Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness, Ron Chernow’s Mark Twain, Daniel Kehlmann’s The Director, and Robert Macfarlane’s Is a River Alive? all feature among May’s best reviewed books.
1. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
(Penguin)
13 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan
“Magnificent and melancholy … Its opening pages are as melodic as a symphony … This is a novel that percolates and simmers, provoking questions about the reader’s privilege while prompting awe at the writer’s singular empathy—and his subjects’ humility.”
–Leigh Haber (The Los Angeles Times)
2. The Names by Florence Knapp
(Pamela Dorman Books)
12 Rave • 1 Positive
“The sort of novel that’s bound to create discussion about the events happening, what they mean and how they relate to one another. It has an ending that’s definitive but also leaves plenty of room for interpretation. And it is guaranteed to make readers reflect about their own lives … Knapp [has a] gift for insightful, homespun metaphors … A simple, seemingly unadorned style but insights…pop up frequently. Her choices reassure us that she understands people, which helps The Names transcend a premise that could come off as gimmicky.”
–Chris Hewitt (The Star Tribune)
3. The South by Tash Aw
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
9 Rave • 4 Positive
“Gorgeous … The sensuality of the prose is just one of the pleasures of Aw’s writing. With The South, he has crafted a story of yearning for autonomy, escape, financial independence and excitement that is suffused with sexual longing and the ache of nostalgia … While I’m not convinced that The South needs a sequel, I’ll stay tuned. But for now, this shimmering, psychologically rich tale of first love and a family at a crossroads stands taller than those ill-fated tamarind trees.”
–Heller McAlpin (The New York Times Book Review)
4. The Director by Daniel Kehlmann
(Summit Books)
9 Rave • 3 Positive
“Taut, unflinching … Sharply observed … Arresting … Kehlmann’s mystery forcefully animates the cost—artistic and moral—of collaboration.”
–Lauren LeBlanc (The Boston Globe)
5. Spent: A Comic Novel by Alison Bechdel
(Mariner)
8 Rave • 2 Positive
Check out Alison Bechdel’s annotated nightstand here
“A sharp, hilarious and humane look at social and cultural politics … Bechdel’s signature wry humor, keen observational skills and masterful storytelling take center stage in Spent. The narrative is driven by richly drawn, down-to-earth characters each with their own hurdles.”
–Maya Fleischmann (BookPage)
**
1. Mark Twain by Ron Chernow
(Penguin)
16 Rave • 1 Positive • 2 Mixed • 1 Pan
“Chernow here documents Twain’s failings, as well as his triumphs, in exhaustive fashion … More than simply a book about America’s seminal writer, this is a long and winding story about the quintessential American—clothes and buttons, mind and heart, warts and all.”
–Kevin Duchschere (The Star Tribune)
2. Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
(W. W. Norton & Company)
10 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an essay by Robert Macfarlane here
“Perhaps the most moving and beautiful part of his book comes in the interludes between visits to faraway rivers in which Macfarlane tells the history of a small spring near his home … If we’re lucky, we do not have to go far to find a stream or river to sit by. The revelations in this passionate book will make that quiet, common experience even more life-giving.”
–Pamela Miller (The Star Tribune)
3. Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
9 Rave • 6 Positive
“Li’s style, honed over decades, has never been more distilled. Appropriately for a book that purports to stenograph only her thoughts, she writes in a simple, pared-back language … Elicits many difficult feelings. I had to put it down at several places before I found myself able to return to it. Yet Li’s brutal lucidity—her refusal to burnish her thoughts and sentiments to a high sheen—is its own form of ethical commitment.”
–Rhoda Feng (The Boston Globe)
4. Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin by Sue Prideaux
(W. W. Norton & Company)
7 Rave • 3 Positive
“Drawing as it does on both of these discoveries, Sue Prideaux’s new biography has real bite … The author does a superb job of re-examining the ways in which Gauguin ‘smashed the established Western canon’ … Gauguin’s artistic and sexual primitivism was, as Prideaux’s edgy and engrossing book shows, always both radical and deeply traditional.”
–Elizabeth Lowry (Times Literary Supplement)
5. Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land by Rachel Cockerell
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
7 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Jigsaw puzzle of a family history … She channels grand speeches and on-the-ground reporting, she favors outrageous voices, and she resists hierarchy … The beauty of the method is that authority remains plural and the tensions and alliances among the voices are visible at every step along the way. There is an ethics to Cockerell’s decision to withhold her own opinion … Evocative power … The result is a book that sings with narrative energy.”
–Alice Kaplan (The New York Review of Books)
