In today's issue, we recommend Pico Iyer's Aflame: Learning from Silence, a "love letter to a place" where the acclaimed author has sought "solace and renewal in the consolations of solitude"; as well as Swedish novelist Therese Bohman's "sharp, observant novel" Andromeda, in which a platonic friendship provides a forum for a shared love of literature; and Colette Shade's "perceptive" and "hard-hitting" debut essay collection, Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future that Never Was). Plus, the winsome animals in R.W. Alley's picture book Hospital Heroes Save the Day! demystify a hospital's hectic activity, rewarding very young readers with delightful sight gags.
In The Writer's Life, journalist Caroline Eden considers the historical and regional factors that shape the harvests and ingredients that inspired her memoir Cold Kitchen and the recipes included in it.