When Tom Layward’s wife had an affair 12 years ago, he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest child left the nest. Now, while driving his college-bound daughter to Pittsburgh, he remembers his promise to himself. He is also on the run from his own health issues and a forced leave from work. So, rather than returning to his wife in Westchester, Tom keeps driving west, with the vague plan of visiting people from his past --- an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son --- en route, maybe, to California. He’s moving towards a future he hasn’t even envisioned yet while he considers his past and the choices he’s made that have brought him to this particular present.

Why do we read? What is it that we hope to take away from the intimate, personal experience of reading for pleasure? How often do we ask these profound, expansive questions of ourselves and of our relationship to the joy of reading? In each of the essays in EVERY DAY I READ, Hwang Bo-reum contemplates what living a life immersed in reading means. She goes beyond the usual questions of what to read and how often, exploring the relationship between reading and writing, when to turn to a bestseller vs. browse the corners of a bookstore, the value of reading outside of your favorite genre, falling in love with book characters, and more.

On the eve of the American Revolution, half a million enslaved African Americans were embedded in the North American population. The slave trade was flourishing, even as the 13 colonies armed themselves to defend against the idea of being governed without consent. This paradox gave birth to what Joseph J. Ellis calls the “great contradiction”: How could a government that had been justified and founded on the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence institutionalize slavery? How could it permit a tidal wave of western migration by settlers who understood the phrase “pursuit of happiness” to mean the pursuit of Indian lands? In THE GREAT CONTRADICTION, Ellis addresses the questions that lie at America’s twisted roots --- questions that turned even the sharpest minds of the Revolutionary generation into mental contortionists.

Joe McGinniss was a paradox: a brilliant writer whose dazzling achievements were overshadowed by personal demons. At age 26, he became the youngest living person to top the New York Times bestseller list, for his book THE SELLING OF THE PRESIDENT, about Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign. Shortly after, he walked out on his wife and their three young children. His oldest son, Joe McGinniss Jr., went on to become a writer himself, known for his critically acclaimed novels THE DELIVERY MAN and CAROUSEL COURT. In DAMAGED PEOPLE, McGinniss Jr. vividly recounts his affectionate yet stormy relationship with his famous father, capturing moments of tenderness and humor amid the chaos and tension.

Amid a global pandemic, one young woman is trying to keep the pieces together --- of her family, stunned by a devastating loss, and of her mind, left mangled and misfiring from a mystifying disease. She’s afraid of her own floorboards, and “WHAT IS LOVE? BABY DON’T HURT ME” plays over and over in her ears. She hates her friends, or more accurately, she doesn’t know who they are. Has the illness stolen her old mind and given her a new one? Does it mean she’ll get to start over from scratch, a chance afforded to very few people? The very weave of herself seems to have loosened: time and memories pass straight through her body. “I’m sorry not to respond to your email,” she writes, “but I live completely in the present now."

It’s 1915, and life is falling apart for 13-year-old twins Bolt and Eleanor. When their mother dies, they are forced to leave home under the care of a vicious con man who claims to be their long-lost uncle Charlie. During a late-night poker game, when one of his rages ends in murder, they decide to flee. Salvation arrives in the form of Mr. Jengling, founder of the Emporium of Wonders. He adopts Bolt and Eleanor, who travel by train across the vast, sometimes brutal American frontier with their new family, watching as the exhibitions spark amazement wherever they go. But as Bolt falls in deeper with their new clan, he finds Eleanor pulling further away from him. And when Uncle Charlie picks up their trail, the twins find themselves facing a peril that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives.

HISTORY MATTERS brings together selected essays by beloved historian David McCullough, some published here for the first time, written at different points over the course of his long career, but all focused on the subject of his lifelong passion: the importance of history in understanding our present and future. Edited by McCullough’s daughter, Dorie McCullough Lawson, and his longtime researcher, Michael Hill, this book is a tribute to a master historian and offers fresh insights into McCullough’s enduring interests and writing life. It also features a foreword by Jon Meacham.

Along the way to a translation writing residency on the Dalmatian coast, ARCHIPELAGO’s unnamed narrator has an unsettling, aggressive encounter with a man on a ferry, which sets off a series of strange events. At the residency, she reunites with Luka, an old friend who seems to have included a version of her in his novel. They strike up a romantic relationship as she continues her translation work. The hazy summer stretches on until, after a sudden shift, she embarks upon an impulsive road trip back to Greece, crossing borders.

Jed Rosenthal hasn’t published a book in 14 years, the mother of his child left him in a “trial separation” that has stretched on indefinitely, and he struggles to navigate the daily sorrows of their co-parenting arrangement. But the implosion of Jed’s family is simply a footnote in the larger history of the Rosenthal family’s decline. Just days after the JFK assassination, Karyn “Cookie” Kupcinet was found dead in her Hollywood apartment. The press reported that the 22-year-old was strangled, yet unanswered questions linger to this day. Decades later, Jed pores over family stories, newspaper archives, old photos and crime scene notes, believing that if he can divine the truth of Cookie's death --- whether it was suicide, murder or part of a larger conspiracy --- it might shed light on a mystery closer to home. 

In “Machine City” a college student’s chance role in a friend’s movie blurs the line between his character and his true self. (Is he a robot?) In “Slide to Unlock” a man comes to terms with his life via the passwords he struggles to remember in extremis. (What’s his mom’s name backward?) And in “Weird Menace” a director and faded movie star gab about science fiction, bad costume choices and lost loves on a commentary track for a B-film from the ’80s that neither remembers all that well. In Ed Park’s utterly original collection, characters bemoan their fleeting youth, focus on their breathing, meet cute, break up, write book reviews, translate ancient glyphs, bid on stuff online, whale watch, and once in a while find solace in the sublime.