In CARE AND FEEDING, Laurie Woolever traces her path from a small-town childhood to working at revered restaurants and food publications, alternately bolstered and overshadowed by two of the most powerful men in the business. But there’s more to the story than the two bold-faced names on her resume: Mario Batali and Anthony Bourdain. Behind the scenes, Laurie’s life is frequently chaotic, an often pleasurable buffet of bad decisions at which she frequently overstays her welcome. As the food world careens toward an overdue reckoning and Laurie’s mentors face their own high-profile descents, she is confronted with the questions of where she belongs and how to hold on to the parts of her life’s work that she truly values: care and feeding.

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is 42-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping. At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a 76-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.

In 1992, Sarah Lingate is found dead below the cliffs of Capri, leaving behind her three-year-old daughter, Helen. Despite suspicions that the old-money Lingates are involved, Sarah’s death is ruled an accident. And every year, the family returns to prove it’s true. But on the 30th anniversary of Sarah’s death, the Lingates arrive at the villa to find a surprise waiting for them --- the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died. Haunted by the specter of that night, the legendary Lingate family unity is pushed to a breaking point, and Helen seizes the opportunity. Enlisting the help of Lorna Moreno, a family assistant, the two plot their escape from Helen’s paranoid, insular family. But when Lorna disappears and the investigation into Sarah’s death is reopened, Helen has to confront the fact that everyone who was on Capri 30 years ago remains a suspect.

Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist processing the recent death of his father, who was a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed himself in a cult called “the nameless.” Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran named Odo, the nameless adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “all suffering is distortion” and “see only beauty.” Faruq, skeptical but committed to unraveling the mystery of the nameless, extends his stay over months, as he gets deeper into the cult’s inner workings and alluring teachings. But as he gets closer to Odo, Faruq himself begins to unravel, forced to come to terms with the memories he has been running from while trying to resist Odo’s spell.

It’s been nearly 10 years since Gabe has been gone when Lucy finds a tiny piece of paper in a box of his old photos. An address in Rome. Why did Gabe keep it, and what was he doing in Italy? Lucy buys a last-minute plane ticket. Impulsive, but Gabe always brought that out in her. Lucy’s journey to uncover Gabe’s secret leads her to Dr. Dax Armstrong, a New Yorker in Italy working with an NGO. His broad shoulders and sad, intense eyes draw Lucy in. His touch reaches her in a forgotten place --- one that no one has neared since Gabe. But her old life awaits, along with an earth-shattering decision --- whether she and Darren should tell their son, Samuel, the truth about his father. How can Lucy move forward while she’s rooted in the past? Fate broke her heart once. Can finding new love set her free?

Sanjana Satyananda is trying to recover her life. It’s been a year since she walked out on her husband, a struggling actor named Killian, at a commune in India, after a disagreement about whether to have children. Now, Sanjana is struggling to resurrect her busted anthropology dissertation and crashing at her annoyingly perfect sister’s while her well-adjusted peers obsess over marriages, mortgages and motherhood. Sanjana needs to move forward --- and finalize her divorce ASAP. There’s just one problem: Killian is missing. As Sanjana tries to track him down, she’s bombarded with unnerving calls from women seeking her advice on pregnancy and fertility. Soon, Sanjana comes face to face with what her life might have been if she’d chosen parenthood. And the road not taken turns out to be wilder, stranger and more tempting than she imagined.

Neighbors Gwen, Aimee and Lisa share more than playdates and coffee mornings on their tranquil street in East Bethesda. They confide their deepest secrets, navigate the challenges of motherhood together, and provide a support system that seems unbreakable. But when Gwen’s husband is found murdered after one of their weekly Friday night dinners, the peaceful quiet of their cul-de-sac shatters. As the police investigate, the veneer of friendship begins to crack, revealing hidden tensions, clandestine affairs, and long-buried jealousies among the three women. With suspicions mounting and the neighborhood gripped by fear, Gwen, Aimee and Lisa must confront the chilling truth about their husbands, and the sinister undercurrents in their own friendship.

In 26 sparkling essays, illuminated through both text and image, celebrated author and artist A. Kendra Greene is trying to make sense of the things that matter most in life: love, connection, death, grief, the universe, meaning, nothingness and everythingness. Through a series of encounters with strangers, children and animals, the wild merges with the domestic; the everyday meets the sublime. Each essay returns readers to our smallest moments and our largest ones in a book that makes us realize --- through its exuberant language, playful curation and delightful associative leapfrogging --- that they are, in fact, one and the same.

After a disastrous relationship with a colleague who stole her heart and her ideas, podcaster Cecily Foster has put romantic love on hold. When the boss who’s disappointed her again and again finally offers her the chance to host her own show, she wants to be thrilled. But the show will be about Cecily’s dating life, and she has to follow the guidance of influencer and newly minted relationship coach Eliza Cassidy. Once she’s committed to 20 blind dates of Eliza’s choosing, Cecily finds herself unable to stop thinking about Will, a photographer she helped to rescue a lost dog. Even though there are sparks between the two, Will’s own path is uncertain, and Eliza’s skeptical comments about Cecily’s decision-making aren’t helping. As Cecily struggles to balance the life she truly desires and the one Eliza wants to create for her, she finds herself at a crossroads.

Drawing on her background --- her father's abuse, her complicated dynamic with her disabled mother, the death of her child, her sexual relationships with men and women --- and her creative life as an author and teacher, Lidia Yuknavitch has come to understand that by using the power of literature and storytelling to reframe her memories, she can loosen the bonds that have enslaved her emotional growth. Armed with this insight, she allows herself to look with the eye of an artist at the wounds she suffered and come to understand the transformational power this has to restore her soul. By turns candid and lyrical, stoic and forgiving, blunt and evocative, READING THE WAVES reframes memory to show how crucial this process can be to gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves.