1. The Witch Elm by Tana French
7 Rave • 2 Positive • 2 Mixed
“Whose skull is it? Why is it in the tree? Who has had access to the garden, and why can’t Toby remember what he needs to remember? … The Witch Elm is a profound reconsideration of power dynamics between the privileged and the less so, drawing the reader into an uneasy alliance with the former. It’s also a thrilling, absorbing mystery, sprinkled liberally with red herrings and culminating in a profoundly satisfying, if totally unforeseeable, ending.”
–Josephine Livingstone (The New Republic)
Read an interview with Tana French here
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2. November Road by Lou Berney
7 Rave
“Lou Berney’s November Road is the latest novel to explore this explosive material, and the result is one of the most distinctive, unexpected crime novels of recent years … November Road is his first attempt at historical fiction, and it is impressive … a road novel and a first-rate thriller … a quietly moving evocation of public and private trauma, of individuals searching for new lives in a radically altered world. This is Berney’s best book to date.”
–Bill Sheehan (The Washington Post)
Read Lou Berney’s list of Classic Chase Novels here
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3. Killing Commemadre by Haruki Murakami
5 Rave • 3 Positive • 2 Mixed • 1 Pan
“…immersive, repetitive, big-hearted … As is often the case in Murakami’s fiction, a plot of relative simplicity … This stuff is very Murakami. Killing Commendatore repeats almost exactly, for example, the descent through a well to a magical world that occurs in his earlier novel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle … Killing Commendatore gets the balance right … In long, powerful passages, Murakami describes painting with the intensity of what seems like just-concealed autobiography.”
–Charles Finch (The Washington Post)
Read Harunk Murakami’s introduction to The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories here
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4. Mycroft and Sherlock by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse
3 Rave • 4 Positive
“Abdul-Jabbar has managed to weave elements of his far flung interests into a fascinating mystery narrative. The briskly written book has a delicately woven plot…fascinating … With its simple yet vivid writing style, and quick punchy chapters, Mycroft is a departure from Abdul-Jabbar’s more well-known non-fiction in form but not content. Mycroft returns to the themes he has written about for years—the specters of racism and economic inequality and colonialism haunt the novel, much like the deadly supernatural beings about which he writes in Mycroft. Even Donald Trump would enjoy the book’s twists.”
–Mike Sagar (Esquire)
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5. Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller
2 Rave • 5 Positive
“Fuller…is a master of propulsive action, making the ground spin as each unreliable narrator takes center stage. Every measured sentence…builds on itself with the crumbling estate providing the saturated backdrop for this ultimately macabre tale. A distracting plot element or two notwithstanding, Fuller’s tale offers a gripping and unsettling look at the ugly side of extreme need and the desperate measures taken in the name of love.”
–Poornima Apte (Booklist)
Read an excerpt from Bitter Orange here
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1. The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
3 Rave • 7 Positive
“From its beginning to its final line (‘It’s what you fail to imagine that kills you’), Michael Lewis reveals so much, and writes so insightfully, as he tackles what would seem to be the most mundane of his many magnificent investigations. The federal bureaucracy? But, instead of dull and wonkish, his new book is a spellbinding, alarming analysis of the most serious threats to Americans’ safety happening now from inside the U.S. government. And, Lewis nails the most catastrophic threat to your continued existence … The book is a brilliant indictment of Trump and his appointees’ foolhardy ignorance of what federal agencies actually do and how.”
–Don Oldenburg (USA Today)
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2. Belonging by Nora Krug
4 Rave • 3 Positive
“Belonging, Krug’s new visual memoir, is a mazy and ingenious reckoning with the past. Born three decades after the Holocaust, she traces the stubborn silences in German life and investigates her own family’s role in the war. The book takes the form of an overstuffed scrapbook, jammed with letters, photographs, official documents and fragments from her uncle’s childhood journals — doodles of flowers, flags and swastikas … The wisdom of this book is that it does not claim to [wash away stains or mend scars]. The notion of ‘consolation’ is one I suspect Krug would regard with suspicion. What she seems in pursuit of is a better quality of guilt.”
–Parul Seghal (The New York Times)
Read an excerpt from Belonging here
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3. Presidents of War by Michael Beschloss
2 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed
“In another masterful work of research, NBC News presidential historian Beschloss… demonstrates his erudite grasp of the history of the executive branch … The author’s highly readable style and ability to pinpoint the most relevant facts make this a perfect book for any student of American history and its presidents.”
–(Kirkus)
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4. On Sunset by Kathryn Harrison
4 Rave • 1 Mixed
“…a touching and at times jaw-dropping portrait of the maternal grandparents who raised her … Harrison has written about her unusual family and Los Angeles childhood before, but never in such specific—and fascinating—detail … Harrison paints a vivid picture of an anachronistic childhood in which The Brady Bunch, Barbies, peanut butter and sliced bread were out, while curtsies, cod liver oil, Marmite and liverwurst on little rounds of baguettes were in … What emerges is a poignant portrait of a smart, anxious young girl … Impressively, On Sunset—richly illustrated with photographs and personal documents — adds up to more than just sepia-tinged nostalgia for a world on which the sun set long ago.”
–Heller McAlpin (The Washington Post)
Read Kathryn Harrison on her five favorite Los Angeles memoirs here
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5. The Reckonings by Lacy M. Johnson
2 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Unflinching and honest, The Reckonings seamlessly melds the personal and political into a collection that is both timely and timeless, addressing issues ranging from recovering from unimaginable trauma, to nuclear fallout, to white privilege … You can start to feel, while reading this collection, that life is one big cover-up, from assaults to oil spills to nuclear waste. Johnson does what a great essayist should do: She shakes you up, shakes you down, makes you figure out your level of complicity, even if that complicity is merely personal or collective silence. Like Michel de Montaigne, the French philosopher who was one of the first great personal essayists, Johnson is unafraid to engage in cultural relativism … Johnson is a gifted writer, lyrically descriptive … Lucid and compelling, Johnson’s essays are not only bold and memorable, but insistent reminders that all good essays are, in fact, reckonings: attempts to work out problems, whether domestic, cosmic or both, on the page.”
–Doni M. Wilson (The Houston Chronicle)
