Starred Review

The Happy Couple

by Naoise Dolan

When is a rom-com not a rom-com? When it's written by Irish novelist Naoise Dolan (Exciting Times). Her word-perfect sophomore effort, The Happy Couple, contains the requisite romance and comedy, but unlike a traditional rom-com, it carries an element of actual suspense as the couple's fate seems not preordained but truly precarious.

The halves of the nominal couple are Celine, a 26-year-old concert pianist who teaches to make ends meet, and Luke, a 28-year-old communications strategist at a tech firm. They

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Conversation Among Stones

by Willie Lin

The 39 poems in Willie Lin's graceful debut, Conversation Among Stones, adopt the language of art, nature, and religion while musing on belonging and fate.

Lin, a Kundiman Fellow born in Beijing and now based in Chicago, commemorates Tiananmen Square in "Brief History of Exile," in which a man sees "the afterimage of the night sky burning/ from his room by the bridge, the tanks and young men/ riding into the city square at last...." The notion of exile is a link to the exquisite ekphrastic poem "After Masaccio's

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Wintergarden

by Janet Fox, illus. by Jasu Hu

Janet Fox's second picture book, Wintergarden, is a lyrically hopeful story about a young girl who learns nurturing green-thumb lessons from her patient mother. Artist Jasu Hu augments Fox's smooth text with exquisite spreads created with watercolor, pencil, and mixed media, resulting in synchronous perfection.

"In winter/ when it snows/ my mama grows/ a garden," Fox's idyll opens. While soft flakes swirl beyond the apartment windows, mother and child ready the kitchen windowsill with green pots. The girl

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World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music

by Jeff Tweedy

Jeff Tweedy (How to Write One Song), who has been making music for decades, has countless fans who know he can write songs that speak to them on many levels. He and his band Wilco have written some of the most beautiful songs of the last quarter century. In World Within a Song, his third book, Tweedy takes his readers on a beautiful, effervescent, and introspective journey, describing 50 songs that have, in one way or another, shaped him as a musician and that "have taught me about how to be human." Sandwiched

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Deborah Turbeville: Photocollage

by Nathalie Herschdorfer

Deborah Turbeville (1932-2013) made her living--and her name--as a fashion photographer. Yet is there a photographer whose style seems less suited to the glossies? The monograph Deborah Turbeville: Photocollage by Nathalie Herschdorfer fulsomely celebrates this seeming contradiction and seeks to place Turbeville not only among her better-known fellow fashion photogs (Helmut Newton, Irving Penn) but among the finest photographers of her generation.

Herschdorfer (Body) bundles Turbeville's work into five sections

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Roaring Brook Press: Juniper's Christmas by Eoin Colfer

Media Heat

Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Fresh Air: Tim Alberta, author of The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism (Harper, $35, 9780063226883).
 
Good Morning America: Scout Bassett, author of Lucky Girl: Lessons on Overcoming Odds and Building a Limitless Future (Worthy Books, $27, 9781546003861).

Drew Barrymore Show: Kerry Washington, author of Thicker than Water: A Memoir (Little, Brown Spark, $30, 9780316497398).

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Fresh Air: Joy Buolamwini, author of Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines (Random House, $28.99, 9780593241837).
 
Good Morning America: Omid Scobie, author of Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy's Fight for Survival (Dey Street, $32, 9780063258662).

CBS Mornings: Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett, authors of This Is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained (Rodale, $28, 9780593580950).

Monday, November 27, 2023

Fresh Air: Garrett M. Graff, author of UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here--and Out There (Avid Reader Press/S&S, $32.50, 9781982196776).

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Good Morning America: Mark Seliger, photographer of Vanity Fair: Oscar Night Sessions: A Decade of Portraits from the After-Party (Abrams, $80, 9781419754784).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: José Andrés, co-author of Feeding Dangerously (TKO Studios, $44.99, 9781952203978).

Monday, November 20, 2023

CBS Mornings: Ray Isle, author of The World in a Wineglass: The Insider's Guide to Artisanal, Sustainable, Extraordinary Wines to Drink Now (Scribner, $50, 9781982182786).

Also on CBS Mornings: Madhur Jaffrey, author of An Invitation to Indian Cooking: 50th Anniversary Edition (Knopf, $40, 9780593535684).

Fresh Air: Stephanie Land, author of Class: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education (Atria/One Signal, $28, 9781982151393).

Tonight Show: Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush, authors of Love Comes First (Little, Brown, $19.99, 9780316525022).
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