For the Love of Chocolate: 80 At-Home Recipes from a Master Chocolatier’s Imagination
Phillip Ashley Rix. Harper Celebrate, $32.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-4002-4454-6
“I consider myself a storyteller, and chocolate is my love language,” writes debut author Rix, the founder of Phillip Ashley Chocolates, in this irresistible collection of melt-in-your-mouth recipes. Rix opens with a crash course on “Chocistry 101,” covering chocolate’s origins (the cacao tree’s Latin name means “food of the gods”), types (dark, milk, semi-/bittersweet), necessary equipment (thermometers, scales, and molds), and foundational techniques, including an in-depth breakdown of how to temper chocolate. Bold flavor combinations—including bonbons infused with barbecue smoke or coconut curry—draw from Rix’s Memphis culinary roots and family favorites. Recipes range from sweet to savory and classic to avant-garde, with standouts including champagne-infused truffles; chocolate-dipped sweet potatoes inspired by Rix’s grandmother’s farm; peanut butter caramel cayenne brownies that pack a kick; and, as a vegan option, an avocado-based chocolate pudding. Chocolate-for-breakfast dishes, cocktails, and sample menus for “chocuterie” round things out. Some recipes require tricky techniques, but Rix proves a reliable guide through even the most challenging concoction. This stuns. (Sept.)
Does Anyone Else Feel This Way? Essays on Conquering the Quarter-Life Crisis
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Eli Rallo. Harvest, $28.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-06-341753-3
TikTokker Rallo (I Didn’t Know I Needed This) reflects on navigating the turbulence of one’s 20s in these candid, confessional essays. Many of the entries zero in on the perils of comparison; “Does Anyone Else Know WTF to Do About Imposter Syndrome?” explores the author’s struggles with feeling out of place in school and social settings, and calls for an accepting culture where young people can more openly “commiserate and explore and find ourselves together.” Elsewhere, “Does Anyone Else Feel Like They Need to Stop Scrolling?” analyzes social media’s role in facilitating both connection and alienation that stems from comparison culture. “Does Anyone Else Feel Like They’re Having a Quarter-Life Crisis?” unpacks the grief of revising “invisible timelines” for marriage, career, and stability, while also reckoning with the freedom of rewriting expectations. Rallo’s voice is conversational and refreshingly funny, particularly when she’s skewering the contradictions of “adulting,” though the essays tend to circle the same themes—imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and the search for purpose—without offering much in the way of fresh insight. Still, Rallo’s candid approach will go a long way toward reassuring young adults that they’re not alone. (Oct.)
The Etcher: The Life and Art of Oskar Stoessel
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Bryan A. Garner. Godine, $50 (320p) ISBN 978-1-56792-840-2
Lawyer Garner (Garner’s Dictionary of Legal Usage) uncovers in this scrupulous biography the life of artist and etcher Oskar Stoessel. Born in 1879 Austria, Stoessel passed the notoriously difficult entrance exam for the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (the same year Adolf Hitler failed to gain admittance), where he honed his etching skills, later forging connections with giants like Gustav Klimt and building a roster of famous subjects, including authors, actors, and diplomats. In 1939, he and his brother were driven by Hitler’s rise to immigrate to New York. George Messersmith, an American diplomat who’d commissioned a portrait from Stoessel, helped the artist establish connections, arranging portrait sessions with Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Stoessel’s depiction was said to be Eleanor Roosevelt’s favorite) and numerous Supreme Court justices. Still, antisemitism in the art world kept Stoessel from achieving real renown, according to Garner; at 80, he returned to Austria and died four years later. Garner studiously digs through Stoessel’s correspondences with Supreme Court justices to meticulously track the artist’s career in America, setting it against an uneasy postwar atmosphere in which eagerness to move past the conflict often led to open xenophobia. The result is a worthy resurrection of a little-known artist. (Oct.)
The Light Between Apple Trees: Rediscovering the Wild Through a Beloved American Fruit
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Priyanka Kumar. Island Press, $32 (252p) ISBN 978-1-64283-363-8
Nature writer Kumar (Conversations with Birds) explores the history and diversity of apples in this thorough mix of memoir and ecology. Growing up in northern India, Kumar started foraging for apples at age 5 in the Himalayan foothills. Now living in New Mexico, where grocery store apples are “cardboard-like” and “hollow,” she began searching for wild apple trees and exploring America’s frayed relationship with the fruit. Originating in central Asia, apples were first brought to North America by Spanish conquistadores and French Jesuits in the 1500s and 1600s. Over the next centuries, apples were cultivated coast to coast and became the most diverse domesticated crop in America, at one point having more than 16,000 named varieties. Now, only a fifth remain available, thanks to industrial agriculture’s focus on high yields of supermarket-ready fruits. The decline in diversity leads to dull flavors, Kumar explains, and leaves the fruit more vulnerable to climate change and disease. The author couples her extensive research with personal stories, including numerous anecdotes about home gardening and raising children. The narrative meanders at times and is often bogged down by metaphors (“This wild gardening, tucked into the margins of our lives”). Still, readers will be inspired to reconnect with nature. (Sept.)
Governing Bodies: A Memoir, a Confluence, a Watershed
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Sangamithra Iyer. Milkweed, $28 (416p) ISBN 978-1-57131-393-5
Iyer traces her passion for conservation and animal rights activism back two generations in this beautiful debut memoir. In three sections, Iyer directly addresses her grandfather, her father, and finally, readers. Through family lore and public records, she retraces her grandfather’s travels to Burma, where he worked as an engineer for the British colonial government, and the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where he returned to live out Gandhi’s ideals of compassion and self-reliance. She then addresses her father, a social worker who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s and died in the early 2000s. His sensitivity to animal suffering inculcated Iyer with a deep compassion for all living things, and led her to step away from her engineering career to pursue writing and animal rights advocacy. Some of the pieces in this section read like long-form journalism, including one where Iyer visits egg farms in India and sees chickens being slaughtered by people who don’t eat animal products. The strands binding these chapters with the book’s final section, in which Iyer shares her struggles to conceive a child with her husband, can feel tenuous, but she manages to stitch everything together through thoughtful musings on Tamil poetry and Hindu philosophy. This singular personal history edifies as much as it charms. Agent: Anjali Singh, Anjali Singh Literary. (Nov.)
Through Each Tomorrow
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Gabrielle Meyer. Bethany House, $18.99 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-0-76424-302-8
Meyer (For a Lifetime) romps through parallel timelines in the irresistible latest in her Timeless series. Charles spends half his days as a farmer in 1883 Virginia and the other half as an earl and adviser to Queen Elizabeth in 1563 Britain. At age 25 he’ll have to permanently choose a timeline and needs to iron out his problems in each life first. He starts by commissioning fellow time traveler Andrew, a medical student in the 19th century, to treat the ill Queen Elizabeth. It seems like a fail-safe plan until Charles’s stepsister Cecily points out all three could be accused of sabotage if the court learns Charles hired a fake physician. Meanwhile, in the 19th century, Charles agrees to show up in his earl persona at Andrew’s family’s vacation home, in an effort to boost Andrew’s mother’s social standing. As it becomes increasingly difficult to carry out their duties without being found out (or irrevocably changing history), Cecily, Charles, and Andrew must put their trust in God to lead them to the right path, wherever—and whenever—it leads. Meyer uses questions of time and fate to develop her characters’ identities and moral crises, and vividly reanimates bygone eras with rich historical detail. Readers will be hooked. (Nov.)
Trail of Shadows
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Mike Allen. Broken Eye, $21.99 trade paper (276p) ISBN 978-1-940372-72-3
Allen (Slow Burn) underwhelms a bit in this spooky but familiar account of mysterious occurrences in Appalachia. Recent college dropout Nathan decided to through-hike the Appalachian Trail, hoping to outrun the ghastly creatures that seemed to be trailing him on his college campus. But the hike proves no escape. Instead, through a close encounter with several of these monsters as he tries to rescue a child who’s fallen into danger on the trail, he discovers supernatural abilities of his own when he shape-shifts into a huge, pantheresque monster himself. Worse, his panther alter ego is a powerful attraction for the most dangerous of his kind. Nathan must learn all he can about his heritage, including searching through his memories of his Native American grandmother as quickly as possible if he hopes to stand a chance against the monsters that pursue him. The concept doesn’t feel particularly original and the prose leans distractingly purple at times, but horror fans will find some decidedly creepy scenes if they persevere. It’s a mixed bag. (Oct.)
All Is Calmish: How to Feel More Festive and Less Frantic During the Holidays
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Niro Feliciano. Broadleaf, $25.99 (206p) ISBN 978-1-5064-9834-8
Psychotherapist Feliciano (This Book Won’t Make You Happy) shares good-humored guidance for making the Christmas season joyful. With four kids under the age of 10, the author and her husband found themselves too consumed with last-minute prep to enjoy Christmas morning; after nearly falling asleep while her kids unwrapped gifts, she committed to figuring out how to appreciate the holiday. According to Feliciano, doing so begins with identifying moments in which one would like to be fully present and working backward to achieve them, including by turning down unnecessary commitments and taking time to meditate. She also suggests reframing the season’s stresses by finding gratitude in so-called obligations (“I should watch holiday movies with the kids” becomes “I get to watch holiday movies with the kids”) and simplifying tradition for sanity’s sake (instead of hiring a professional photographer for Christmas card photos, the author snapped a candid shot of her family in their holiday pajamas). Feliciano’s psychological insights are well balanced by funny, down-to-earth recollections of her own holiday mishaps (she remembers dragging a massive Christmas tree into her home “like a caveman who has just killed a lion and is headed back to the cave”). This’ll go a long way toward helping readers find merriment when things feel anything but festive. (Oct.)
The Best American Food and Travel Writing, 2025
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Edited by Bryant Terry. Mariner, $18.99 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-0-06-346468-1
Identity politics and social justice are on the menu in this hit-or-miss installment of Mariner’s annual anthology of the year’s best culinary and travel writing. Noting that “any discussion of food (or travel) that ignores power is incomplete,” editor Terry (Black Food) highlights themes of resistance, survival, queerness, and “the politics of pleasure.” Some of the essays explore sociocultural material with aplomb, including John Paul Brammer’s memoir of eating rattlesnake as part of his raucous coming of age as a gay boy in Oklahoma, and Henry Wismayer’s withering, incisive critique of the banality of modern tourism. Others amount to stolid soapboxing; Ayurella Horn-Muller, for example, hammers home the irony that some American farmworkers are food insecure, proving mostly that poorly paid people are poor without revealing much more. Some of the best essays focus raptly on the food, among them Giri Nathan’s shell-shocked homage to Ugly Baby, a Thai restaurant in Brooklyn known for its bizarre, searingly hot dishes. (“In Ugly Baby’s strange crucible, all my rules are suspended: I ate brain, and would probably eat human if it were wrapped in a banana leaf and sold to me with deceitful slivers of lemongrass, kra pow, and kaffir lime leaves.”) The result is a hodgepodge of the delectable and the dreary. (Oct.)
Ukrainian Vignettes: Essays on a Culture at War
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Mitja Velikonja, trans. from the Slovenian by Sonja Ben?ina. Doppelhouse, $32.95 (265p) ISBN 978-1-954600-27-0
In this evocative account, Velikonja (The Chosen Few), a Slovenian cultural studies scholar who has served as a visiting professor in Ukraine several times since the 2022 Russian invasion, provides snapshots of everyday life in the country while analyzing the protest art and rhetoric that has emerged in response to the war. “Not for a moment do I imagine encapsulating it in all its immensely complex and painful reality,” he writes. “These are more its fragments, chips that rolled toward me as much as I rolled toward them.” Some of the vignettes and photographs are especially resonant and eye-opening, including an exploration of how patriotic imagery has worked its way into the design of packaged foods, and a graffito of a fierce but adorable kitten getting ready for combat. Velikonja also reflects on how the war has shaped spoken language in Ukraine, including the ongoing minimization of the Russian language, which he relates to similarly heated linguistic politics in Slovenia. Velikonja manages to address some of the nuances of the conflict without straying from an overall condemnation of Russia (“There is no excuse for a full military attack”). With an eye for poignant detail and an urgent sense of the larger historical questions at hand, this makes for an immersive and unpredictable examination of war’s reverberations throughout society. (Aug.)
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All around the shrine of the temple there were prayers fastened, wherever there was a place for fastening them. On the left of the altar there was a large lattice, and this lattice had hundreds of prayers attached to it, some of them folded and others open. Several old men and women were leaning against this lattice, or squatted on the floor in front of it, engaged in selling prayers; and they appeared to be doing a thriving business. The boys bought some of these prayers to send home as curiosities; and they also bought some charms and beads, the latter not unlike those used by Catholics, and having a prominent place in the Japanese worship. Then there were votive tablets on the walls, generally in the form of pictures painted on paper or silk, or cut out of thin paper, like silhouettes. One of them represents a ship on the water in the midst of a storm, and is probably the offering of a merchant who had a marine venture that he wished to have the goddess take under her protection. Shoes and top-knots of men and women were among the offerings, and the most of them were labelled with the names of the donors. These valueless articles are never disturbed, but remain in their places for years, while costly treasures of silver or gold are generally removed in a few days to the private sanctuary of the goddess for fear of accidents. Even in a temple, all the visitors cannot be trusted to keep their hands in check. It is intimated that the priests are sometimes guilty of appropriating valuable things to their own use. But then what could you expect of a lot of heathens like the Japanese? Nothing of the kind could happen in a Christian land. ASCENT OF FUSIYAMA. ASCENT OF FUSIYAMA. "Well, be quick about it, and then stand clear; we don't want any woman hurt." The key rattled at the keyhole and then dropped to the floor. "You did that by intention! Give me that key!" He tried the lock. "We've jammed it, corporal, but another good kick will fetch it; now!"--Bang!--crash!--open flew the door. "I see," said Allingham, slowly, "it is because you are, so to speak, temporarily incapacitated, that you are able to come down to the level of our world." Her hand had shot out grasping for something to steady herself on--the whole world spun around her. She had given her whole passionate, tempestuous soul to this man; she had never dreamt that she could fail to gain his love. She had never failed before, she had only required to hold up her hand. . . . Balmayne came with his burden, which he flung in and covered with a rug. He pulled at the lever, and the great machine started, and then dragged, as if some great weight was hanging on behind. The gruff voice suggested diplomacy, and promised immediate assistance. The caller had only to lie low and the desired aid should be on hand immediately. With a sense of pride and exultation Leona Lalage hung up the receiver and made her way to the dining-room. Professor Noyons took me all over the hospital, and if I should describe all I saw and heard there, that story alone would fill volumes. He took me, for example, to a boy of eight years old, whose shoulder was shattered by rifle-shots. His father and140 mother, four little brothers and a sister, had been murdered. The boy himself was saved because they thought that he was dead, whereas he was only unconscious. When I asked for his parents, brothers and sister, he put up his one hand and, counting by his little fingers, he mentioned their names. The baboo who has lost caste and been half-civilized in the Anglo-Indian colleges, is always the middleman between the Government and the poor; and he, barefaced and with no pretence of concealment, took twenty per cent. of the wages he was supposed to pay the labourers. And there were none but baboos to superintend the poorhouses and the famine-camps. It is said that during the previous famine some made fortunes of six to eight lacs of rupees (the lac is ￡10,000). But presently she stood up to go away, and her eyes caught the lowering, glazed ones of the Indian. Half involuntarily she made a motion of striking with a knife. Neither the doctor nor the steward caught it, but he did, and showed by a sudden start that he understood. Carthagena was strongly fortified, and the garrison was reinforced by the crews of a squadron lying there under Don Blas de Leon. If the place was to be assaulted, it should have been done at once; but Vernon lay perfectly inactive for five days, as if to allow the enemy to make all his preparations for defence. Notwithstanding this, the brave English erected a battery on shore, and played so effectually on the principal fort, that they soon made a breach in it, whilst the fleet fired into the harbour, thus dividing the attention of the enemy. In spite of their advantages, the Spaniards abandoned their forts and batteries, the English entered the breach, the vessels in the harbour were destroyed, and the passage cleared so that the fleet could sail in and support the army. There appeared nothing capable of preventing the conquest of the town but the cabals of the two commanders. Lord Cathcart had caught the endemic fever and died, and was succeeded by General Wentworth in command of the land forces. Wentworth had a great contempt of Vernon, and Vernon was by no means well disposed towards Wentworth. The fleet having entered the harbour, the land forces were all disembarked, and posted within a mile of Carthagena; but there the success stopped. Vernon had written home his dispatches to the Duke of Newcastle saying, "The wonderful success of this evening and night is so astounding, that we cannot but cry out, 'It is the Lord's doing, and it seems marvellous in our eyes!'" The Deacon was astonished, but in obedience to a gesture from the Provost, left the line, and came up. "Here," said the Chief Clerk, handing Shorty an official envelope, when the latter returned from having his chevrons sewed on. "Take this down to Col. Billings. Mind you do it in proper style. Don't get to sassing old Billings. Stick the envelope in your belt, walk into the office, take the position of a soldier, salute, and hand him the envelope, saying, 'With the compliments of the General,' salute again, about-face, and walk out." Another voice immediately spoke up in command: "Steady, men! Keep cool! Fire low, and give it to the blue-bellied scoundrels!" "That old-time religion." But Reuben hardly enjoyed his position as a hero. He succeeded in breaking free from the crowd, now beginning to busy itself once more with Mexico Bill, who was showing signs of returning consciousness, and plunged into the mists that spread their frost-smelling curds over the lower slopes of Boarzell. On the second day after Holgrave had become a bondman, he was summoned by an order from Calverley to go to labour for his lord. His heart swelled as he sullenly obeyed the mandate, and Margaret trembled as she saw him depart. She looked anxiously for the close of the day; and, when she saw her husband enter with some vegetables and grain that had been apportioned to him for his day's toil, her heart was glad. It was true that the gloom on his brow seemed increased, and that he threw down his load, and sat for several minutes without speaking,—but she cared not for his silence as she saw him return in safety. "I think," said Sir Robert Knowles, who saw that it was only under the influence of strong feeling that Holgrave could at present be a match for Oakley—"I think it would be better that this retainer accept the vintner's challenge; and should he worst him, then he and Holgrave can settle their quarrel, when a few days shall have given him more strength." This, despite of Holgrave's assurances that his strength was undiminished, was decided upon, and the galleyman and Oakley were directed to hold themselves in readiness to try the strength of their weapons on the morrow. They were then ordered to withdraw—Oakley and the galleyman to be lodged that night in the retainers' court, and Holgrave to tell over all he felt to the affectionate Margaret, who, for the present, at Isabella's request, was to occupy an apartment in the castle. HoME日本道一区二区免费一级毛片
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