Book Reviews

Ainissa Ramirez traces how eight inventions, from steel rails to fiber-optic cables, reshaped human consciousness and society. A materials scientist’s precision meets a storyteller’s gift. Winner of the 2020 Meridian Award for Science and Nature.

Kwei Quartey launches the Emma Djan series with a Ghana-set mystery following a private investigator as she hunts a missing American man through Accra’s internet fraud networks. Socially engaged and technically precise, the strongest crime series debut of 2020. Rated 5.0/5.

Darcie Little Badger’s Lipan Apache mythology-rooted fantasy follows two protagonists across parallel worlds: Nina, a cottonmouth snake person in the spirit realm, and Oli, a Lipan Apache teenager in contemporary Texas. Winner of the Locus Award for Best YA Novel. A genuinely original and enduring work. Rated 5.0/5.

Set in 1944 Chicago, Aki Ito investigates her sister’s death after their family is released from Manzanar. Naomi Hirahara’s Edgar Award-winning historical mystery is richly researched and psychologically precise. 2021 Meridian Award winner, rated 5.0.

Victoria Chang’s Obit uses the newspaper obituary form to mourn not only her mother but abstract losses: silence, privacy, the poet’s own feelings. A formally audacious and devastating grief collection, winner of the LA Times Book Prize and 2020 Meridian Award for Poetry.

Myke Cole’s military SF novel places the US Coast Guard on the Moon as US-China tensions approach war. Captain Jane Oliver must prevent armed conflict using the USCG’s peacekeeping traditions. The most ethically rigorous military SF of 2020, with genuine depth on institutional identity under pressure. Rated 5.0/5.

William Burckart and Steve Lydenberg argue for system-level investing: managing portfolios with awareness of how investment decisions affect the broader economic, social, and environmental systems on which all investments depend. The most intellectually rigorous and practically ambitious investment book of its era. Rated 5.0/5.

Caroline Hardaker’s debut literary biopunk novel follows Norah and Arthur as they adopt Nut, a creature grown from their own cells, with quietly devastating consequences. The most original SF voice of its year. 2021 Meridian Award winner, rated 5.0.

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s International Booker Prize-winning debut follows Jas, a ten-year-old girl on a strict Calvinist farm in the Netherlands, as her family unravels after her brother dies in a skating accident. Viscerally original, unlike anything else in contemporary European fiction. Translated by Michele Hutchison. Rated 5.0/5.