The Lathe of Heaven is not a new novel, but its relevance is timeless. Published in 1971, it reflects the social upheavals of the 1960s. Ursula Le Guin’s classic is an allegory about power in the hands of people who are ill-equipped to wield it.

George Orr is a colorless, weak-willed man assigned to psychiatric treatment for using illegal drugs. He explains to Dr. William Haber that he needs the drugs to prevent him from having “effective” dreams. In one of them, a relative who’s been trying...

When considering a book purchase, I always check out Amazon’s sample pages to evaluate the writing. In this case, the phrase that hooked me was, “I stood in front of my wardrobe, which smelled like mothballs and old people.” As I continued reading, I realized I was in the presence of a great author.

Quicksilver is Emily Meyer’s debut novel. Self-published, it has only a handful of reviews, though it eclipses most of the junk posing as literature these days. Set in the mid-1980s, the story of...

Hang onto your hats, middle-schoolers! Peter Burns takes you on a swashbuckling adventure in The School for Thieves, a story that combines inspirations from Charles Dickens and Alexander Dumas.

Tom Morgan is an orphan living by his wits in a future London, where kids struggle for survival as workhouse slaves. Those clever enough to escape child snatchers work as thieves and peddlers. If that’s not enough, a deadly epidemic is on the rampage. Tom’s fortunes change when Hezekiah von Stuppe, a...