Book Review: All the Knowledge in the World

The encyclopedia once shaped our understanding of the world. Created by thousands of scholars and the most obsessive of editors, a good set conveyed a sense of absolute wisdom on its reader. Contributions from Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Orville Wright, Alfred Hitchcock, Marie Curie and Indira Gandhi helped millions of children with their homework. Adults cleared their shelves in the belief that everything that was explainable was now effortlessly accessible in their living rooms.

Now these huge books gather dust and sell for almost nothing on eBay. Instead, we get our information from our phones and computers, apparently for free. What have we lost in this transition? And how did we tell the progress of our lives in the past?

Book Review: The Connection Game

Benny Basilworth makes connections. A rare intellect, he sees things that others don't see and draws conclusions that others completely fail to grasp. He has the kind of mind that can make a person a national sensation on the television gameshow "The Connection Game"– and the kind of mind that can be the target of predators.

Despite his brilliance, Benny and his family find themselves destitute, living in a basement apartment with one tiny window that affords them only the view of the feet of passersby on the street above. It is from this vantagepoint that Benny once again starts making connections. Mad, inconceivable connections. Connections that can change lives . . . and turn the entire world upside down.

Book Review: Nothing But Beginner Vocab - Spanish Edition

Specially written for beginner and intermediate Spanish students, Nothing But Beginner Vocab is your ultimate handbook for mastering 90% of the vital Spanish words that you’ll need for fluency. With a practical mix of quizzes, exercises, and exams to test your memory, inside you’ll discover a comprehensive path that makes learning Spanish fun.

Even if you’ve never spoken a syllable of Spanish before, or if you’re stuck at the A1-B2 level, this workbook provides you with all the must-know words that you’ll need to learn, develop, train, and test your Spanish vocab, so you can build your confidence and deepen your understanding of this amazing language.

Book Review: Oscar Wars

America does not have royalty. It has the Academy Awards. For nine decades, perfectly coiffed starlets, debonair leading men, and producers with gold in their eyes have chased the elusive Oscar. What began as an industry banquet in 1929 has now exploded into a hallowed ceremony, complete with red carpets, envelopes, and little gold men. But don’t be fooled by the pomp: the Oscars, more than anything, are a battlefield, where the history of Hollywood—and of America itself—unfolds in dramas large and small. The road to the Oscars may be golden, but it’s paved in blood, sweat, and broken hearts.

Book Review: Varina Palladino's Jersey Italian Love Story

Lively widow Varina Paladino has lived in the same house in Wyldale, New Jersey, her entire life. The town might be slightly stuck in the 1960s, when small businesses thrived and most residents were Italian, but its population is getting younger and the Paladinos are embracing the change. What Varina’s not embracing, much to her ninety-two-year-old mother’s dismay, is dating. Running Paladino’s Italian Specialties grocery, caring for her mother, and keeping her large, loud Jersey Italian family from killing one another takes up all of Varina’s energy anyway.

Sylvia Spini worries about her daughter Varina being left all alone when she dies. Sylvia knows what it is to be old and alone, so when her granddaughter, Donatella, comes to her with an ill-conceived plan to find Varina a man, Sylvia dives in. The three men of the family—Dante, Tommy, and Paulie—are each secretly plotting their own big life changes, which will throw everyone for a loop.

Three generations of Paladinos butt heads and break one another’s hearts as they wrestle with their own Jersey Italian love stories in this hilarious and life-affirming ode to love and family.

Book Review: Wild Massive

Welcome to the Building, an infinitely tall skyscraper in the center of the multiverse, where any floor could contain a sprawling desert oasis, a cyanide rain forest, or an entire world.

Carissa loves her elevator. Up and down she goes, content with the sometimes chewy food her reality fabricator spits out, as long as it means she doesn’t have to speak to another living person. But when a mysterious shapeshifter from an ambiguous world lands on top of her elevator, intent on stopping a plot to annihilate hundreds of floors, Carissa finds herself stepping out of her comfort zone. She is forced to flee into the Wild Massive network of theme parks in the Building, where technology, sorcery, and elaborate media tie-ins combine to form impossible ride experiences, where every guest is a VIP, the roller coasters are frequently safe, and if you don’t have a valid day pass, the automated defense lasers will escort you from being alive.

Book Review: Queen of Deception

A burst of magic from Midgard attracts the attention of Hela, Queen of Hel. The Goddess of Death craves power to enable her ultimate conquest of the Realms, and this new sorcery from Earth is tantalizing… Pursuing its source, Hela is appalled to find herself in Elizabethan England. From Asgard, Lady Sif and the valkyrie, Brunnhilde are also dispatched to Midgard, and neither of them have any love for Hela. Yet a still greater threat awaits: the Dark Elves see Midgard as the first battle in war of the Realms. Only a team-up between hated enemies can win the day, but how far can you really trust the Queen of Hel?

Book Review: The Twyford Code

Forty years ago, Steven “Smithy” Smith found a copy of a famous children’s book by disgraced author Edith Twyford, its margins full of strange markings and annotations. When he showed it to his remedial English teacher Miss Iles, she believed that it was part of a secret code that ran through all of Twyford’s novels. And when she disappeared on a class field trip, Smithy became convinced that she had been right.

Now, out of prison after a long stretch, Smithy decides to investigate the mystery that has haunted him for decades. In a series of voice recordings on an old iPhone from his estranged son, Smithy alternates between visiting the people of his childhood and looking back on the events that later landed him in prison.

But it soon becomes clear that Edith Twyford wasn’t just a writer of forgotten children’s stories. The Twyford Code holds a great secret, and Smithy may just have the key.

Book Review: The Fresh Prince Project

More than thirty years have passed since The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air premiered on NBC but unlike other family sitcoms of its era, it has remained culturally relevant and beloved by new generations of fans.

With fresh eyes on the show in the wake of 2022’s launch of Bel-Air, a Fresh Prince reboot on NBC’s Peacock, The Fresh Prince Project brings us never-before-told stories based on exclusive interviews with the show’s cast, creators, writers, and crew. The Fresh Prince Project is an eye-opening exploration and celebration of a show that not only made Will Smith a household name but helped redefine America’s understandings of race, sex, parenthood, and class.

Book Review: The Shards

Seventeen-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret’s obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his increasingly unsettling preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer to Bret and his friends, taunting them—and Bret in particular—with grotesque threats and horrific, sharply local acts of violence. The coincidences are uncanny, but they are also filtered through the imagination of a teenager whose gifts for constructing narrative from the filaments of his own life are about to make him one of the most explosive literary sensations of his generation. Can he trust his friends—or his own mind—to make sense of the danger they appear to be in? Thwarted by the world and by his own innate desires, buffeted by unhealthy fixations, he spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between the Trawler and Robert Mallory hurtles inexorably toward a collision.