“I’ve come to realize that however blue my circumstances, if after finishing a chapter of a Dickens novel I feel a miss-my-stop-on-the-train sort of compulsion to read on, then everything is probably going to be just fine.” – Amor Towles, Rules of Civility
April in Spain by John Banville
Fiction / Mystery / Historical Fiction.
Don’t disturb the dead…
On the idyllic coast of San Sebastian, Spain, Dublin pathologist Quirke is struggling to relax, despite the beaches, cafés and the company of his disarmingly lovely wife. When he glimpses a familiar face in the twilight at Las Acadas bar, it’s hard at first to tell whether his imagination is just running away with him.
Because this young woman can’t be April Latimer. She was murdered by her brother, years ago—the conclusion to an unspeakable scandal that shook one of Ireland’s foremost political dynasties.
Unable to ignore his instincts, Quirke makes a call back home to Ireland and soon Detective St. John Strafford is dispatched to Spain. But he’s not the only one en route. A relentless hit man is on the hunt for his latest prey, and the next victim might be Quirke himself.
Sumptous, propulsive and utterly transporting, April in Spain is the work of a master writer at the top of his game.
Description from Goodreads.
“A compelling addition to Banville’s extensive body of work.” – Literary Hub
“A literary period piece featuring colorful characters and a mysterious crime… Great fun from a masterful writer.” – Kirkus Reviews
“[A]nother absorbing and fascinating mystery…” – The Reading Desk
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A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020) by David Sedaris
Nonfiction / Memoir / Comedy.
There’s no right way to keep a diary, but if there’s an entertaining way, David Sedaris seems to have mastered it.
If it’s navel-gazing you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place; ditto treacly self-examination. Rather, his observations turn outward: a fight between two men on a bus, a fight between two men on the street, pedestrians being whacked over the head or gathering to watch as a man considers leaping to his death. There’s a dirty joke shared at a book signing, then a dirtier one told at a dinner party—lots of jokes here. Plenty of laughs.
These diaries remind you that you once really hated George W. Bush, and that not too long ago, Donald Trump was just a harmless laughingstock, at least on French TV. Time marches on, and Sedaris, at his desk or on planes, in hotel dining rooms and odd Japanese inns, records it. The entries here reflect an ever-changing background—new administrations, new restrictions on speech and conduct. What you can say at the start of the book, you can’t by the end. At its best, A Carnival of Snackery is a sort of sampler: the bitter and the sweet. Some entries are just what you wanted. Others you might want to spit discreetly into a napkin.
Description from Goodreads.
“Mesmerizing and jolting… Sedaris’ shrewdly sketched world travelogue, hilarious anecdotes, and frank reflections on loved ones, and life’s myriad absurdities and cruelties major and minor, make for a delectably sardonic, rueful, and provocative chronicle… fans don’t want to miss a word.” – Booklist
“A rich trove for hardcore Sedaris fans.” – Kirkus Reviews
“The celebrated humorist returns with more offhand observations on the weird and tiresome in these sparkling diary excerpts… Sedaris’s memoiristic nuggets are always tasty.” – Publishers Weekly
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Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen ★
Fiction / Historical Fiction.
It’s December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless—unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem’s sister, Becky, long the social queen of her high-school class, has sharply veered into the counterculture, while their brilliant younger brother Perry, who’s been selling drugs to seventh graders, has resolved to be a better person. Each of the Hildebrandts seeks a freedom that each of the others threatens to complicate.
Jonathan Franzen’s novels are celebrated for their unforgettably vivid characters and for their keen-eyed take on contemporary America. Now, in Crossroads, Franzen ventures back into the past and explores the history of two generations. With characteristic humor and complexity, and with even greater warmth, he conjures a world that resonates powerfully with our own.
A tour de force of interwoven perspectives and sustained suspense, its action largely unfolding on a single winter day, Crossroads is the story of a Midwestern family at a pivotal moment of moral crisis. Jonathan Franzen’s gift for melding the small picture and the big picture has never been more dazzlingly evident.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] funny, sad, unputdownable tapestry of a pastor and his family in the midst of myriad crises–of conscience, religion, and otherwise.” – Vanity Fair
“Franzen returns with a sweeping and masterly examination of the shifting culture of early 1970s America, the first in a trilogy… Throughout, Franzen exhibits his remarkable ability to build suspense through fraught interpersonal dynamics. It’s irresistible.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“The Corrections was a masterpiece, but Crossroads is [Franzen’s] finest novel yet… He has arrived at last as an artist whose first language, faced with the society of greed, is not ideological but emotional, and whose emotions, fused with his characters, tend more toward sorrow and compassion than rage and self-contempt… Crossroads is Franzen’s greatest and most perfect novel to date, but more importantly, it is his most promising: an inexhaustible resource for future novels…” – Bookforum
“[A] pleasure bomb of a novel… New prospects are what keep [Crossroads] so engrossing, each section expanding on and deepening the poignancy of what has come before… Few [writers] can take human contradiction and make it half as entertaining and intimate as Franzen does… A magnificent portrait of an American family on the brink of implosion… bound to be an American classic.” – Vogue
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Fight Night by Miriam Toews ★
Fiction.
Fight Night is told in the unforgettable voice of Swiv, a nine-year-old living in Toronto with her pregnant mother, who is raising Swiv while caring for her own elderly, frail, yet extraordinarily lively mother. When Swiv is expelled from school, Grandma takes on the role of teacher and gives her the task of writing to Swiv’s absent father about life in the household during the last trimester of the pregnancy. In turn, Swiv gives Grandma an assignment: to write a letter to “Gord,” her unborn grandchild (and Swiv’s soon-to-be brother or sister). “You’re a small thing,” Grandma writes to Gord, “and you must learn to fight.”
As Swiv records her thoughts and observations, Fight Night unspools the pain, love, laughter, and above all, will to live a good life across three generations of women in a close-knit family. But it is Swiv’s exasperating, wise and irrepressible Grandma who is at the heart of this novel: someone who knows intimately what it costs to survive in this world, yet has found a way—painfully, joyously, ferociously—to love and fight to the end, on her own terms.
Description from Goodreads.
“Like the best of Toews’ novels, Fight Night deals with weighty subjects–suicide, aging, illness, and mortality–with a keen sense of humor… As a narrator, Swiv is charming and hilarious, her grandmother even moreso. I laughed and cried reading this book; I can’t think of a higher endorsement.” – BuzzFeed
“Astonishing… a work of deep moral intelligence, a master class in ethics beautifully dressed as a novel… The intelligence on display in Women Talking is as ferocious as it is warm.” – NPR
“Fierce and funny, this gives undeniable testimony to the life force of family… a knockout.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Brilliant… Toews gives Swiv a voice that is sophisticated, childlike and utterly believable… the wonder of Fight Night is that it’s a warmhearted and inventive portrait of women who have learned to fight against adversity.” – BookPage, STARRED REVIEW
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Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott
Nonfiction / Biography.
The riveting, unforgettable story of a girl whose indomitable spirit is tested by homelessness, poverty, and racism in an unequal America—from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Andrea Elliott of the New York Times.
Invisible Child follows eight dramatic years in the life of Dasani Coates, a child with an imagination as soaring as the skyscrapers near her Brooklyn homeless shelter. Born at the turn of a new century, Dasani is named for the bottled water that comes to symbolize Brooklyn’s gentrification and the shared aspirations of a divided city. As Dasani grows up, moving with her tight-knit family from shelter to shelter, this story goes back to trace the passage of Dasani’s ancestors from slavery to the Great Migration north. By the time Dasani comes of age, New York City’s homeless crisis is exploding as the chasm deepens between rich and poor.
In the shadows of this new Gilded Age, Dasani must lead her seven siblings through a thicket of problems: hunger, parental drug addiction, violence, housing instability, segregated schools, and the constant monitoring of the child-protection system. When, at age thirteen, Dasani enrolls at a boarding school in Pennsylvania, her loyalties are tested like never before. As she learns to “code switch” between the culture she left behind and the norms of her new town, Dasani starts to feel like a stranger in both places. Ultimately, she faces an impossible question: What if leaving poverty means abandoning the family you love?
By turns heartbreaking and revelatory, provocative and inspiring, Invisible Child tells an astonishing story about the power of resilience, the importance of family, and the cost of inequality. Based on nearly a decade of reporting, this book vividly illuminates some of the most critical issues in contemporary America through the life of one remarkable girl.
Description from Goodreads.
“A vivid and devastating story of American inequality.” – New York Times
“Stunning… a remarkable achievement that speaks to the heart and conscience of a nation.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“…absorbing… An unforgettable account, both heartrending and heartbreaking, of structural racism and inequality. Like Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, Elliott’s tour de force is destined to become a classic.” – Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
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The Jealousy Man and Other Stories by Jo Nesbø
Fiction / Suspense / Mystery.
Jo Nesbø is known the world over as a consummate mystery/thriller writer. Famed for his deft characterization, hair-raising suspense and shocking twists, Nesbø’s dexterity with the dark corners of the human heart is on full display in these inventive and enthralling stories.
A detective with a nose for jealousy is on the trail of a man suspected of murdering his twin; a bereaved father must decide whether vengeance has a place in the new world order after a pandemic brings about the collapse of society; a garbage man fresh off a bender tries to piece together what happened the night before; a hired assassin matches wits against his greatest adversary in a dangerous game for survival; and an instantly electric connection between passengers on a flight to London may spell romance, or something more sinister.
With Nesbø’s characteristic gift for outstanding atmosphere and gut-wrenching revelations, The Jealousy Man confirms that he is at the peak of his abilities.
Description from Goodreads.
“The twelve tales in this impressive collection from bestseller Nesbø blend taut suspense with sharply limned characters… Frederick Forsyth fans will be enthralled.” – Publishers Weekly
“Nesbø delivers stories ranging from dystopian visions to time-honored tales of duplicity and revenge… Wonderfully atmospheric… He never runs out of ideas.” – Kirkus Reviews
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Last Girl Ghosted by Lisa Unger
Fiction / Suspense / Mystery.
Think twice before you swipe.
She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What she thought might be just a quick hookup quickly became much more. She fell for him—hard. It happens sometimes, a powerful connection with a perfect stranger takes you by surprise. Could it be love?
But then, just as things were getting real, he stood her up. Then he disappeared—profiles deleted, phone disconnected. She was ghosted.
Maybe it was her fault. She shared too much, too fast. But isn’t that always what women think—that they’re the ones to blame? Soon she learns there were others. Girls who thought they were in love. Girls who later went missing. She had been looking for a connection, but now she’s looking for answers. Chasing a digital trail into his dark past—and hers—she finds herself on a dangerous hunt. And she’s not sure whether she’s the predator—or the prey.
Description from Goodreads.
“[An] enthralling psychological thriller. Unger is on a roll.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“An immersive tale of passion and vengeance with a startling ending.” – Booklist
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The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles ★
Fiction / Historical Fiction.
In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the work farm where he has just served a year for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother and head west where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future.
Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] captivating piece of historical fiction… transporting… a rollicking cross-country adventure, rife with unforgettable characters, vivid scenery and suspense that will keep readers flying through the pages.” – Time
“[The Lincoln Highway] loses none of the author’s trademark wit or style… a cross-country adventure packed with unexpected twists and unforgettable action.” – Town & Country
“Magnificent… Towles is a supreme storyteller, and this one-of-a-kind kind of novel isn’t to be missed.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Towles’ third novel is even more entertaining than his much-acclaimed A Gentleman in Moscow… A remarkable blend of sweetness and doom, [The Lincoln Highway] is packed with revelations about the American myth, the art of storytelling, and the unrelenting pull of history. An exhilarating ride through Americana.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
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My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson ★
Fiction.
A young woman descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings driven from her neighborhood by a white militia. A university professor studying racism by conducting a secret social experiment on his own son. A single mother desperate to buy her first home even as the world hurtles toward catastrophe. Each fighting to survive in America.
Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, “My Monticello,” tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent white supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation.
In “Control Negro,” hailed by Roxane Gay as “one hell of story,” a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to “painstakingly mark the route of this Black child too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there.” Johnson’s characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse.”
United by these characters’ relentless struggles against reality and fate, My Monticello is a formidable book that bears witness to this country’s legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction.
Description from Goodreads.
“My Monticello announces the arrival of an electric new literary voice in Johnson, an emerging master of the short story form.” – Esquire
““This incandescent work speaks not just to the moment, but to history.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Johnson’s fairly slim volume never feels slight in the least, as the stories contained within overflow with poise, maturity, and originality. The title story, ‘My Monticello,’ may be the star of the show, but every single one of the six stories in Johnson’s collection brings something brand-new to the table, showcasing the writer’s indelible talent and reminding us that we’re going to be reading her work for a long time to come.” – Shondaland
“This fiction collection is an astonishing display of craftsmanship and heart-tugging narratives. Johnson is a brilliant storyteller who gracefully reflects a clear mirror on a troubled America.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
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Reprieve by James Han Mattson ★
Fiction / Horror / Suspense.
A chilling and blisteringly relevant literary novel of social horror centered around a brutal killing that takes place in a full-contact haunted escape room—a provocative exploration of capitalism, hate politics, racial fetishism, and our obsession with fear as entertainment.
On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, “reprieve,” they’ll win a substantial cash prize—a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house’s long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.
Those who were present on that fateful night lend their points of view: Kendra Brown, a teenager who’s been uprooted from her childhood home after the sudden loss of her father; Leonard Grandton, a desperate and impressionable hotel manager caught in a series of toxic entanglements; and Jaidee Charoensuk, a gay international student who came to the United States in a besotted search for his former English teacher. As each character’s journey unfurls and overlaps, deceit and misunderstandings fueled by obsession and prejudice are revealed, forcing all to reckon with the ways in which their beliefs and actions contributed to a horrifying catastrophe.
An astonishingly soulful exploration of complicity and masquerade, Reprieve combines the psychological tension of classic horror with searing social criticism to present an unsettling portrait of this tangled American life.
Description from Goodreads.
“Sharp as a razor’s edge… Mattson’s devious trick is in revealing America itself as a topsy-turvy house of horrors.” – O Quarterly
“It’s hard to do justice to how awesome this book is without giving much away… Reprieve is a self-aware and furious deconstruction of the horror novel, contrasting those who seek out fear with those who face the ever-present dangers of prejudice.” – CrimeReads
“Mattson crafts a nail-biting horror saga while also implicating us in our sick obsession with horror. So too does the novel evoke blistering social horror, forcing us to reckon with how racism, prejudice, and complicity are more horrifying—and more fatal—than anything that goes bump in the night. Unrelenting and unforgettable, Reprieve is an American classic in the making.” – Esquire
“Like Whitehead’s The Intuitionist, Alyssa Cole’s When No One Is Watching or Zakiya Dalila Harris’ The Other Black Girl, Reprieve straddles genres in the best possible way. The late 1990s murder of a man in Quigley House, a full-contact haunted house in Lincoln, Neb., during a contest gone awry, and the ensuing trial are just part of the story. It’s the compelling flashbacks from diverse contestants and others that drive Mattson’s deeper examination of America’s addiction to horror, casual racism, deteriorating political climate and a whole lot more. Sure to spark conversation and debate at book clubs across the land.” – Los Angeles Times
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Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo
Fiction.
Anna is at a stage of her life when she’s beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother—the only parent who raised her—is dead.
Searching through her mother’s belongings one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president—some would say dictator—of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive…
When Anna decides to track her father down, a journey begins that is disarmingly moving, funny, and fascinating. Like the metaphorical bird that gives the novel its name, Sankofa expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present to address universal questions of race and belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for a family’s hidden roots.
Description from Goodreads.
“Unscrupulous politicians, irresponsible journalism, and the yawning gap between rich and poor feel deeply personal as Anna’s journey unfolds… Fresh and new.” – Library Journal
“The slick pacing and unpredictable developments—especially in the depiction of Anna’s enigmatic father—keep the reader alert right up to the novel’s exhilarating ending… Onuzo lifts the narrative into an entirely unexpected space. She shows that the healing of fractures and a desire for wholeness can be achieved in the most unexpected of places.” – The Guardian
“A riveting, gracefully spare novel of self-discovery… Onuzo skillfully builds an authentic but unusual midlife reckoning. Her astute portrait of a woman attempting to find her way to her future by mining the past mirrors the mythical creature from which the story takes its title, a bird that flies forward while looking backward… Onuzo shows that making peace with the past can be a starting point toward self-acceptance, and that imperfect families can find common ground in unexpected ways.” – Shelf Awareness
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Shattered Midnight by Dhonielle Clayton
Fiction / Young Adult / Fantasy / Historical Fiction.
Zora Broussard has arrived in New Orleans with not much more than a bag of clothes, a beautiful voice, and a pair of enchanted red shoes. Running from a tragic accident caused by her magic, Zora wants nothing more than to blend in, as well as to avoid her overbearing aunt and mean-spirited cousins. Music becomes Zora’s only means of escape, yet she wonders if she should give it all up to remove the powers that make her a target, especially as a Black woman in the South.
But when Zora gets the chance to perform in a prominent jazz club, she meets a sweet white pianist named Phillip with magic of his own, including a strange mirror that foretells their future together. Falling into a forbidden love, Zora and Phillip must keep their relationship a secret. And soon the two discover the complicated connection between their respective families, a connection that could lead to catastrophe for them both. In the era of segregation and speakeasies, Zora must change her destiny and fight for the one she loves… or risk losing everything.
Description from Goodreads.
“The clean, vivid prose and star-crossed romance will engage readers until the bittersweet end. A transportive and affecting tale.” – Kirkus Reviews
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Smile: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl ★
Nonfiction / Memoir.
With a play opening on Broadway, and every reason to smile, Sarah Ruhl has just survived a high-risk pregnancy when she discovers the left side of her face is completely paralyzed. She is assured that 90 percent of Bell’s palsy patients see spontaneous improvement and experience a full recovery. Like Ruhl’s own mother. But Sarah is in the unlucky ten percent. And for a woman, wife, mother, and artist working in theater, the paralysis and the disconnect between the interior and exterior brings significant and specific challenges. So Ruhl begins an intense decade-long search for a cure while simultaneously grappling with the reality of her new face—one that, while recognizably her own—is incapable of accurately communicating feelings or intentions.
In a series of piercing, witty, and lucid meditations, Ruhl chronicles her journey as a patient, wife, mother, and artist. She explores the struggle of a body yearning to match its inner landscape, the pain of postpartum depression, the story of a marriage, being a playwright and working mom to three small children, and the desire for a resilient spiritual life in the face of illness.
Brimming with insight, humility, and levity, Smile is a triumph by one of America’s leading playwrights. It is an intimate examination of loss and reconciliation, and above all else, the importance of perseverance and hope in the face of adversity.
Description from Goodreads.
“Wise, intimate, and moving… A captivating, insightful memoir.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“[T]here’s something pleasing about the memoir’s deliberately slow pace, mimicking Ruhl’s recovery over 10 years. A partial recovery, she realizes, is very much like life itself: ‘Who, after all, is fully recovered from life?'” – New York Times
“In this stunning work, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ruhl reflects on her long and arduous battle with Bell’s palsy after giving birth to twins… As she recounts learning to find joy in small things—such as regaining the ability to blink—Ruhl proves that even life at its most mundane can be fascinating. This incredibly inspiring story offers hope where it’s least expected.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
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The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
Nonfiction / Memoir / Music.
So, I’ve written a book.
Having entertained the idea for years, and even offered a few questionable opportunities (“It’s a piece of cake! Just do 4 hours of interviews, find someone else to write it, put your face on the cover, and voila!”) I have decided to write these stories just as I have always done, in my own hand. The joy that I have felt from chronicling these tales is not unlike listening back to a song that I’ve recorded and can’t wait to share with the world, or reading a primitive journal entry from a stained notebook, or even hearing my voice bounce between the Kiss posters on my wall as a child.
This certainly doesn’t mean that I’m quitting my day job, but it does give me a place to shed a little light on what it’s like to be a kid from Springfield, Virginia, walking through life while living out the crazy dreams I had as young musician. From hitting the road with Scream at 18 years old, to my time in Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, jamming with Iggy Pop or playing at the Academy Awards or dancing with AC/DC and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, drumming for Tom Petty or meeting Sir Paul McCartney at Royal Albert Hall, bedtime stories with Joan Jett or a chance meeting with Little Richard, to flying halfway around the world for one epic night with my daughters… the list goes on. I look forward to focusing the lens through which I see these memories a little sharper for you with much excitement.
Description from Goodreads.
“Grohl candidly shares his reverence for the enduring power of music… Reflecting on his fame, Grohl writes, ‘I have never taken a single moment of it for granted.’ Paired with his sparkling wit, this humility is what makes Grohl’s soulful story a cut above typical rock memoirs. There isn’t a dull moment here.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Kinetic… Grohl writes with equal fervor about his path from ‘that guy from Nirvana’ to the leader of the uberfamous Foo Fighters and his parenting experiences. An exciting read for fans and a remarkable perspective on the last 30 years of rock music.” – Booklist
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The Taking of Jemima Boone: The True Story of the Kidnap and Rescue that Shaped America by Matthew Pearl
Nonfiction / History / True Crime.
On a quiet midsummer day in 1776, weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, thirteen-year-old Jemima Boone and her friends Betsy and Fanny Callaway disappear near the Kentucky settlement of Boonesboro, the echoes of their faraway screams lingering on the air.
A Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party has taken the girls as the latest salvo in the blood feud between American Indians and the colonial settlers who have decimated native lands and resources. Hanging Maw, the raiders’ leader, recognizes one of the captives as Jemima Boone, daughter of Kentucky’s most influential pioneers, and realizes she could be a valuable pawn in the battle to drive the colonists out of the contested Kentucky territory for good.
With Daniel Boone and his posse in pursuit, Hanging Maw devises a plan that could ultimately bring greater peace both to the tribes and the colonists. But after the girls find clever ways to create a trail of clues, the raiding party is ambushed by Boone and the rescuers in a battle with reverberations that nobody could predict. As Matthew Pearl reveals, the exciting story of Jemima Boone’s kidnapping vividly illuminates the early days of America’s westward expansion, and the violent and tragic clashes across cultural lines that ensue.
In this enthralling narrative in the tradition of Candice Millard and David Grann, Matthew Pearl unearths a forgotten and dramatic series of events from early in the Revolutionary War that opens a window into America’s transition from colony to nation, with the heavy moral costs incurred amid shocking new alliances and betrayals.
Description from Goodreads.
“…riveting… This enthralling, meticulously researched tale sheds news light on Daniel Boone and early American culture.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“This is a stimulating read which honors the complexity of the events described. History buffs will eat it up.” – Library Journal
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Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
Nonfiction / Memoir / Food.
Stanley Tucci grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the kitchen table. He shared the magic of those meals with us in The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the savory recipes and into the compelling stories behind them.
Taste is a reflection on the intersection of food and life, filled with anecdotes about his growing up in Westchester, New York; preparing for and shooting the foodie films Big Night and Julie & Julia; falling in love over dinner; and teaming up with his wife to create meals for a multitude of children. Each morsel of this gastronomic journey through good times and bad, five-star meals and burned dishes, is as heartfelt and delicious as the last.
Written with Stanley’s signature wry humor, Taste is for fans of Bill Buford, Gabrielle Hamilton, and Ruth Reichl—and anyone who knows the power of a home-cooked meal.
Description from Goodreads.
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We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride & Jo Piazza
Fiction.
Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia.
But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband’s freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend.
Like Tayari Jones’s An American Marriage and Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things, We Are Not Like Them explores complex questions of race and how they pervade and shape our most intimate spaces in a deeply divided world. But at its heart, it’s a story of enduring friendship—a love that defies the odds even as it faces its most difficult challenges.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] propulsive, deeply felt tale of race and friendship.” – People
“Coauthors Pride and Piazza explore how the sanctity of childhood friendship can be questioned and corrupted well into adulthood, and how violent racial injustice is ubiquitous in American life. We Are Not Like Them is spellbinding from cover to cover.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“We Are Not Like Them is ultimately about the inherently hopeful act of having grace when the people we love make mistakes—even terrible ones. This is an excellent book club selection or a starting point for interracial friend groups or families to talk candidly about race.” – BookPage, STARRED REVIEW