Bewilderment: A Novel by Richard Powers. Nine-year-old Robin Byrne is subject to fits of
violent rage. Out of desperation, his father, still
grieving the recent loss of his wife, agrees to
let the boy participate in an experiment that
subjects him to brain wave patterns from other
people, including one recorded from Robin's
deceased mother, in an effort to counter his
impulses to lash out. One of the most involving,
thought-provoking, and ultimately moving
books that I have read in a very long time, its implications will
resonate with readers long after the last page is read. ~
Alden Graves
Assembly by Natasha Brown. A Black woman in corporate London considers
a life-altering choice as the reader follows her
through a myriad of daily microaggressions and
blatant racism. Is money and "success" worth a
lifetime of this? An important read for those who
want to learn the difference between opportunities
that come with a life-long cost vs. challenges faced
while privileged. ~
Misty Henrichsen
Olga: A Novel by Bernhard Schlink. This turn-of-the-century novel has all the grace
and elegance of a classic.
Olga is the story of an
ambitious young German woman who defies the
proscribed boundaries for women at the time,
achieving an education and a degree of personal
independence. Beginning in an era where horse
and carriage are commonplace and letter writing
is key to holding on to anyone far away, this
sweeping saga plays out through both world wars and is saturated
by her passionate lifelong relationship with a world adventurer.
Readers will be spellbound by this enduring love story and Schlink's
storytelling mystique. ~
Nancy Scheemaker
Crossroads: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen. A new novel from Jonathan Franzen is a
significant event in the world of American
literature. Franzen's strength has always been
his ability to portray the minutiae of humanity's
ego, id, and superego, specifically as regards the
writhing, twisting, tortured wranglings beneath
the surface of an American family. This novel,
set in the flower-child world of the early 1970s,
is about a family headed by a deeply conflicted
associate pastor. Herein lies near-all-consuming religious zeal,
horrendous sin, the rippling scars of personal history, and the everpresent
power struggles that play out within a family. ~
Jonathan Fine
Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel by Anthony Doerr. The author of
All the Light We Cannot See has delivered another masterpiece! It is about
connections, beauty, nature, and human
resilience. Ultimately, it is a love letter to
storytelling. Doerr introduces us to many
characters from many different points in
time. Although their circumstances may be
different, they are united by the mythical
Cloud Cuckoo Land threading its way
through each of their lives. We are taken on a
wonderful journey and we come out better for it. ~
Chris Linendoll
Harlem Shuffle: A Novel by Colson Whitehead. Ray Carney owns a furniture store on 125th
Street in Harlem and his dreams for a better
life depend upon its success. He isn't too fussy
about where his merchandise comes from and
that brings him into the orbit of some fairly
disreputable people. The novel encompasses
three separate stages of Carney's risky and
chaotic life. Although it is punctuated with
episodes of violence, there is an affable, Damon
Runyonesque quality to Whitehead's book, with a host of colorfully
drawn characters swirling around his protagonist who, despite the
crooks and the cons, the drugs and the racial turmoil in the 1960s,
remains firmly anchored in a sort of determined decency. ~
Alden Graves
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward. If you've listened
to a single true crime podcast or watched an
episode of
Forensic Files, you think you have an
idea how this one is going to end up—you're
probably wrong. It's a weird one (you can tell
because the first chapter is from a bible-reading
cat's perspective), but that's not a bad thing
and it's absolutely worth it. Dark and full of
personality, bared teeth, and a little hope.
Not for the squeamish! ~
Sara Gates
Beautiful World, Where Are You: A Novel by Sally Rooney. Rooney presents a more
adult world with a wider cast of characters,
all delivering a narrative that might resemble
her developing world view, post-fame, as well
as building on themes and characterization
from her previous two novels. The characters
talk more philosophy and politics, but Rooney
manages to keep her feet fixed on the ground,
especially with a heightened, more poetic language sprinkled
throughout the book. Reading Sally Rooney is as easy as cutting into
flan and just as satisfying to consume. ~
Alex Bell
FICTION
PAPERBACK
Detransition, Baby: A Novel by Torrey Peters.
What a funny, tender, whip-smart novel! Peters'
book follows three main characters: a trans
woman named Reese, Reese's ex Ames, who has
detransitioned since they were married and now
lives as a man, and Katrina, the woman whom
Ames has impregnated. Desiring parenthood but
uncomfortable with the expectations of being
a father, Ames offers an alternative solution:
involve Reese, who craves motherhood, and raise the child together.
The wildly compelling story that follows explores gender, queerness,
family, and desire, and has characters whose voices will stay in your
head long after you finish! ~
Cathy Taylor
We Run the Tides: A Novel by Vendela Vida. I loved this book so much that I actually forced
myself to stop reading so that I'd get to spend
more than one afternoon with it. Even so, I
devoured it in two sittings. I'm always fascinated
by neighborhood lore and the sticky politics of
childhood: how children claw together a social
hierarchy, the necessity of those at the top
tirelessly performing their "coolness," and the
maliciousness with which those neighborhood
hierarchies unseat their leaders and trample them to the bottom.
This book is a masterclass in exploring those ideas. The attention
to detail is exquisite; the dark realities of the community are peeled
bare. So, so, good. ~
Nadja Tiktinsky
The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I was inspired and transported by this gorgeous
retelling of the beloved Hindu epic The
Ramayana. With all of the pageantry, magic
and colorful adventure of the original (we’re
talking warrior monkeys and Bollywood-worthy
demons here!), Divakaruni has lovingly crafting
The Sitayana, in which the female protagonist,
Lord Rama’s wife Sita, is given the strong, compassionate voice she is
denied in the classic epic. Traditionally, Sita has been a role model for
all meek and obedient wives in India. While being respectful and true
to the original story, Divakaruni upends this stereotype and elevates
Sita to role model for women of strength, wisdom, and compassion
who are willing to risk their lives for future generations. ~ Lu
French
The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell by Brian Evenson. Evenson is a masterful short story writer, and
these bite-sized creations are perfectly horrific.
Bridging the gap between Lovecraftian terror
and Bradbury-esque oddity, each story beckons
its protagonist into ever darker domains. From a
captain whose prosthetic leg turns murderous to
a high-stakes card game with the devil himself,
Evenson explores worlds where the air is unbreathable, where
technology turns sinister, and where humans and monsters should be
equally feared. ~
Joe Michon-Huneau
NONFICTION
PAPERBACK
We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence by Becky Cooper. This was my first foray into the True Crime genre,
and it's the perfect introduction. Investigating
the 1969 murder of an anthropology student,
Cooper wonderfully weaves her own dedication
for solving Jane Britton's murder while also
uncovering the dark side of academia and how
Harvard and the Cambridge Police swept the
circumstances under the rug. ~
Samantha Beitler
Unstitched: My Journey to Understand Opioid Addiction and How People and Communities Can Heal by Brett Ann Stanciu. This thought-provoking book, part memoir and
part sociological tract, was written by a librarian
in a small Vermont town who was rightfully
concerned when someone was routinely breaking
into the library building. Suspicion fell upon
a local man who had a history of drug abuse.
After his suicide, she is haunted by the feeling
that she should have done more to reach out to
the troubled man. She embarks upon a personal
crusade to better understand the causes of addiction and the
treatments that are available to aid those caught in its web. This is a
dark look at the Green Mountain State, where the profusion of drugs
casts a long, tragic shadow over bucolic settings of pristine snowfalls
and bright autumn leaves. ~
Alden Graves
The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch by Miles Harvey. An intriguing chronicle of the early history of the
Mormon church, and how one man rose from
obscurity to become its leader. Following the
murder of Joseph Smith, the church's founder,
James Strang used the power of his charisma
and the tools of mass media to convince an
army of followers that he had been appointed by
God to rule as prophet and "King of Earth and
Heaven." In ways eerily reminiscent of our times, Strang turned lies
into truth and established a virtual nation-state within the borders of
antebellum America, causing people as powerful as the president to
seek his downfall. Well-researched with writing that made it hard to
put down, Harvey provides an in-depth look at an underappreciated
part of American and LDS history. ~
Allen Boulet
The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West. I've been a fan of Lindy West since
Shrill,
her collection of essays that confronted and
changed the way I thought about myself and
other women.
The Witches Are Coming took
a different approach. It challenged me not to
change my thinking, but to dig in, articulate,
and own it. ~
Katelynne Shimkus
The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo. This beautiful fairy tale about the power of
love, stories, and words resonates beautifully
in a world where children sometimes unfairly
suffer great loss. Beatryce, a child foretold by
prophecy as the one who will unseat a king,
has lost her family and must journey into
love and danger in the company of an ornery
goat, a boy, a monk, and a hermit. Whole
worlds of emotion are packed into DiCamillo's
deceptively simple prose and Sophie Blackall's
perfect illustrations. ~
Rachel Person