Kirkus Reviews

3 days ago | kirkusreviews.com | Michael Schaub

Edmund White, the author who chronicled the lives of gay men in more than a dozen novels and shared stories from his own life in a series of memoirs, has died at 85, the New York Times reports. White, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, was raised in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Illinois. He studied Chinese at the University of Michigan, and worked as a journalist before making his literary debut in 1973 with the novel Forgetting Elena, followed five years later by Nocturnes for the King of Naples.

4 days ago | kirkusreviews.com | Michael Schaub

Barnes & Noble revealed its lists of the best books of 2025 so far.

4 days ago | kirkusreviews.com | Michael Schaub

Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere is the latest pick for the Good Morning America book club. Reid’s novel, published Tuesday by Ballantine, follows Joan Goodwin, a professor in 1980 Houston who trains with NASA to become one of the country’s first woman astronauts and befriends the other members of her cohort—falling in love with one of them—before something goes terribly wrong.

5 days ago | kirkusreviews.com | David Rooney

Anyone with an interest in the formative era of aviation will thrill to this account. The first air crossing from North America to Europe was an achievement to remember. “A nonstop flight across the Atlantic might be routine to us,” writes Rooney, a British author. “But it is only possible because of those who went first.” And the first were Britain’s John Alcock and Arthur Brown, who made the crossing in 1919 in a modified Vickers Vimy bomber.

5 days ago | kirkusreviews.com | Marissa Meyer

Seventeen-year-old Tabitha Laurie has been a devoted fan of Sommerland theme park since she was a little girl. Tabi, who has dark brown skin and Afro-textured hair, believes in the magic Sommerland offers—including the promise of true love—especially after facing the shock of her parents’ divorce.