This week, we feature a fascinating tale of a 19th-century sailor who travels halfway across the world and a stark warning of (and an antidote for) the dangers afflicting the minds of today’s youth.
Memoir
‘Captain Drew’s World: Dispatches From the Age of Global Sail’
Edited by W.H. Bunting
John H. Drew was a sailor during the late sailing era. For 12 years, he was captain of the barque Sea Witch. During his career he sailed more than a million miles. He also wrote almost as many words about his travels. This book republishes a selection of Drew’s writings and extracts the most interesting of his travel accounts. He intricately describes each voyage, the locations where he stops, and his experiences ashore. It offers a fascinating look at the 19th-century maritime world.
Texas A&M University Press, 2026, 704 pages
Nonfiction
‘The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure’
By Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt
In this bestseller, the authors show how a mix of good intentions and bad ideas, like “Trust your feelings,” have poisoned today’s culture and politics, inflicting harm on young people in particular. Mixing data with incidents from news headlines and their own experience, they reveal the sad and dangerous immaturity produced by this potion and its ingredients, like social media. The good news? They offer as antidotes solid advice to parents for raising strong, independent, and resilient adults.
Penguin Books, 2019, 352 pages
Biography
‘The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson’
By Jeff Pearlman
Arguably the best sports writers of our generation takes on arguably the greatest athlete ever. Pearlman has immersed himself into the facts, lore, and legends of Bo Jackson—the two-way sports star who dominated the scenes on the baseball diamond and the football field. During the 1980s and 1990s, his name was synonymous with speed and power. His athletic feats were unimaginable. Pearlman follows his path to greatness before injuries proved he was not invincible. A truly immersive tale.
Mariner Books, 2022, 496 pages
Novel
‘Trustee From the Toolroom’
By Nevil Shute
In 1950s London, Keith Stewart is earning a modest living writing model-making articles for hobby magazines when his sister and her husband die in a yachting accident in the Pacific. He becomes his niece’s guardian. He discovers her parents were smuggling a fortune in diamonds while emigrating to Canada. To recover his niece’s inheritance, he must go halfway around the world on a tiny budget. In this charming novel, he is aided by the readers of his hobby articles, who rally to help him.
Vintage Classics, 2013, 304 pages
Classic
‘The Complete Poems’
By Christina Rossetti
Devotional poems, pieces about love and death, verses of fantasy, rhymes for the little ones, works both published in her lifetime and afterwards: This collection of the great pre-Raphaelite poet has it all. Quiet and humble in her personal life, her poems reveal the passion and wit hidden beneath that exterior self. Poems like “Up-Hill,” “Remember,” and “Who Has Seen the Wind?” are only some of the gemstones cut and polished by the poet that touch and delight the hearts of young and old alike.
Penguin Classics, 2001, 1,312 pages
For Kids
‘Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs’
by Tomie dePaola
This tender story captures the special bond between a little boy and his grandmother and great-grandmother. Tommy’s weekly visits with Nana Downstairs and Nana Upstairs are filled with warmth, humor, affection, and, eventually, loss and precious memories. DePaola’s moving autobiographical tale celebrates the beauty of family love and togetherness.
Puffin Books, 2000, 32 pages
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