Alaina Housley was just 18 years old and a freshman at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, in November 2018 when she was killed in a mass shooting at Borderline Bar and Grill, a popular country-western bar a few miles off-campus in Thousand Oaks. Housley writes of his and his family’s devastation after the incident, and how their Catholic faith and solidarity helped them when they decided not to let grief define their lives and to commit to finding the joy that remained. Housley recalls the kindness of those around him—such as a local community member who bought him coffee, and a friend who offered the use of his private jet—in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. In the months and years that followed, he writes, he began noticing signs of his daughter’s presence in everyday life—a bird tapping at his window, or particular songs playing on the radio. He still struggled when seeing other people reach milestones that Alaina never would, he says, but he took comfort in these small moments and remained thankful for new relationships and opportunities. For example, he used money from an unexpected GoFundMe campaign to start Alaina’s Voice Foundation, with a mission to “spread hope and kindness through education, music, and mental health initiatives.” Housley’s memoir is effectively guided by his experience as a motivational speaker, helping others process and grow from their own traumatic experiences; he also includes a guide answering the difficult questions that grieving people often encounter. His advice to surround oneself with kindness and community is straightforward, with plenty of examples from his own journey. It may still be overwhelming for readers dealing with very recent tragedy, but Housley’s book stands out for its openness and accessibility, offering reminders that healing can be found in small, everyday acts of grace.

Fitts, the author of several books about Japanese baseball, takes a close look at the inner workings of Nippon Professional Baseball through first-person accounts from players, front-office personnel, data analysts, business executives, and, engagingly, one of the urikos (“beer girls”) who lug hefty kegs through the stands: “When I poured a drink, I always smiled,” she said. “At night, after the games, my face usually hurt from smiling.” While the oral history format usually allows for a more personal approach, it’s hampered here, as the author acknowledges in his introduction, by the propensity of team owners to limit direct access to the players and staff and attempt to control the message. The result, while detailed, comes across at times more like a “just the facts” approach than Moneyball, where the different strands were pulled together for a compelling narrative. Nevertheless, the author offers a clear picture of a thriving subculture that most American readers likely know little about, apart from passing familiarity with transplanted superstars like the Dodgers’ celebrated two-way player, Shohei Ohtani. Differences in the way the game is played are front and center. The Japanese prefer small ball—getting runners on base, bunts, steals, and moving things along—over Major League Baseball’s listless power game. Cheerleading is also hugely popular. When Saori Ogure, director of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighter Girls, choreographed the viral “Fox Dance,” even players joined the fun. Former MLB manager Bobby Valentine, looking back at his time heading the Chiba Lotte Marines, said, “They knew how to play the game. They just needed someone to let them know that they knew how to play the game.”

Nineteen-year-old Amara Kalogridas’ life isn’t perfect: Her mother died nine years ago, after which her father struggled with alcohol abuse, but her family has pulled through. Now, Amara, her brother, Greg, her best friend, Sophie, and her archaeologist father are working on a dig in Tunisia, where they’re hoping to learn more about the rise and fall of Carthage. Amara is just an intern, but she’s determined to make a discovery of her own. Soon enough she does—and the artifact she uncovers sends her back in time to ancient Carthage. Time travel is bad enough, but Amara quickly learns that she’s in an alternate universe with harpies, djinn, and other beings. Amara has unwittingly become embroiled in the Punic Wars and an even older conflict involving beings that move between dimensions and have their own convoluted motivations. Magical Carthage and the possible futures it invokes make for thought-provoking exploration and speculation. The potential of the alternate-reality situation, however, is diffused by Amara’s preoccupation with her love life and the ancient love triangle that develops, which are less intriguing elements of the story. The plot is largely engaging, although the novel is at times overly reliant on dialogue for exposition.

Among the many scars left by the Holocaust remain the gaping grounds and bulldozed squares where houses of Jewish worship once stood. More than sites of faith, these buildings were community centers, nodes for family and social life. And in their shape and size, the European synagogues were structures unique to a time and place. They represent that blend of enlightenment reason with observant devotion that characterized Jewish life in towns and cities from Livorno to Aachen, from Dresden to Kaliningrad, from Tartu to Vienna. As Ismar Schorsch writes in a foreword to this collection of paintings of lost synagogues, “The synagogue emerged as an utterly new and revolutionary religious institution that privileged intimate verbal prayer over the operation of a vast sacrificial cult.” Synagogues were led by rabbis. They held copies of the Torah. They brought together communities of worship. Jewish tradition requires at least 10 men (a minyan) to form a functioning congregation. By traveling to places that no longer exist, the reader goes on a journey of worship, participating in a recreated minyan of the mind. Should readers use this book to travel to these sites—Strongwater’s colorful and folksy paintings recreate 77 lost synagogues—they will find themselves filling in lacunae in the history of Jewish life. There were once roughly 17,000 synagogues in Europe. Only 3,300 stood after World War II, and only 700 of those remain as synagogues. Strongwater writes, “Because the synagogues painted for this book necessarily represent only those important enough to have been documented in their time, they must do double duty, reminding us of the thousands more that were obliterated without leaving any historical record.” These thousands of buildings, magnificent in their time, cannot be rebuilt. But they can be reinhabited by the creative readers of this haunting travelogue through time.

Ellie Belmont and Kathryn Kepler, together for five years, live a happy and fulfilling life in Edina, a suburb of Minneapolis. Despite their contentment, an email from Kathryn’s high school boyfriend prompts Ellie to face her fear that Kathryn might leave her for a man. The recently widowed Gary Gibson, a successful Florida real estate agent, asks Kathryn to lunch while he’s in town. Although Kathryn has no interest in rekindling her relationship with him, the email ultimately leads Ellie and Kathryn to discuss getting married. While Ellie views marriage as a “public and legal affirmation of our love,” Kathryn is wary after weathering a bitter divorce from her philandering husband, Joe Martinson. On a getaway at the Temperance River, Kathryn meets a woman whose understanding and wisdom inspires her to propose to Ellie. The couple starts planning the ceremony with the help of Ellie’s friends and Kathryn’s son, Nate, and his wife. As the wedding date approaches, a family tragedy and a crisis lead to unexpected reconciliations and opportunities for new beginnings. The latest from Bohan, whose previous book was A Light on Altered Land(2020), continues the love story of Ellie Belmont and Kathryn Kepler, retirees whose relationship brings great joy to their golden years. Bohan’s tale ably balances the couple’s passion with a thoughtful exploration of how past relationships, especially Kathryn’s marriage to Joe and Ellie’s marriage to her late wife, affects their perspectives. The novel includes a well-developed cast and meaty subplots, especially one involving Kathryn’s emotionally distant daughter, Jennifer, who struggles to accept Kathryn and Ellie’s upcoming wedding. That said, while the prose is sharp, it could benefit from additional copyediting (Emily Dickinson instead of “Emily Dickenson”).