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Most stories are, in one way or another, about love. With Valentine’s Day approaching, I sifted through my pile of new releases to find some especially appropriate reads for this most romantic of holidays: a poignant novel about marriage, an essay collection about relationships, a thriller of love-gone-wrong, and a charmingly high-tech rom-com. All are worth a read, with open hearts.

February is Black History Month in the United States, and to celebrate, independent bookstores across the country are hosting authors, creating displays, and sharing reading recommendations on social media.

IN 2009, four years after the release of her second novel, The Untelling, Tayari Jones found herself without a publisher. Her sales numbers were hardly strong—in fact, she says, she had become “radioactive.” “I was so depressed,” Jones, 47, says. At the time, she had begun work on a new novel, which would eventually become the best-selling Silver Sparrow. “The only reason I kept working on Sparrow was because I tell my students that you write a book for you and not your publisher. I couldn’t face them every day if I were to give up on that project.” She finally completed the manuscript with the help of a grant from the United States Artists Foundation; later, at a reading in Florida at the Key West Literary Seminar, an admirer came up to Jones to express outrage that she still didn’t have a publisher. The admirer introduced Jones to an executive at Algonquin Books, which would go on to publish Silver Sparrow and Jones’s latest book, An American Marriage. After inquiring about her novel, the executive asked, “But how do you know Judy?” Jones’s admirer had been none other than literary icon Judy Blume.

The statistics on wrongful convictions and race are damning; justice, as imperfect as it already is, definitely isn’t colorblind in America. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, African Americans make up 47 percent of known wrongful convictions in America, despite being only 13 percent of the population. On sexual assault convictions, a black prisoner serving time is 3.5 times more likely to be innocent than a white person convicted of sexual assault charges; among those exonerated, African Americans still spend 4.5 years longer in prison than their white counterparts.

Two weeks before classes commenced at his new high school, Matthew Gomez found himself in the vice principal’s office.

The 32nd floor at Mandalay Bay, strongly associated with the Oct. 1 shooting, is going away.

A swimming pool fenced against an expanse of empty desert; an aerial view of seemingly infinite suburbia; a flooded wash; black ribbons of highway on-ramps. This is the Las Vegas—both mundane and exquisite, yet always monumental in its mastery of hostile land—local photographer Aaron Mayes is recording for posterity.

Nick Hornby, John Hodgman and Meg Wolitzer will be among the writers featured at the second Believer Festival in Las Vegas.

Fiduciary, fee-only advisors from around the country today volunteered free financial advice to Las Vegas Tragedy survivors and victims’ families.