1. Hostage by Guy Delisle
(5 Rave)
“Hostage beautifully demonstrates the aptitude of comics for representing time and subjective experience … it excels in immersing the readers in the lonely and terrifying experience.”
–Hillary Chute (The New York Review of Books)
*
2. Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman Jr.
(4 Rave, 1 Positive)
“…[a] superb and shattering first book … That is truly what this book is about, and what makes it tragic to the bone: How people, acting with the finest of intentions and the largest of hearts, could create a problem even more grievous than the one they were trying to solve.”
–Jennifer Senior (The New York Times)
*
3. Living in the Weather of the World by Richard Bausch
(4 Rave, 1 Positive)
“Bausch deftly imbues his characters with enough depth to make a commonplace story something unique and emotionally thrilling … His writing is uncluttered, and every word feels perfect.”
–Joseph Peschel (The Houston Chronicle)
*
4. Between Them by Richard Ford
(4 Rave, 2 Positive, 2 Mixed)
“It’s through this innate desire to know, paired with Ford’s exceptional abilities as a prose craftsman, that these two ordinary people are made vital and vivid to us on the page.”
–Cheryl Strayed (The New York Times Book Review)
*
5. The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris
(1 Rave, 4 Positive)
“Ferris finesses the line between tragedy and comedy, and his sly wit often surfaces in sarcastic, offbeat ways … As e.e. cummings so succinctly put it, ‘Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.’ Ferris’ unmoored souls struggle with living death.”
–Heller McAlpin (NPR)
*
