FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY Winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, selected by Juan Felipe Herrera For years now, I’ve been using the wrong palette. Each year with its itchy blue, as the bruise of solitude reaches its expiration date. Planes and buses, guesthouse to guesthouse. I’ve gotten to where I am by dint of my poor eyesight, my overreactive motion sickness. 9 p.m., Hanoi’s Old Quarter: duck porridge and plum wine. Voices outside the door come to a soft boil. —from “Phnom Penh Diptych: Dry Season” Jenny Xie’s award-winning debut, Eye Level, takes us far and near, to Phnom Penh, Corfu, Hanoi, New York, and elsewhere, as we travel closer and closer to the acutely felt solitude that centers this searching, moving collection. Animated by a restless inner questioning, these poems meditate on the forces that moor the self and set it in motion, from immigration to travel to estranging losses and departures. The sensual worlds here—colors, smells, tastes, and changing landscapes—bring to life questions about the self as seer and the self as seen. As Xie writes, “Me? I’m just here in my traveler’s clothes, trying on each passing town for size.” Her taut, elusive poems exult in a life simultaneously crowded and quiet, caught in between things and places, and never quite entirely at home. Xie is a poet of extraordinary perception—both to the tangible world and to “all that is untouchable as far as the eye can reach.”

A picture-book biography of celebrated poet Gwendolyn Brooks, the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize A 2021 Coretta Scott King Book Award Illustrator Honor Book A 2021 Robert F. Sibert Informational Honor Book A 2021 Association of Library Service to Children Notable Children's Book Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) is known for her poems about “real life.” She wrote about love, loneliness, family, and poverty—showing readers how just about anything could become a beautiful poem. Exquisite follows Gwendolyn from early girlhood into her adult life, showcasing her desire to write poetry from a very young age. This picture-book biography explores the intersections of race, gender, and the ubiquitous poverty of the Great Depression—all with a lyrical touch worthy of the subject. Gwendolyn Brooks was the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize, receiving the award for poetry in 1950. And in 1958, she was named the poet laureate of Illinois. A bold artist who from a very young age dared to dream, Brooks will inspire young readers to create poetry from their own lives.

Artist and naturalist Tony Angell has used Puget Sound's natural diversity as his palette for nearly 50 years. He describes the methods he uses in his art and his observations and encounters with the species that make up the complex communities of the Sound's rivers, tidal flats, islands, and beaches: the flight of a young peregrine, an otter playfully herding a small red rockfish, the grasp of a curious octopus. Tony Angell is an illustrator, sculptor, and author of RAVENS, CROWS, MAGPIES, AND JAYS and OWLS. He served for thirty years as Washington State Director of Environmental Education.

Murder is a work of art... When the acclaimed Cuban painter Wifredo Lam turns up dead in his Greenwich Village studio, officers Juanita Diaz and Brian Fitzgerald of the NYPD, must investigate the crime. But what they find is much more gruesome than they ever could have imagined. Suspicion soon falls on a tight-knit circle of Surrealist refugees who fled Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II, and Diaz and Fitzgerald must traverse the city, from Chinatown's underworld to Spanish Harlem's gangland, to find the truth. Did one of the artists' bizarre parlor games turn deadly? Or is there something even more sinister afoot? "Smart, witty, filled with so much history of the period, beautifully written, and suspenseful."—Jonathan Santlofer, author of The Death Artist

A hard-edged businessman and a beautiful art expert make a tantalizing mind-body connection at a new age resort until a killer threatens their piece of paradise in this “fun-filled and sensational tale by the incomparable Jayne Ann Krentz” (RT Book Reviews). Alexa Chambers has a flair for style, an eye for art, and a reputation in tatters after blowing the whistle on an employer who was selling fakes to wealthy clients. Now she runs a shop in her Arizona hometown, but she’s determined to rebuild her career even if it means taking risks. She begins secretly consults on an exquisite art collection being installed at the new Avalon Resorts. Her scheme might just work—if she can steer clear of the resort’s owner, the enigmatic and possibly dangerous J. L. Trask. Alexa was a scared teenager the last time she saw Trask, the man who accused her stepfather of murder. Insisting his dad’s fatal car crash had been no accident, Trask vowed one day he’d come back to Avalon for revenge. Now, twelve years later, their meeting is inevitable. Their attraction is immediate. And their chances of bliss are infinitesimal. Trask wants to piece together the past with Alexa’s help and get closer to this dazzling deco diva. Alexa wants to protect her family and figure out Trask’s real motivations. But when a killer emerges from the shadows, they have no choice but to team up to solve a deadly crime from long ago. As they trade sizzling sparks and snappy repartee, their trail leads to a trendy spa called the Dimensions Institute, whose flaky denizens and strange atmosphere suggest there is more hidden there than meets the eye. They don’t need a crystal ball to see that their survival—and relationship—depends on more than tantric breathing or a heavenly passion. They need a little help from a higher power: a true and trustworthy love.