Mike McCormack’s This Plague of Souls, Vanessa Chan’s The Storm We Made, and Erika Howsare’s The Age of Deer all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week.
1. This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack
(Soho Press)
5 Rave • 1 Positive
“Masterful narrative skill … What matters is the intensity of Nealon’s reflections as he gathers himself back into his life. McCormack’s language is evocative, perfectly suited to the noirish atmosphere he builds throughout the book … This is a strange novel, sinister yet hopeful, a descent into darkness that somehow manages to rise into a ringing light.”
–Erica Wagner (The Guardian)
2. The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
(S&S/Mary Sue Rucci Books)
2 Rave • 2 Positive
Read an excerpt from The Storm We Made here
“World War II might be the most popular subject for historical fiction, but Vanessa Chan’s debut, The Storm We Made, defies the typical focus on the Western front and a clear-cut distinction between good and evil that characterizes many books … Chan’s chronicles of atrocities against Malayan children serve as a bracing reminder that despite the way World War II is often depicted in fiction, it was not romantic. The Storm We Made invites reflection about who should be considered the main characters of this war. It’s clear that people in every locale affected by its brutalities deserve to be protagonists, and Chan’s novel proves there are still fresh perspectives to reveal.”
–Jenny Shank (The Star Tribune)
3. Mercury by Amy Jo Burns
(Celadon Books)
1 Rave • 3 Positive
“Mercury is a character-driven novel; the point isn’t the plot, but what the people enacting it reveal about themselves. Though the book covers only nine years, there’s something epic about the love story at its heart … And so the most powerful tension in this novel doesn’t come from the dead body. It comes from the question of whether Marley will demand a place for herself—and for her voice to be heard.”
–Mary Beth Keane (The New York Times Book Review)
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1. The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors by Erika Howsare
(Catapult)
5 Rave • 2 Positive
“Through carefully wrought prose and evocative imagery, Howsare depicts how deer and human populations have both relied on and butted up against one another for eons … A thorough, eye-opening invitation to ponder our own relationships with the natural world, practically and reverently.”
–Becky Libourel Diamond (BookPage)
2. How to Be a Renaissance Woman: The Untold History of Beauty & Female Creativity by Jill Burke
(Pegasus Books)
4 Rave • 2 Positive
“A sprightly cultural history … She introduces us to women who, through luck and force of will were able to parlay their talents, skills and, inevitably, beauty into successes as painters, writers, performers and courtesans. And it says something about what rare birds these were that Burke is able to identify virtually all of them in one brief book.”
–Ellen Akins (The Star Tribune)
3. Pure Wit: The Revolutionary Life of Margaret Cavendish by Francesca Peacock
(Pegasus Books)
3 Rave • 2 Positive • 2 Mixed
Read an essay by Francesca Peacock here
“Pure Wit thoroughly acquaints you with Cavendish’s background and milieu, but her writing can be harder to cathect to, in part because her poor penmanship and spelling muddied publication, with editions revised repeatedly over the years. Peacock argues her work deserves the same scrutiny and careful attention as that of her male contemporaries … Peacock works hard to situate her subject alongside other iconoclasts. This is probably the first time Cavendish has been likened to David Bowie and bell hooks, and it would no doubt delight her, even if the academy harrumphs.”
–Alexandra Jacobs (The New York Times)
