Aging Out by Lucy Schiller

About the book: Aging Out: An Exploration of Caregiving, Community, and How Americans Grow Old is a deeply personal investigation into the current state of eldercare and what it means to grow old in America.

Unlike many other cultures, our collective stance toward older people in the United States has long been one of casual avoidance and neglect. This attitude became brutally clear during the height of the COVID pandemic, when too many people saw elderly deaths not as tragedies but as foregone conclusions.

Like many of us, Lucy Schiller experienced this callousness firsthand when her grandmother passed away during the pandemic. In the wake of this trauma, propelled by equal parts grief and curiosity about her own fear of aging, Schiller embarked on an investigative journey to understand why the prospect of aging is so frightening and how being "old" in America intersects with class, race, disability, and public policy.

From profit-driven networks of care facilities to systemic failures in economic support, the future of older Americans looks increasingly uncertain. In Aging Out, Schiller reports this crisis, sharing the human toll of inadequate housing, health care, and community, while simultaneously excavating her own complicated relationship with aging.

Combining the incisive reporting of Evicted with the beautifully rendered introspection of The Empathy Exams, Aging Out is an intimate and unflinching exploration of what it means to age in this country and why Americans - including Schiller herself - are so terrified of getting old.

Aging Out will be released on 14 July 2026.

About the author: Lucy Schiller is a nonfiction writer. Her work has been published at the Columbia Journalism Review, The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, West Branch, Speculative Nonfiction, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. She was the Olive B O'Connor Fellow in Nonfiction at Colgate University (2020-2021) and the Provost's Visiting Writer in Nonfiction at the University of Iowa (2018-2019). She received her MFA from the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow.

Matchsticks And Rosary As Mnemonic Tools

In Minor Matters

Arctic Predator: The Crimes Of Edward Horne Against Children In Canada's North by Kathleen Lippa

About the book: Arctic Predator (2025) is the shocking crimes of a trusted teacher wrought lasting damage on Inuit communities in Canada’s Arctic.

In the 1970s, a young schoolteacher from British Columbia was becoming the darling of the Northwest Territories education department with his dynamic teaching style. He was learning to speak the local language, Inuktitut, something few outsiders did. He also claimed to be Indigenous — a claim that would later prove to be false. 

In truth, Edward Horne was a pedophile who sexually abused his male students.

From 1971 to 1985, his predations on Inuit boys would disrupt life in the communities where he worked — towns of close-knit families that would suffer the intergenerational trauma created by his abuse.

Journalist Kathleen Lippa, after years of research, examines the devastating impact the crimes had on individuals, families, and entire communities. Her compelling work lifts the veil of silence surrounding the Horne story once and for all. 

Arctic Predator is a Finalist in the 2026 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize (Nonfiction) and also a Finalist in the 2026 Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book (Crime Writers of Canada).

About the author: Kathleen Lippa grew up in St John’s, Newfoundland. She has worked as a reporter at newspapers across Canada, and eventually served as Bureau Chief for Nunavut News/North in Iqaluit. She lives with her husband in Ottawa.

Lake Effect by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

About the book: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nest (2017), Lake Effect (2026) is a stunning new novel about adultery, first love and other family secrets.

It is 1977 and an air of restlessness has settled on the residents of Cambridge Road in Rochester, New York. When Nina Larkin is given a copy of The Joy of Sex by her newly divorced friend, she can no longer dismiss the nearly non-existent intimacy of her marriage. Just as her oldest child, Clara, is falling in love for the first time, Nina finds herself longing for the forbidden: a midlife awakening. An intoxicating fling with a neighbour brings Nina a freedom she never thought possible - but also risks the reputations of both families and unravels Clara’s world, just as she stands on the threshold of adulthood.

Years later Clara, now a successful food stylist in New York City, has never been able to move past the long-ago scandal. Drawn back home by the pull of a family wedding and wrestling with her own demons, she makes a pivotal decision that turns her life upside down.

Written with Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s signature humour and insight, Lake Effect (2026) is a wise and probing look at love and desire, mothers and daughters, loss and grief, and what we owe the people we love most.

About the author: Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children. She has an MFA from Bennington.

Rating: 3/5

The Lake Club by Lina Patton

About the book: The Lake Club is a sizzling, soapy summer debut, in which two women in a wealthy lakeside suburb clash over a cute male nanny, pulling the town’s darker secrets to the surface.

When Danika Crawley attends events at the Aldon Lakes Country Club, heads turn. Danika has it all - beauty, money, a successful husband, and two perfect children. She plans on making this summer her best season yet and has a secret weapon to secure the envy of her neighbours.

Augie Elling has lost it all. Reeling from a post-grad scandal amidst her now-former life in New York, she returns to Aldon Lakes with her tail between her legs. Augie wants to keep her head down, save money, and find a way to leave her hometown for good, but someone keeps distracting her.

Danika and Augie have one thing in common: they are both a little obsessed with Chat, the male nanny Danika hired for the summer. But, unbeknownst to either woman, Chat’s appearance in town sets off a chain reaction that threatens Aldon Lakes' carefully maintained ecosystem. As the heat rises between the three of them, the truth behind a long-buried scandal comes to light, and everyone at the club must reckon with the consequences.

The Lake Club is both an addictive, rollicking beach read, and a stylish, deft exploration of a lesser-known region of American wealth.

The Lake Club is available for pre-order and will be released on 30 July 2026. 

About the author: Lina Patton is a writer, illustrator, and teacher. Originally from Maine, she moved to Minnesota at thirteen, trading the ocean for 10,000 lakes. She holds a BA from Elon University and an MFA from George Mason University. Her work has appeared in ELLE, The Cut, Narrative Magazine, and Driftwood Press, among others. After seven years living abroad, she and her husband currently reside in Washington, DC, with their two very good, very bad dogs. The Lake Club is her first novel.

Rating: 5/5

Little Wonder by Sophie Chen Keller

About the book: Song is a nobody - just a food delivery worker from a village in Northeast China - but her son, River, is a little wonder.

At the age of four, he toddles to a piano and taps out his favorite song. At eight, he masters Liszt’s three Liebestraume; at ten, he blazes through the complete set of Chopin’s études. And at every step, through the valleys of loss, illness, and poverty, Song is there to light his way, until finally, at the age of eleven, River is invited to study with a preeminent teacher in Beijing.

But in the chaos of Beijing Railway Station on the busiest day of the year, Song faces every mother’s nightmare: She loses her grip on River’s little hand and is unable to find him after a desperate, harrowing search.

Over the next days, weeks, and eventually, years, Song and River fight to forge a path back to each other as they carve out new lives that carry them farther apart. An evocative exploration of a mother’s love and a son’s yearning, Little Wonder takes us on an extraordinary journey through a modern Beijing that pulses with the music of humanity and its impossible - and impossibly brave - hopes.

As every musician knows: You start in one key. You wander to other keys, strange and distant places. But in the end, you always come back home.

Little Wonder (2026) is a powerful, heartbreaking story of hope, perseverance and love between a son and mother. The book will be released in the UK on 11 February 2027.

About the author: Sophie Chen Keller is the author of The Luster of Lost Things, which was also released in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. Her first publication came at the age of fifteen, with a short story in Glimmer Train literary magazine. A classically trained pianist, she was born in China and raised in California; after graduating from Harvard, she lived in New York City and Beijing before moving to Germany, where she currently resides with her husband and two children.

Strangers: A Memoir Of Marriage by Belle Burden

About the book: How do we go on when a loved one betrays us? 

More crucially, is it possible to truly know someone else, even in marriage?

On a chilly day in March of 2020, in the early days of the pandemic, Belle Burden’s husband of twenty years announced, with no prior warning, that he was leaving her.

His decision shocked Belle to her core: she believed he was a happy man, a committed partner, and a devoted father to their three children. She thought he was a man who had settled into the life he had always wanted: a successful career, summers spent at their beloved home on Martha’s Vineyard, lots of tennis.

Overnight, he transformed from her steady companion into a stranger.

As she pieces her life together in the wake of a loss she had never imagined coming, she finds she is much stronger than she ever expected. Belle reflects on her transformation from a shy, quiet girl, nicknamed ‘Belle the Good’ to a powerful, brave, determined woman. A woman who has learned to use her voice to expose the patriarchal structures that have forced women to be discreet and compliant for far too long.

Based on Belle’s popular ‘Modern Love’ essay, Was I Married to a Stranger?, Strangers:A Memoir of Marriage (2026) is the emotional and empowering memoir of self-discovery and what it means to finally be heard.

Strangers is the instant No 1 New York Times bestseller and after a bidding war, Netflix purchased rights to produce an adaptation of the book, starring and executive produced by Gwyneth Paltrow.

About the author: Belle Burden was born in New York City. She holds a BA from Harvard College and a law degree from NYU. Currently, she is a pro bono immigration lawyer specializing in juvenile cases. She lives with her children in New York City. 

I've Never Been Happier: Pedro Ballester Arenas by Jorge Boronat

About the book: Pedro Ballester Arenas died of osteosarcoma in Manchester at the age of 21 in 2018 but his life spoke volubly of a greatness beyond his years and of a life well lived. 

A few weeks before Pedro died, after three long years of treatment, chemotherapy, travel, spells in hospital, pain and suffering, Pedro was speaking with Tom, a 15-year-old boy who had decided to follow his vocation as a numerary in Opus Dei. Pedro asked him in a faint voice, "Are you happy?" "Yes, I am," Tom replied. And with great frankness, he put the same question to Pedro: "What about you?" Pedro smiled and said with conviction, "I've never been happier."

At his funeral, the now Cardinal Arthur Roche explained: "Pedro has touched the lives of many – and most without him knowing it – through his patient, faith-filled, happy and loving endurance during these last three years of an illness, which he bore uncomplainingly and with considerable courage and which has been both a witness to the beauty of life at whatever stage or condition and a great example and encouragement to all who were close to him... When Pedrito committed himself as a celibate lay member of Opus Dei, with that generosity which is so characteristic of youth, he could not have known how the Lord would call him to follow in His steps even to the sharing of His Cross and His Sacrifice for others. But we know, that as he rose each morning, even from his hospital bed when able, he kissed the ground and uttered the word of Michael the Archangel, serviam! – I will serve! And so he did, with great magnanimity, with patience and good humour."

I've Never Been Happier: Pedro Ballester Arenas (2023) brings together some memories of his parents and siblings, of family and friends, of those who knew him and lived with him, and who witnessed the adventure of a "Yes" to God until his last breath.

The Diocese of Salford (Manchester, United Kingdom) has formally opened Pedro's cause for beatification and canonisation, meaning that his life, writings and the testimonies of those who knew him will be thoroughly examined before having Pedro Ballester declared a saint. Following the opening of his cause, Pedro Ballester's grave in the Southern Cemetery in Manchester has become a site of pilgrimage. 

About the author: Reverend Jorge Boronat M.D. S.T.D is a Catholic priest from the Prelature of Opus Dei, working in the Archdiocese of Westminster in London. He is the Chaplain of Netherhall House and Ashwell House, university halls of residence. He also works in the parish of St Thomas More, Swiss Cottage, and has developed his pastoral ministry mainly with young people.

Training The Tongue by Fr Gregory Pine OP

About the book: Gossip. Lying. Flattery. Crass words. 

As we grow in Christian maturity, many of us are aware that we fall frequently into sins of speech. We realize instinctually that these faults are holding us back from the fullness of life. 

But what can we do about them?

Training the Tongue and Growing Beyond Sins of Speech (2026) promises to help us attain verbal virtue. As this brief book shows, by cultivating healthy habits, we can effectively crowd out sinful speech and experience the gift of our tongue as God intended. Dynamic preacher and teacher Fr Gregory Pine, OP, directs our attention to the primary purpose of speech - communion with God and each other - and considers a whole range of methods to develop our humanity in service of that end.

Fr Gregory invites us to consider the importance of practices like truth-telling, correction, humour, and prayer within the context of our earthly and heavenly conversations. Enter more whole-heartedly (and freely) into relationships. Harness the power of speech for the good of your soul. And, with Training the Tongue as a delightful guide, reclaim communication as a tool for true communion with God and man alike.

About the author: Father Gregory Pine, OP, is a professor of dogmatic and moral theology at the Dominican House of Studies and an assistant director of the Thomistic Institute in Washington DC. The author of Prudence: Choose Confidently, Live Boldly (2022), he holds a doctorate from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and regularly contributes to the podcasts Godsplaining and Pints with Aquinas.

Baking & The Meaning Of Life by Helen Goh

About the book: In her hotly anticipated debut solo cookbook, Ottolenghi pastry chef and recipe developer Helen Goh shares her 100 favourite baking recipes to show the many ways baking brings meaning and joy to our lives.

No one knows the 'why' or 'how' of baking better than Helen Goh, recipe developer with Yotam Ottolenghi for more than a decade, co-author of bestselling books Sweet and Comfort, food columnist for the Good Weekend, The Guardian and Observer, and practising psychologist. 

In this, her first solo cookbook, Helen draws on her upbringing in Malaysia and Australia, her acclaimed work with Ottolenghi and her psychology training to share her distinctive approach to baking with 100 delicious sweet and savoury bakes.

With recipes like Chocolate Tahini Cake with Sesame Brittle, Plum and Pistachio Bars, Pandan and Coconut Chiffon Cake, and many other shareable treats that offer both tried-and-true and creative flavours, this book is a celebration of community, connection and pleasure through baking. Helen's Champagne and Blackcurrant Celebration Cake will become your new go-to for a special occasion, while a batch of Perfect Vanilla Cupcakes for a picnic or charity bake sale is a small but powerful building block of community and solidarity. All of her desserts are impressively sweet ways to celebrate milestones and connect with family and friends. And after your sweet tooth has been satisfied, there are more than 15 savoury baking dishes, from a Puttanesca Galette with Lemon Ricotta to a Potato, Garlic and Rosemary Focaccia.

With inventive flavour combinations that showcase Helen's creativity, a wealth of thoroughly road-tested bakes and her reflections on living and baking well, Baking and the Meaning of Life: How to find joy in 100 recipes (2025) is a one-of-a-kind companion bakers will return to again and again to spread joy, one cookie, cake, or cheese puff at a time.

About the author: Helen Goh was born in Malaysia and came to Australia with her family at age 11. A trained psychologist, she combines psychology practice with a cooking career, becoming head pastry chef at a landmark Melbourne restaurant before moving to London and joining Ottolenghi. Co-author with Yotam of the best-selling baking book Sweet and family food book Comfort, she has worked closely with him in recipe development for over 10 years, drawing widely on Asian, Western and Middle Eastern influences. Helen is a food columnist whose recipes appear in the Sydney Morning Herald, Guardian and Observer. She lives in London with her husband and two sons. @helen_goh_bakes

My Dog

A Return To Beauty by Catherine Rose

About the book: A woman has a choice every morning when she gets dressed - what will she wear?

Women are given a dizzying array of clothing choices, from provocative clothing with too little fabric to athleisure gear to dowdy clothing with bulky ugly fabric.

What is a girl to do amidst all the conflicting messages regarding modest clothing and Catholic teaching?

A Return to Beauty: Ancient Catholic Wisdom and Modern Fashion (2025) offers a clear path through the modesty myths and cultural pressures. It highlights the opportunity that every woman has to dress in a lovely way, through which she can evangelise culture, elevate her vocation, and transform her interior sense of self.

A Return to Beauty: Ancient Catholic Wisdom and Modern Fashion looks at the history of the undressing of women and gives a simple recipe for putting together beautiful outfits that are worthy of a woman's worth in Christ.

About the author: Catherine Rose is married to Devin Rose and a homeschooling mother of two children. She earned a BA in Theology from the University of Notre Dame and worked in the non-profit sphere and as a lobbyist before becoming a full-time mother. She resides with her family on an organic farm in Tyler, Texas, USA. 

Delirious by Damien Wilkins

About the book: It’s time. Mary, an ex cop, and her husband Pete, a former librarian, have decided to move into a retirement village. 

Selling their beloved house should be a clean break, but the past, it seems, has other ideas. A detective calls with new information about the case of their son, Will, who died in an accident forty years earlier. Mary finds herself returning to the last months of her sister’s shortened life. And Pete is haunted by memories of his late mother, who developed delirium and never recovered.

An unforgettable novel of rare power and grace, Delirious poses the questions we all eventually face, if we are lucky - or unlucky - enough. How do we care for others? How do we face each new phase of life? And how do we ever cope?

Delirious is the award-winning, word-of-mouth New Zealand bestseller, nominated for the Dublin Literary Award and winner of New Zealand's 2025 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction.

Delirious will be on sale on 6 August 2026.

About the author: Damien Wilkins is the author of fourteen books. He has won the New Zealand Book Award twice: for his first novel, The Miserables, in 1994, and for Delirious, in 2025. He has been longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award four times, and is the recipient of a Whiting Award. He is a professor at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington and director of the International Institute of Modern Letters Te Pūtahi Tui Auaha o Te Ao.

Rating: 5/5