One day, Dustin is planning to spend an epic summer in Japan with his baseball team, playing the sport he loves more than anything. The next, he’s at the funeral of his 20-year-old cousin, a college baseball player with an undetected heart condition. There, Dustin meets Andrea, and despite his negative first impressions, they grow close. In the coming months, Dustin and Andrea attend several more funerals together, leaning on one another as they navigate the deceased people’s different ends. A constant undercurrent in this story of loss is how Dustin’s life as a baseball player and the culture of the sport influence the way he engages with the world. This verse novel for reluctant readers doubles as a love letter to baseball—a game that, like life and death, connects people. The beauty in Wolf’s word choices and in his poems’ line breaks creates an emotional tone that beckons to readers, inviting them to reflect on their own mortality and place in the world. Song titles make up the titles of the poems, inviting readers on a musical journey. Major characters present white.

Flaco hatched in a South Carolina bird park in March 2010. Two months later, when he was barely a fledgling, he was transferred to the Central Park Zoo, where he would spend almost 13 years. On the night of February 2, 2023, Flaco’s enclosure was vandalized by an unknown perpetrator who cut open the protective wire mesh, allowing Flaco to leave the zoo behind. Although he’d never had a chance to hone his flying skills in his small housing (he had a six-foot wingspan), he made his way to a sidewalk at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue. Pedestrians gathered to look at him, and police were called in case the bird was injured. Officers placed a pet carrier near him, but Flaco flew off to a tree by the nearby Plaza Hotel and evaded rescue. New Yorkers largely broke into two camps: those who felt that Flaco should be captured to ensure his safety, and those who believed that he should roam free: “Some saw him as an underdog, others, as an immigrant, still others saw an outlaw. More than a few, I imagine, saw him as all those things rolled into one.” Meanwhile, the bird strengthened his flying skills and learned to hunt New York’s abundant rat population. He also won the hearts of birders, wildlife photographers, and many others. Emery and Lei document Flaco’s remarkable adventures in text and in many magnificent photos, taken by the authors and other enthusiastic followers. It’s packed with details about the physiology and habits of owls, as well as delightful vignettes of Flaco’s antics (including fun images of him peering into apartment windows). This ode to Flaco is also effectively a tribute to the community he brought together—a diverse collection of city folk who shared real-time sightings and formed new friendships. Despite Flaco’s eventual sad demise, this is an inspirational tale of a valiant, curious escapee.

This collection’s central theme is the concept of “event horizons,” or moments of no return—like crossing the boundary of a black hole. The stories involve cosmic decisions and characters confronting uncertain futures. Most of the characters face moral dilemmas as they navigate such issues as intergalactic relationships and immortality, with their stories taking place in such diverse settings as living rooms, space stations, and far-off exoplanets. Pitsirilos has assembled an eclectic roster of creators from many different mediums, resulting in a work that is diverse in both forms and perspectives. One of Pitsirilos’ standout stories, “Orteez Funeral Home,” is set in the titular mortuary. The building has preserved its original purpose while accommodating some modifications, like replacing bricks with steel and installing a viewing pillar that launches coffins into space for a final journey to the sun. A woman named Evangeline has requested that the story’s narrator attend her viewing, creating an emotionally charged atmosphere as she reflects on their connection. Overall, the work collected here is impressive, the visual elements especially so. Various styles of illustration are used; occasionally there’s a feeling of incongruity when some mediums abut each other, such as the real-life photography that sits alongside comic-book illustrations. The stories themselves are varied; some pieces, like “Klon,” explore more futuristic themes, like advancements in cloning technology that have made reincarnation a reality, while others, like “The Fold,” remain in the realm of SF but address more universal themes, such as the roles stories play in remembering loved ones we can no longer be with (“Stories deceive that they hold no weight”). All should prove a delight for SF aficionados.

As a framework for his detailed advice on navigating the real estate business (in particular the practice of “flipping”—buying a distressed property, rehabbing it, and selling it for a profit), the author offers his “M.B.P.E.” method, which he modestly describes as “a waterfall of energy that will lead you to a revolutionary change as a human being, in your relationships with others, in your work and business.” The letters stand for “morning” (Iasiello emphasizes the importance of getting up very early every day), “prayer” (which he claims will “help you feel less lonely), “biohacking” (which is “regulating one’s body and mind through breathing, healthy food, supplements and proper use of sleep”), and “exercise” (which is important “because your mental and physical state is the first step towards getting results in real estate and life in general”). After making these clarifications, the author’s emphasis shifts almost entirely away from “life in general” to real estate as Iasiello explains the basics of his business to newcomers looking to start on their own. “In most cases when flipping real estate, your product is money, delivered quickly and smoothly,” he writes, with the kind of knowing directness that characterizes the whole book. “Your ideal client is someone who lives in your target neighborhood, needs money fast, and is willing to sacrifice some of the value of their home to get cash.” The author is pleasingly blunt when discussing everything from pre-foreclosures to evictions to absentee homeowners and the details of probate. He gives wise and easy-to-follow advice on how to spot likely properties, how to find buyers (“the engine that will keep your investment potential alive”), how to craft effective networks and ads, and dozens of other related topics. His narrative energy also applies to his life advice, but most readers will be coming here for the real estate tips, and they’ll be well rewarded.

In the latest in the Critical Lives series, Goodby and Wigginton, Thomas scholars at Sheffield Hallam University, offer a brisk but comprehensive look at the life of Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), eschewing the popular image of a “rumpled, Dionysiac…summoner of elemental powers” in favor of a more nuanced portrait of a driven, focused writer who had penned a dozen “masterpieces” by the time he was 19-and-a-half. The book moves confidently through Thomas’ upbringing in a “middling prosperous” suburb of Swansea, his grammar school education, and his complicated relationship with his father, D.J., who named his son after a character in a Welsh medieval tale. From there we progress to the poet’s early adulthood, and the authors make note of both Thomas’ periods of intense productivity and his ambition; after his first collection, 18 Poems, was published in 1934 to not insignificant acclaim, Thomas wanted to build on its success “as quickly as possible,” and Twenty-Five Poems was published less than two years later. In between the two collections, Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara, whom he would marry. Next, the authors address World War II and its effect on Thomas, as well as his work making wartime documentaries for Strand Films, concluding with the poet’s four tours of America in the early 1950s before his untimely death at the age of 39. This slim volume ably summarizes the events of the poet’s life, but where it “fill[s] a gap” is in the “critically informed attention” it pays to Thomas’ writing, offering close reads of many of the poems and the “puns, wordplay and rhetorical devices” he employed. “The life is read in the light of [Thomas’] work, rather than the other way around,” the authors write.