normal People, just as precise.

A young woman joins the Army Nurse Corps in Vietnam and returns to a country that doesn't want to hear her story. Kristin Hannah's most powerful novel.

A female chemist in the 1960s becomes an accidental cooking-show host. Smart, funny, and surprisingly moving — one of the most satisfying debut novels of recent years.

A romance that becomes something harder and more honest than a romance. Content-note heavy but important — one of the most discussed books of the decade.

Two people whose exes left them for each other become accidental roommates. Emily Henry at her funniest and most romantically satisfying.

Two people who secretly broke up have to spend a week pretending to still be together at their friends' annual vacation house. Slow-burn at its best.

A struggling writer finds an unpublished manuscript in a bestselling author's home. The manuscript confesses to things that should never have been written down.

Four retirees in a quiet English village meet weekly to solve cold cases — until a real murder lands on their doorstep. Witty, warm, and genuinely clever.

An astronaut wakes up alone in a spacecraft with no memory of how he got there. He's humanity's last hope. One of the most purely joyful science fiction novels ever written.

In a brutal future America, two teenagers are forced to fight to the death on national television. The dystopian YA that started a generation of readers.

Between life and death there is a library. Between each book is a life you could have lived. Nora Seed gets to try them all.

Two sisters in WWII-occupied France fight to survive and resist.

A tidy life is upended by a startling flash-forward and a different love.

A too-good-to-be-true job with rules you really shouldn't break.

A physicist is hurled across possibilities — can he get his life back?

A smart, wry look at love, timing, and the chaos orbiting a wedding.

Tiny changes, compounding results — the most actionable habit system ever written.

Ten years after a daughter vanishes, answers arrive with a new romance.

A novelist with a telescope, a glamorous couple, and a drowning.

An infamous cliffside mansion and a caretaker who senses the truth.

A dream apartment-sitting gig in a notorious Manhattan building.

An eerie house, a headstrong heroine, and creeping rot under the roses.

Witty banter, real stakes, and a love story that earns its tears.

A runaway bride's twin, a grumpy hero, and a small-town reset.

A nanny, a missing child's legend, and drawings that won't sit still.

FBI interrogations untangle a survivor's tale from a collector's lair.

A philosopher quantifies existential risk and makes the case for protecting humanity's long-run future.

Wealth, happiness, and clear thinking — Naval's best ideas compiled and distilled.

Evolutionary psychology meets memetics — the best single-volume overview of what science says about human nature.

The disciplined pursuit of less: do fewer things, do them better.

Darwin applied to human emotions, morality, and relationships.

FBI hostage negotiator reveals counterintuitive techniques that work when the stakes are life-or-death.

Stoic philosophy applied to modern obstacles: the impediment to action is the action.

Nineteen short essays on wealth, greed, and why behavior determines financial outcomes more than knowledge.

The neuroscience of sleep and why getting less than you need is slowly destroying your mind and body.

Nobel laureate on System 1 vs System 2 — the definitive account of how we actually think and decide.

70,000 years of human history in 400 pages — the most ambitious nonfiction book of the last decade.

The ability to focus without distraction is becoming rare and valuable. Here is how to build and protect it.

A Navy SEAL who ran on broken legs redefines human limits. Uncomfortable, motivating, and essential.

A psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor on how meaning — not pleasure — is the primary human motivation.

Name the enemy of all creative work — Resistance — and get a battle plan to beat it every day.

Generalists beat specialists in most domains — Epstein's counterintuitive case for breadth over narrow depth.

Shackleton's Antarctic expedition retold from the diaries — the most gripping survival narrative ever written.

A young man walks into the Alaskan wilderness alone with minimal supplies. Heartbreaking and true.

The financial literacy book that changed how millions of people think about money, assets, and the rat race.

A slave in a caste-based solar empire is surgically transformed to destroy the system from within.

The moon explodes and humanity has two years to survive. Stephenson's most ambitious hard sci-fi epic.

Uplifted spiders build civilization over millennia while the last of humanity searches for a new home.

Robert Langdon races through Rome to stop an ancient secret society from destroying the Vatican.

A shepherd follows his dream across the desert. The fable about destiny that has sold 65 million copies.

A retired mercenary reassembles his legendary band for one last impossible quest. Funny, warm, and epic.

Big Brother, doublethink, the Thought Police. Still the essential anatomy of a totalitarian state.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. The most efficient political allegory ever written.

A house larger inside than outside. An academic footnote apparatus. A mystery. Unlike anything else in print.

Edith Head helps solve a murder in 1940s Hollywood — stylish, witty, and period-perfect.