Book Reviews

4.7

The eighteenth Chief Inspector Gamache novel delivers one of the strongest entries in the series, weaving a dual-timeline mystery around siblings Fiona and Sam Arsenault — whose mother's murder opens both a harrowing flashback and a tense present-day investigation in Three Pines — while giving long-time readers the origin story of Gamache and Beauvoir's partnership they never knew they needed.

The Book of Extraordinary Facts: Big Book of Pop Culture, History, Crime by Publications International Ltd.

4.7

Publications International Ltd.'s The Book of Extraordinary Facts is a wide-ranging, 704-page hardcover trivia compendium published in 2012, covering pop culture, history, nature, technology, food, sports, art, religion, crime, and the outright weird — designed to engage curious adults and trivia enthusiasts for hours of browsing.

The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick M. Lencioni

Patrick M. Lencioni's The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business makes a direct, focused case that the most powerful competitive differentiator available to any organization is not strategy, innovation, or talent — it is organizational health. Published by Jossey-Bass in 2012, the book is a comprehensive business guide that synthesizes themes from across Lencioni's prior work into a single, actionable framework built around four disciplines and six critical questions of clarity.

The Psychology of Everyday Life: 100 Psychology Facts About the Biases, Habits, by Adrian Holt

Adrian Holt's independently published 2025 nonfiction book delivers 100 single-page psychology facts covering biases, habits, social influence, emotion, identity, memory, and perception — structured for non-specialist readers who want practical, immediately applicable insights into how the mind shapes daily decisions.

The Frozen River: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel by Ariel Lawhon

The Frozen River is a New York Times bestseller and GMA Book Club Pick that resurrects the remarkable true story of Martha Ballard — an 18th-century Maine midwife whose real diary becomes the engine of a taut historical mystery set against the frozen landscape of 1789 Hallowell. Ariel Lawhon, the bestselling author of I Was Anastasia and Code Name Hélène, constructs a narrative in which a body entombed in the Kennebec River, an alleged rape by two prominent townsmen, and a community's determination to silence a woman's testimony all converge in one relentless winter. Starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Shelf Awareness, and BookPage confirm the novel as a standout in both the historical fiction and historical mystery genres.

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff

Kristin Neff's Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself is a self-help and psychology book that makes a rigorous, structured argument for replacing chronic self-criticism with self-compassion — covering its core components, its practical benefits, and its application across relationships, parenting, and personal growth. Originally published in 2011 and later issued in a William Morrow Paperbacks edition, it remains one of the field's foundational texts on the subject.

Personal Development: 50 Bestsellers in Infographics. All the soft skills by Ivi Green

4.5

Ivi Green's independently published guide distills 50 landmark personal-development titles into a single visual reference, translating soft-skills classics on success, leadership, healthy habits, and happiness into infographic form — a format designed to make a wide body of self-help reading accessible in one compact volume.

How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life by Massimo Pigliucci

4.5

How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life by Massimo Pigliucci (Basic Books) is a rigorous yet accessible self-help philosophy book that channels the ancient Stoic tradition — particularly the teachings of Epictetus — into a framework for contemporary living, written by a professional philosopher who brings both academic depth and personal conviction to the subject.

We Are All Welcome Here: A Novel by Elizabeth Berg

4.5

Set in Tupelo, Mississippi during the summer of 1964, Elizabeth Berg's novel We Are All Welcome Here centers on three women — the quadriplegic Paige Dunn, her teenage daughter Diana, and their no-nonsense Black caregiver Peacie — each fighting for her own version of freedom against the twin backdrops of the civil rights movement and deeply personal adversity. A New York Times bestselling author whose work has been published in thirty-one countries, Berg brings her characteristic empathy to a story that is both intimate and historically grounded. Kirkus Reviews assessed it as a "feathery feel-good story about triumph over adversity," noting that while the novel's components are compelling, it falls short of full emotional resonance in places — a tension between warmth and weight that readers should weigh before picking it up.

The Lost Bookshop: The most charming by Evie Woods

4.4

Evie Woods's The Lost Bookshop is a genre-blending novel that weaves magical realism, historical fiction, bibliophilia, and romance across two timelines — 1920s Europe and contemporary Dublin — drawing together three distinct narrators in a mystery centred on a vanished bookshop and a possibly undiscovered Emily Brontë manuscript. Published in 2023 by One More Chapter, an imprint of HarperCollins, it topped the Wall Street Journal's weekly book list, made the Sunday Times top 10, became a bestseller on Amazon UK and US, was shortlisted for Page-Turner of the Year at the 2024 British Book Awards, and by May 2024 had surpassed one million copies sold worldwide.

The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding a Civilization: Dynamic Practices by Jackson Ridge

3.9

Jackson Ridge's The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding a Civilization is a wide-ranging reference guide structured around ten chapters that move from immediate survival priorities to long-term social reconstruction, covering renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, ethical governance, and community building — marketed equally to sustainability enthusiasts and gift-givers seeking an accessible, visually polished introduction to civilizational resilience.

Exposure: How an Outlier’s Journey Illuminates the Extremes by Wim Hof

Exposure: How an Outlier's Journey Illuminates the Extremes of Power, Vitality, and Possibility is an illustrated memoir by Wim Hof — the Dutch extreme athlete known worldwide as "the Iceman" — tracing his life from unconventional early adulthood through decades of record-breaking cold-exposure feats. Published by Sounds True in November 2025, the book combines personal photographs, stories, and motivational passages. Publishers Weekly, while acknowledging the striking photography, describes it as "impressionistic and uneven" and recommends it primarily for devoted fans of Hof's work.