Book Reviews

4.8

The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living is a rigorously structured daily devotional that brings Stoic philosophy into the rhythms of contemporary life, debuting on both the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists — the latter ranking it as high as #2 overall and keeping it there for eleven weeks — and has since sold more than two million copies.

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

4.7

Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States is a foundational and fiercely debated work of American nonfiction that reorients the national story away from presidents, wars, and institutions toward the laborers, enslaved people, Indigenous nations, women, and dissidents who shaped — and resisted — the country from below. Originally published in 1980 and revised multiple times through events covering 2002, it has sold more than four million copies in English and been translated into more than a dozen languages, cementing its status as one of the most widely read and argued-over works of American history ever written. The audiobook edition, narrated by Howard Zinn's son Jeff Zinn and released by Harper in December 2009, runs 34 hours and 10 minutes in unabridged form.

Apr 4, 2026

The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques by Tracy Disabato-Aust

4.7

Tracy DiSabato-Aust's The Well-Tended Perennial Garden is a comprehensive, practical gardening reference organized around planting, pruning, and long-term maintenance of perennial beds — structured to be read cover to cover once and then consulted season after season. This review is based on published sources and the book's documented content; it does not reflect hands-on use or testing.

Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe by Admiral William H. McRaven

4.7

Adapted from Admiral William H. McRaven's viral 2014 University of Texas commencement address, Make Your Bed distills ten principles drawn from his 34-year Navy SEAL career into a concise self-help book published by Grand Central Publishing — a brisk, anecdote-driven guide that resonates strongly with readers seeking direct, military-framed life lessons, though its brevity and narrow experiential lens will not satisfy every audience.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Pauline Nestor

4.6

Emily Brontë's only novel, first published in 1847 under the pen name Ellis Bell, endures as one of the most celebrated works in English literature — a ferocious story of obsession, revenge, and doomed passion set against the bleak Yorkshire moors, now available in a Penguin Classics revised edition featuring an introduction and notes by Pauline Nestor and a new preface by Lucasta Miller.

Ask Not: The Inauguration of John F. Kennedy by Thurston Clarke

4.6

Thurston Clarke's Ask Not narrows its lens to the three months before John F. Kennedy's inauguration and the creation of one of the most celebrated speeches in American political history, producing what critical coverage called an absorbing narrative that is balanced, revealing Kennedy at his most dazzlingly charismatic and cunningly pragmatic.

Carried Away: A Memoir of Rescue by Ross Meador

4.5

Ross Meador's memoir delivers a rare ground-level perspective on Operation Babylift and the fall of Saigon, told by a 19-year-old volunteer who was already embedded in South Vietnam's orphanages long before the official evacuation began.

Forks Over Knives by Gene Stone

4.5

Edited by Gene Stone, with forewords by T. Colin Campbell and Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Forks Over Knives is a New York Times bestseller that builds on the landmark 2011 documentary to make the case that a whole-food, plant-based diet can prevent and reverse chronic diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers. It is an essential entry point for readers curious about the science and practice behind plant-based eating.

Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan

4.4

Maureen Callahan's Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed is a sweeping, deeply reported exposé published by Little, Brown & Company that dismantles the gilded mythology of America's most celebrated political dynasty by centering the women — wives, lovers, daughters, and bystanders — who bore the cost of Kennedy power across generations. The Guardian describes it as a "lacerating exposé," and critical coverage places it within an already crowded field of Kennedy literature, asking what Callahan hopes to add to this "vale of tears." The answer, it turns out, is a great deal: a multigenerational reckoning that spans patriarch Joseph Kennedy through John Jr., tracing a pattern of abuse, coercion, and institutional impunity that the family's mythmakers worked hard to obscure.

Lady Tremaine: Reese’s Book Club Pick (A Novel) by Rachel Hochhauser

4.4

Rachel Hochhauser's debut novel Lady Tremaine — an Instant New York Times Bestseller, Reese's Book Club Pick, IndieNext Pick, and LibraryReads Pick — reimagines Cinderella's iconic stepmother as a fierce, fully realized protagonist fighting to secure her daughters' futures against impossible odds. The audiobook edition, narrated by Bessie Carter and released by Macmillan Audio on March 3, 2026, runs 12 hours and 41 minutes and delivers what blurb contributors and Reese's Book Club describe as a riveting, complex paean to women's strength.

His and Hers: Swapped at the Office by Bella May

His and Hers: Swapped at the Office is a short-form Kindle romance by Bella May, built around an office body-swap premise and designed for readers who enjoy fast, light romantic fiction.

Lady: A Novel by Thomas Tryon

Thomas Tryon's Lady is the third novel set in the fictional Connecticut village of Pequot Landing, following the New York Times bestseller The Other and Harvest Home. Narrated through the adoring eyes of a boy named Woody, it unspools as an unhurried portrait of 1930s American small-town life before pivoting to a deeply shadowed revelation about the elegant, mysterious Lady Harleigh. The novel sits in the tradition of richly atmospheric popular fiction — think Peyton Place and Kings Row — and rewards patient readers willing to let Tryon build his slow crescendo toward its genuinely surprising close.