ANDOVER — My gratitude goes to the weekend edition of the Concord Monitor for sharing Minnesota Star Tribune writer Chris Hewitt’s picks for February new releases. Go Chris!

Gentlemen of the Woods by Willa Hammitt Brown tells the history of lumberjacking in all of its glory, environmental destruction, and negative impact on Indigenous peoples. Annie Proulx’s novel Barkskins dealt with similar themes; however, this appears to be more readable and a little less harsh.

Marie Benedict’s The Queens of Crime is the second piece of fiction teasing out the solution to an actual case with Agatha Christie in charge, only this time she’s partnered with Dorothy Sayers, brilliant author of the Lord Peter Whimsey series. Three other female mystery writers join them in their investigation into the death of a woman who vacationed in France, disappeared, and was then found in a forest. Was the body moved…?

Fellow Minnesotan Curtis Sittenfeld has just published a short story collection that includes a mini-sequel to Prep, her breakthrough novel set in a boarding school, those places of camaraderie and intrigue. All of the characters in her stories face big life choices, which sounds about right for women these days.

And for those of you dreaming of a city getaway while the wind howls and the snow piles up, how about trying Kay Sohini’s illustrated memoir, This Beautiful, Ridiculous City? Having grown up in a “sprawling ancestral house” of four generations while being educated in an English-speaking school in eastern India, Sohini chooses to follow her dream to New York City, where I believe she still resides after many years. Dreams in this case can come true, as Sohini learns to accept the outrageously vibrant and colorful life in the fantasy come true of NYC.