Sanderson’s initial presentation of her subject is positive. She differentiates among types of social media, observing that online platforms have “opened up new career opportunities,” “enabled people to connect,” and allowed “people to leave reviews of products or companies.” China has its “own versions” of social media (there’s no mention of censorship). The statement that algorithms are a “little like librarians” is simplistic and misleading. Sanderson warns readers about some drawbacks, including peer pressure, deteriorating real-world social skills, cyberbullying, deepfakes, scams, and identity theft. The final section describes specific ways to use social media safely and what to do if you’re a victim. The last spread outlines the principles of good digital citizenship. Despite some cautions, the book dances around serious issues like echo chambers, manipulation of the electorate, and radicalization through hate speech. Readers also aren’t warned strongly enough about fake reviews or the improbability of influencing as a career, nor are they reminded that they are the product. The focus is on individual users’ responsibility, with little attention to industry or government regulation. The writing is accessible; sidebars highlight key pieces of information, and chapter summaries provide easy takeaways. Portions of this book are repeated, sometimes verbatim, in Sanderson’s Dealing With Cyberbullying (2026).

What is a refugee? While the simple answer—“a person fleeing their country to find safety”—is true, it only scratches the surface. This volume adds clear historical context. In the first three chapters, readers glean facts about refugees in the U.S. and examine global causes and responses and the social impact of displacement. The book offers reasons why people are forced to flee and how the world is responding to this ongoing humanitarian challenge, including the United Nations’ role in assisting refugees. The final three chapters turn toward solutions, highlighting caring for refugees, community integration, and long-term strategies for change. A standout feature of this book are the six sections that pose a central question—such as “Does the world community fully support refugees?”—which is followed by opposing perspectives (for example, “wealthier countries are playing their part” vs. “wealthy countries are not taking enough responsibility”). Readers are then invited to form their own opinions through critical reflection. The book concludes by questioning how it might feel to become a refugee and suggests we, as citizens, can do our part to address this crisis. The color photographs throughout depicting the realities of displacement are powerful without resorting to shock value, helping readers engage with empathy and awareness.

Duncan Graham tries to avoid living an extraordinary life. His mother, McKenna, and his absentee father, Ethan, were star-crossed lovers from feuding Scottish clans. The unwed couple separated, with Ethan sending McKenna and Duncan to America to avoid scandal. Duncan enjoys a normal life growing up with a single mother until he is 11 years old—that’s when he magically cures his best friend Timmy’s polio (“The room filled with light”) and discovers that he is a healer. Duncan does his best to keep his gift a secret, using it sparingly as he grows into adulthood, but he’s thrust into the public eye when he’s forced to save a young woman struck by a car. Duncan is uncomfortable in the spotlight, but he holds meetings at a former church to heal people, eventually moving to a bigger facility. Thanks to negative publicity generated by those he couldn’t cure, Duncan’s “ministry” flounders, and he also suffers serious personal reversals. It isn’t until Duncan accompanies McKenna’s body home to Scotland that he truly begins to understand his power. He begins roaming the world and helping others, leading to a fateful reunion. In Duncan, Stone has created a totally believable character; he reacts as anyone would if they received a life-saving power with no owner’s manual. (Actually, he likely does better than most, as Duncan leads with his heart and uses his gift to benefit others.) The narrative is affecting as friends slip in and out of his life, and even his mother, who knows more than she lets on, frustratingly leaves him alone to navigate his own path. The author makes it annoyingly difficult to keep track of time—while it is clear that the novel covers Duncan’s life, it’s less evident how many decades this entails. Still, Stone triumphs in building an admirable character who succeeds despite his gift.

Published in the U.K. earlier this year, now shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Markovits’ 12th novel establishes the unstudied and confiding voice that carries it so compellingly forward in the first sentence: “When our son was twelve years old, my wife had an affair with a guy called Zach Zirsky, whom she knew from synagogue.” As the story unfolds, this voice often addresses the reader directly, saying things like, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound about it the way I probably sound,” and “I should probably say a word about our friendship,” and so forth, increasing the intimate effect. For the sake of his kids—there’s also a daughter, then 6—Tom Layward made a deal with himself that he’d stay in the marriage until they left home. The book opens at that point, 12 years later. “What we obviously had, even when things smoothed over, was a C-minus marriage, which makes it pretty hard to score much higher than a B overall on the rest of your life.” Other things are also going poorly: Tom, a law professor on leave from his university after counseling the owner of a basketball team accused of racism and sexism, has also refused to add his pronouns to his email signature. Markovits, who was born in Texas, played pro basketball in Germany, and now lives in London, develops this tricky aspect of the situation in a notably nuanced way, as part of the complexity of Tom’s character rather than as a dive into the breach of the culture wars. Tom is also suffering from undiagnosed but serious-seeming health symptoms, which he vaguely ascribes to long Covid. When an argument between his wife, Amy, and daughter, Miri, erupts on the day they are to take her to campus, Amy stays home in suburban New York. And without ever actually deciding to, Tom ends up on a cross-country road trip, visiting an old basketball teammate, an ex-lover, his brother, and ultimately his son on the West Coast. Though Markovits has never been big on plot, the reader’s sense that this is all leading up to something is not wrong.