“Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else’s head.” – Malcolm Gladwell, What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures
FICTION
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri ★
Exuberance and dread, attachment and estrangement: in this novel, Jhumpa Lahiri stretches her themes to the limit.
The woman at the center wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. The city she calls home, an engaging backdrop to her days, acts as a confidant: the sidewalks around her house, parks, bridges, piazzas, streets, stores, coffee bars. We follow her to the pool she frequents and to the train station that sometimes leads her to her mother, mired in a desperate solitude after her father’s untimely death. In addition to colleagues at work, where she never quite feels at ease, she has girl friends, guy friends, and “him,” a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. But in the arc of a year, as one season gives way to the next, transformation awaits. One day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun’s vital heat, her perspective will change.
This is the first novel she has written in Italian and translated into English. It brims with the impulse to cross barriers. By grafting herself onto a new literary language, Lahiri has pushed herself to a new level of artistic achievement.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] delicate exploration of despair…” – Washington Post
“A meditative and aching snapshot of a life in suspension… Lahiri’s poetic flourishes and spare, conversational prose are on full display. This beautifully written portrait of a life in passage captures the hopes, frustrations, and longings of solitude and remembrance.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Painterly… exquisitely detailed… [Lahiri’s] language seems to have been sieved through a fine mesh, each word a gleaming gemstone. Such expressive refinement perfectly embodies Lahiri’s narrator, who lives alone in an unnamed Italian city [and] examines her life in first-person vignettes… There is melancholy here, but these concentrated, poignant, and rueful episodes also pulse with the narrator’s devotion to observation and her pushing through depression to live on her terms. She exalts in her lively neighborhood, in the country beneath skies as moody as she is, and by the tempestuous sea, all while recording her stealthy battle against her tendency to burrow into her shell. An incisive and captivating evocation of the nature and nexus of place and self.” – Booklist
“Elegant, subtle, and sad… Its spare, reflective prose and profound interiority recall the work of Rachel Cusk and Sigrid Nunez.” – Kirkus Reviews
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Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto ★
1 (accidental) murder
2 thousand wedding guests
3 (maybe) cursed generations
4 meddling Asian aunties to the rescue!
When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is accidentally shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working, at an island resort on the California coastline. It’s the biggest job yet for their family wedding business—“Don’t leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!”—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie’s perfect buttercream cake flowers.
But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy’s great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend?
Description from Goodreads.
“Sutanto brilliantly infuses comedy and culture into the unpredictable rom-com/murder mystery mashup as Meddy navigates familial duty, possible arrest and a groomzilla. I laughed out loud and you will too.” – USA Today
“It’s a high-wire act of comic timing, misunderstandings, romantic foibles and possibly foiled heists… The glue is Meddeline, endearing, capable and in full thrall to her elders, who are all absolute hoots to keep company with.” – New York Times Book Review
“Comparisons to Crazy Rich Asians are apt, as the author details the wild spending and luxurious lifestyles of the superrich. But this story is filled with mistaken identity, a gaggle of intoxicated groomsmen, five lovably hilarious sisters, and slapstick humor that leans more toward the film Clue. Readers will die for the delightfully absurd hijinks in this dark comedy.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Wrap a romcom with a crime novel, sprinkle in Weekend At Bernie’s, and you get this deliciously fun, big-hearted book… If you love romcoms (this is PERFECT for adaptation) do not miss this 2021 gem of a release.” – BookRiot
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Folklorn by Angela Mi Young Hur
Elsa Park is a particle physicist at the top of her game, stationed at a neutrino observatory in the Antarctic, confident she’s put enough distance between her ambitions and the family ghosts she’s run from all her life. But it isn’t long before her childhood imaginary friend—an achingly familiar, spectral woman in the snow—comes to claim her at last.
Years ago, Elsa’s now-catatonic mother had warned her that the women of their line were doomed to repeat the narrative lives of their ancestors from Korean myth and legend. But beyond these ghosts, Elsa also faces a more earthly fate: the mental illness and generational trauma that run in her immigrant family, a sickness no less ravenous than the ancestral curse hunting her.
When her mother breaks her decade-long silence and tragedy strikes, Elsa must return to her childhood home in California. There, among family wrestling with their own demons, she unravels the secrets hidden in the handwritten pages of her mother’s dark stories: of women’s desire and fury; of magic suppressed, stolen, or punished; of the hunger for vengeance.
From Sparks Fellow, Tin House alumna, and Harvard graduate Angela Mi Young Hur, Folklorn is a wondrous and necessary exploration of the myths we inherit and those we fashion for ourselves.
Description from Goodreads.
“A quiet but compelling rumination on family, race, and trauma, built on the spaces in Korean folktales.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Haunting and spiritual and touching, and so unique. This is absolutely one to be cherished.” – Tor.com
“A complex meditation on intergenerational trauma… The honest look at prickly Elsa’s internalized racism is ambitious but often brutal in its unflinching execution… This thought-provoking work will appeal to SFF fans who like their talk of particle physics side by side with fox spirits and fairy tales.” – Publishers Weekly
Available Formats:
Hoopla eBook
The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin
Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman is stuck in a dead-end job, bereft of family, and now reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. Alice has begun having panic attacks whenever she thinks about how her life hasn’t turned out the way she dreamed. Even the beloved honeybees she raises in her spare time aren’t helping her feel better these days.
In the grip of a panic attack, she nearly collides with Jake–a troubled, paraplegic teenager with the tallest mohawk in Hood River County–while carrying 120,000 honeybees in the back of her pickup truck. Charmed by Jake’s sincere interest in her bees and seeking to rescue him from his toxic home life, Alice surprises herself by inviting Jake to her farm.
And then there’s Harry, a twenty-four-year-old with debilitating social anxiety who is desperate for work. When he applies to Alice’s ad for part-time farm help, he’s shocked to find himself hired. As an unexpected friendship blossoms among Alice, Jake, and Harry, a nefarious pesticide company moves to town, threatening the local honeybee population and illuminating deep-seated corruption in the community. The unlikely trio must unite for the sake of the bees–and in the process, they just might forge a new future for themselves.
Beautifully moving, warm, and uplifting, The Music of Bees is about the power of friendship, compassion in the face of loss, and finding the courage to start over (at any age) when things don’t turn out the way you expect.
Description from Goodreads.
“Genuinely touching.” – Publishers Weekly
“Both buoyant and bittersweet, Garvin’s impressive first novel, a luscious paean to the bonds of friendship and limitations of family, is the kind of comforting yet thought-provoking tale that will appeal to fans of Anne Tyler and Sue Miller.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Let’s be honest, after 2020 we could all use some uplifting stories and this could be just the Band-Aid our collective hearts need.” – Midwestness
Available Formats:
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The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
They are the Beautiful Ones, Loisail’s most notable socialites, and this spring is Nina’s chance to join their ranks, courtesy of her well-connected cousin and his calculating wife. But the Grand Season has just begun, and already Nina’s debut has gone disastrously awry. She has always struggled to control her telekinesis—neighbors call her the Witch of Oldhouse—and the haphazard manifestations of her powers make her the subject of malicious gossip.
When entertainer Hector Auvray arrives to town, Nina is dazzled. A telekinetic like her, he has traveled the world performing his talents for admiring audiences. He sees Nina not as a witch, but ripe with potential to master her power under his tutelage. With Hector’s help, Nina’s talent blossoms, as does her love for him.
But great romances are for fairytales, and Hector is hiding a truth from Nina—and himself—that threatens to end their courtship before it truly begins. The Beautiful Ones is a charming tale of love and betrayal, and the struggle between conformity and passion, set in a world where scandal is a razor-sharp weapon.
Description from Goodreads.
“Straddling several genres with elegant intelligence, The Beautiful Ones is both an easy read and a fulfilling one.” – Locus
“Moreno-Garcia fills her fantastic novel of manners with sumptuous language and plausible romantic complications in a setting that appears to be based on 19th-century France and is lightly garnished with minor magic… Readers who enjoyed Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories magical Regency series will be particularly enthralled by the genuine emotions evoked in the course of the unsustainable love triangle.” – Publishers Weekly
“The talented author of Certain Dark Things and Signal to Noise returns with a novel that is light on fantasy but overflowing with delicious melodrama… a great fit for fans of the 18th-century French classic Les Liaisons Dangereuses.” – Library Journal
Available Formats:
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ROMANCE
An Earl, the Girl, and a Toddler by Vanessa Riley
Masterminded by the town’s most clever countess, the secret society The Widow’s Grace helps ill-treated widows regain their reputations, their families, and even find true love again–or perhaps for the very first time…
Surviving a shipwreck en route to London from Jamaica was just the start of personal maid Jemina St. Maur’s nightmare. Suffering from amnesia, she was separated from anyone who might know her and imprisoned in Bedlam. She was freed only because barrister Daniel Thackery, Lord Ashbrook, was convinced to betray the one thing he holds dear: the law. Desperate to unearth her true identity, Jemina’s only option is to work outside the law–which means staying steps ahead of the formidable Daniel, no matter how strongly she is drawn to him…
Married only by proxy, now widowed by shipwreck, Daniel is determined to protect his little stepdaughter, Charlotte, from his family’s scandalous reputation. That’s why he has dedicated himself not just to the law, but to remaining as proper and upstanding–and boring–as can be. But the closer he becomes to the mysterious, alluring Jemina, the more Daniel is tempted to break the very rules to which he’s dedicated his life. As ruthless adversaries close in, will the truth require him and Jemina to sacrifice their one chance at happiness?
Description from Goodreads.
“Move over, Bridgertons. There’s a new set of scandalous aristocrats waiting to take London society by storm.” – Library Journal
“Riley’s commitment to writing the complex emotions of motherhood remains a crucial part of the series—also a welcome addition to the genre. Well-researched, with a fascinating author’s note at the end, this story proves the first was no fluke. A historical romance of impressive heft.” – Kirkus Reviews
“…riveting… readers craving a multicultural Regency will be pleased.” – Publishers Weekly
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A Distant Shore by Karen Kingsbury
She was a child caught in a riptide in the Caribbean Sea. He was a teenager from the East Coast on vacation with his family. He dove in to save her, and that single terrifying moment changed both their lives forever.
Ten years later Jack Ryder is a daring secret agent with the FBI and Eliza Lawrence still lives on that pristine island. She’s an untainted princess in a kingdom of darkness and evil, on the brink of a forced marriage with a dangerous neighboring drug lord, a marriage arranged by her father.
This time when Jack and Eliza meet, there’s a connection neither of them can explain. Both their lives are on the line, and once again, the stakes are deadly high. Can they join forces in a complicated and dangerous mission, pretending to have a breathtaking love… without really falling?
Sometimes miracles happen not once, but twice… along a distant shore.
Description from Goodreads.
“A Distant Shore does not disappoint.” – Red Carpet Crash
“Kingsbury thoughtfully fuses adventure, love and relationships, and faith… Wonderfully crafted.” – Pastrami Nation
Available Formats:
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YOUNG ADULT
Fade Into the Bright by Jessica Koosed Etting & Alyssa Embree Schwartz
Abby needs to escape a life that she no longer recognizes as her own. Her old life–the one where she was a high school volleyball star with a textbook-perfect future–has been ripped away. Abby and her sister, Brooke, have received a letter from their estranged dad informing them he has Huntington’s disease, a fatal, degenerative disorder that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. And when the sisters agree to genetic testing, one of them tests positive.
Fleeing to Catalina Island for the summer, Abby is relieved to be in a place where no one knows her tragic history. But when she meets aspiring documentary filmmaker Ben–tall, outdoorsy, easygoing, with eyes that don’t miss a thing–she’s thrown off her game. Ben’s the kind of guy who loves to figure out people’s stories. What if he learns hers?
Description from Goodreads.
“On the surface, this book seems like a simple romance, however, the subtle layers of the narrative build upon each other, crafting a well-rounded story about love, discovering yourself, and planning for the future. Give this layered romance to readers who wished for a happy ending to John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars.” – School Library Journal
“A classic romance story of love persisting despite darkness.” – The Bulletin
“… well-researched and informative… hard to put down…” – The NERD Daily
Available Formats:
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NONFICTION
The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story by Kate Summerscale
London, 1938. In the suburbs of the city, an ordinary young housewife has become the eye in a storm of chaos. In Alma Fielding’s modest home, china flies off the shelves, eggs fly through the air; stolen jewellery appears on her fingers, white mice crawl out of her handbag, beetles appear from under her gloves; in the middle of a car journey, a terrapin materializes on her lap.
Nandor Fodor – a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research – reads of the case, and hastens to the scene of the haunting. But when Fodor starts his scrupulous investigation, he discovers that the case is even stranger than it seems. By unravelling Alma’s peculiar history, he finds a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss – and the foreshadowing of a nation’s worst fears. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens over Europe, and as Fodor’s obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed.
With rigour, daring and insight, the award-winning pioneer of non-fiction writing Kate Summerscale shadows Fodor’s enquiry, delving into long-hidden archives to find the human story behind a very modern haunting.
Description from Goodreads.
“Prepare not to see much broad daylight, literal or metaphorical, for days if you read this… the atmosphere evoked is something I will never forget.” – The Times
“Readers will be riveted… Edgar winner Summerscale (The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer) illuminates the bizarre events that afflicted Alma Fielding, a suburban London housewife, in this mind-bending historical investigation… Summerscale vividly recreates the four months in 1938 that fascinated a Britain seeking distraction from Hitler’s ominous aggressions and reconstructs the events and the secret inner torment that led to Alma’s brief appearance in the spotlight with sensitivity and a novelist’s gift for narrative.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“As with her previous books, Summerscale weaves personal records with meticulous research carried out over three years, to not just resurrect the people involved, but the world in which they live. We are walking with the dead, but the author is conjuring something more believable, more unsettling, than anything you will find in a dodgy seance hall.” – Evening Standard
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eBook
The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, A Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War by Malcolm Gladwell
An exploration of how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war.
In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.
Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal?
In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?”
Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.
Description from Goodreads.
“A brilliantly told parable about what happens when armies try to be good.” – The Times
“Excellent revisionist history… another Gladwell everything-you-thought-you-knew-was-wrong page-turner.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“A ruminative, anecdotal account of what led up to the deadliest air raid of WWII… Gladwell provides plenty of colorful details and poses intriguing questions about the morality of warfare… fans will savor the insights into ‘how technology slips away from its intended path.’” – Publishers Weekly
Available Formats:
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Antitrust: Taking on Monopoly Power from the Guilded Age to the Digital Age by Amy Klobuchar
In a world where Google reportedly controls 90 percent of the search engine market and Big Pharma’s drug price hikes impact healthcare accessibility, monopolies can hurt consumers and cause marketplace stagnation. Klobuchar—the much-admired former candidate for president of the United States—argues for swift, sweeping reform in economic, legislative, social welfare, and human rights policies, and describes plans, ideas, and legislative proposals designed to strengthen antitrust laws and antitrust enforcement.
Klobuchar writes of the historic and current fights against monopolies in America, from Standard Oil and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to the Progressive Era’s trust-busters; from the breakup of Ma Bell (formerly the world’s biggest company and largest private telephone system) to the pricing monopoly of Big Pharma and the future of the giant tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google.
She begins with the Gilded Age (1870s-1900), when builders of fortunes and rapacious robber barons such as J. P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt were reaping vast fortunes as industrialization swept across the American landscape, with the rich getting vastly richer and the poor, poorer. She discusses President Theodore Roosevelt, who, during the Progressive Era (1890s-1920), “busted” the trusts, breaking up monopolies; the Clayton Act of 1914; the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914; and the Celler-Kefauver Act of 1950, which it strengthened the Clayton Act. She explores today’s Big Pharma and its price-gouging; and tech, television, content, and agriculture communities and how a marketplace with few players, or one in which one company dominates distribution, can hurt consumer prices and stifle innovation.
As the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, Klobuchar provides a fascinating exploration of antitrust in America and offers a way forward to protect all Americans from the dangers of curtailed competition, and from vast information gathering, through monopolies.
Description from Amazon.
“A thorough history of trustbusting in America and an urgent plea for stricter enforcement… a diligently researched history lesson and a well thought out plan, meticulously delineated… staggeringly detailed… solid, sharp, articulate work.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Klobuchar reviews past monopolies, starting with a certain tea party, and continuing through the Gilded Age and the Sherman Act to current day, providing plenty of social, political, and legislative context… She argues for swift, sweeping reform in economic, legislative, social welfare, and human rights policies. A steady stream of period political cartoons help keep things lively, and her style is engaging and energetic.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“[An] impressive work of scholarship, deeply researched… highly informative and surprisingly readable in the bargain.” – New York Times
Available Formats:
eBook
Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity by Justin Baldoni
The effects of traditionally defined masculinity have become one of the most prevalent social issues of our time. In this engaging and provocative new book, beloved actor, director, and social activist Justin Baldoni reflects on his own struggles with masculinity. With insight and honesty, he explores a range of difficult, sometimes uncomfortable topics including strength and vulnerability, relationships and marriage, body image, sex and sexuality, racial justice, gender equality, and fatherhood.
Writing from experience, Justin invites us to move beyond the scripts we’ve learned since childhood and the roles we are expected to play. He challenges men to be brave enough to be vulnerable, to be strong enough to be sensitive, to be confident enough to listen. Encouraging men to dig deep within themselves, Justin helps us reimagine what it means to be man enough and in the process what it means to be human.
Description from Goodreads.
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