Readers familiar with Harriet Smith as Emma Woodhouse’s mousy, unmarriageable protégé will be surprised to learn that Harriet (not her real name, by the way) is already at age 18 an accomplished con artist, trained by the father she turned on and fled, who’s hired by Mrs. Lavinia Churchill to recover some prized jewelry Jane Fairfax pinched from her and prevent Jane from marrying Frank Churchill, the client’s nephew, ward, and heir, by any means necessary. Throwing herself into the assignment with vigor, Harriet gets intermittent help from her friend Robert Martin, a tenant farmer and aspiring author whose lover, Reuben Denny, is the “heartthrob of the Derbyshire militia.” The plot seriously shades Emma and her future husband, George Knightley, who have little more than walk-on roles. But it does make room for multiple poisonings, a scorpion planted in a box on a dressing table, and Harriet’s growing fear that the force behind all these alarums and excursions is none other than her father, determined to avenge himself on his treacherous daughter. The melodramatic climax places multiple interested parties, three of them armed with guns, on a cliff two of them end up plunging over. That aptly summarizes the principal pleasure of this improbable series debut: The tension that arises from Andrew’s desire to duplicate the characters of Austen’s novel, inviting the reader to wonder if she’s willing to bend their possible fates—will any of Austen’s own characters emerge as victim or killer?—and then unleash a criminal fantasia that borrows only some names from its celebrated source.

Lonely, Vera makes a wish on her favorite star for Grace’s return, but a few nights later, her wishing star disappears. At the library, Vera meets Malcolm, a fellow night sky enthusiast who explains that stars move. “My star didn’t leave me! It’s just on the other side of the world—in Grace’s sky!” Vera realizes. Malcolm helps Vera feel connected to Grace, who is seeing the same pattern and movement of stars where she is. Vera makes a map of the stars and mails it to Grace, creating a meaningful way to stay in touch while spending time with her new friend. Swemba makes space for Vera’s sadness, which, notably, doesn’t magically resolve by book’s end; while she enjoys her new friendship with Malcolm, she still misses Grace. Walker-Parker’s soft illustrations are well matched to the text; though gentle and cartoonish, they also convey complex emotions like longing, loneliness, and contentment. The night sky drawn full of stars is an important presence, cluttered and bright, a fixture and a comfort. The book ends with advice for how to handle a friend’s move, as well as instructions for creating a star map like Vera’s. Vera is pale-skinned; Grace and Malcolm are brown-skinned.

Noa and Nicole, 18, best friends, make the pilgrimage from their hometown of Guayaquil, Ecuador, a place rocked by the violence of men and mountains alike. Noa is on the hunt for her father, who left her as a child, and Nicole is focused on Noa, tied to her in the intensely intimate friendship of young women. Once at the festival, Solar Noise, they connect with others: Pamela and her partner, Fabio; Pedro and his partner, Carla; Mario and his friends Adriana and Julián. They mosh, do shrooms, have sex, dance with Diablumas, listen to songstresses, and congregate around a mysterious figure known as the Poet. Over the days of the festival, Noa seems to transform, unlocking an inner voice as powerful as the volcanic landscape. Interspersed with the events of the festival are selections from Noa’s father’s notebook, reporting on a long-ago visit from Noa and Nicole. Chapter headings tell us 10 years have passed on the Andean calendar; narrative cues tell us the passage of time here does not align with our usual linear conception. Outside of the journal, the novel’s narrative voice is a rotating first-person that visits the minds of Nicole, Mario, Pamela, and Pedro in turn, with diffusely mythological interludes by the festival songstresses themselves. Each voice feels less like a singular character and more like a member of the chorus, just another thread in the novel’s tangled web of words and ideas. Tonally, too, the prose—resonant, brusquely declarative—is often reminiscent of classical theater. It’s an approach that reflects its subject matter, leaving the impression of a symphony underpinning the world. At the same time, polyphonic narrative satisfies best when each character brings a truly unique perspective, and, in reaching for cohesion, Ojeda’s characters flounder for distinction. Pamela is the standout, the one character instantly discernible from the novel’s morass, regardless of context.

This book by communications professor Schatz (The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era, 1988) covers 15 years—from 1989 to 2004—that set the table for the complex, franchise-heavy film era we’re now in. Focusing more on business moves than aesthetics, the book is mostly concerned with ever-merging studios and the big, high-risk bets they made: Batman (1989), Jurassic Park (1993), Toy Story (1995), Independence Day (1996), Titanic (1997), and other exemplars of ever-bloating budgets and revenue. Though such projects seem like inevitable successes now, Schatz shows how they were built out of complex production funding, licensing, and marketing deals, and (quite often) panic. Disney, for instance, was flailing on its animation side until Beauty and the Beast (1991) and computer animation got it back on track. The explosion in event films occurred in tandem with the rise of what Schatz calls “Indiewood”—independent companies like Miramax (led by Harvey Weinstein) or arthouse-minded subsidiaries looking to reinvent the surprise successes of hits like Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989), Do the Right Thing (1989), and The Blair Witch Project (1999). U.S. media deregulation opened the floodgates for a host of mergers and international partnerships, but the shifts only seemed to serve the interests of big-budget plays on familiar intellectual property—hence the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Schatz covers all this thoroughly, if a bit bloodlessly, more concerned with the financial consequences of various projects that left everyone not named Steven Spielberg artistically compromised. The book’s scope means he can only briefly mention the rise of streaming players like Netflix and Amazon, but his outlook is pessimistic: “truly memorable films are in increasingly short supply.”

The author here champions cultivating a daily habit of reading—even for a period of five minutes—as a way to “unlock clarity, habits, and a mindset for growth,” citing figures from business executives to professional athletes who credit the practice of reading with helping them to succeed in, as Jacobs puts it, “maintaining relevance, fostering resilience, and ultimately thriving in your personal life and career.” He takes readers on brief tour of the history of reading and describes (and then dismantles) some popular misconceptions about finding time for the pursuit, which he refers to as a “catalyst habit: a foundational practice that fuels growth in almost every other area of your life.” Reading, Jacobs asserts, improves thinking, sharpens communication, and can even lead to making smarter choices on the path to becoming what he calls a “deliberately developmental individual.” The author outlines the real, practical benefits of regular reading under the heading of five pillars: Practical, Physical, Perspective, Practice, and Performance, elaborating on each in turn. “Books help you find the kinds of problems you want to have,” he writes, “and give you the tools to keep solving them with more clarity, confidence, and even a little joy.” Jacobs details his five pillars with the fast pace and confident tone of a personal trainer, and while some may find the author’s entire conception of reading unrecognizably utilitarian (such as when he calls reading “a proactive investment in your well-being”), his happy certainty will likely win over converts to his ideas. “Be the person with a book in your bag,” he encourages. “Be the one taking notes, asking questions, staying curious.” Perennially good advice, and well delivered.