1. Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
6 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed • 1 Pan
“…a powerful lament for the American dream … Barbara Kingsolver has proved herself a supreme craftsperson over the past three decades. She possesses a knack for ingenious metaphors that encapsulate the social questions at the heart of her stories … She powerfully evokes the eeriness of living through times of social turmoil … [a] striking and impressive presentation of family life … As a work of socially engaged fiction, Unsheltered makes a decent case for escapism.”
–Benjamin Evans (The Observer)
Read an excerpt from Unsheltered here
*
2. Melmoth by Sarah Perry
4 Rave • 5 Positive • 3 Mixed
“…masterful … Perry has done more than take parts from the Gothic corpus to stitch together some fiend. She has introduced a wholly new creature, a monster suited to our age … [a] sophisticated and delightful Gothic contraption. It is scary and smart, working as a horror story but also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of will and love … And the ending will sap your bones.”
–Keith Donoghue (The Washington Post)
*
3. White Dancing Elephants by Chaya Bhuvaneswar
3 Rave • 6 Positive
“There will be pain, drama, multiculturalism, unfulfilled desires, and the repercussions of love. Yes, reading this will be painful, but you will enjoy every page … Bhuvaneswar is a talented storyteller who can take big topics like harassment and racism and illustrate their destructive power by pulling them into the lives of her characters and showing us the results. Although her dark themes can make reading an uncomfortable experience at times, our current political and cultural landscape means White Dancing Elephants is a necessary book—and one that introduces a gifted voice to contemporary literature.”
–Gabino Iglesias (NPR)
Read a story from White Dancing Elephants here
*
4. Shell Game by Sara Paretsky
2 Rave • 4 Positive
“As is usually the case with Paretsky’s novels, there is considerable social and political commentary, so if you are a capital-C Conservative, you might want to give some thought to how much you are willing to have your convictions challenged. Everyone else can revel in the superb pacing, the well-developed characters and the crisp dialogue from one of the most consistently excellent writers in the genre.”
–Bruce Tierney (BookPage)
Read Sara Paretsky on the feminist awakening that led to V. I. Warshawski here
*
5. A Well-Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler
2 Rave • 3 Positive
“With you-are-there immediacy fueled by assured attention to biographical detail and deft weaving of labyrinthine intrigue, Fowler creates a thoroughly credible imagining of the challenges and emotional turmoil facing this fiercely independent woman.”
–Carol Haggas (Booklist)
**
1. Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
10 Rave • 3 Positive
“David Blight has written the definitive biography of Frederick Douglass. With extraordinary detail he illuminates the complexities of Douglass’s life and career and paints a powerful portrait of one of the most important American voices of the 19th century … Blight is masterful in handling this material. In these moments, the pace of this big book picks up; the details pull you in; and if only just for a moment, the larger-than-life image dips and we see the man.”
–Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (The Boston Globe)
*
2. Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
9 Rave • 1 Positive
“Kiese Laymon’s memoir Heavy is many things, all of them searing, brilliant, and unflinching in honesty, no matter what heartbreaks or difficulties rest at the end of the road his honesty carves out … In Heavy, the story begins messy, and ends messy, and in between we learn why the mess was worth fighting through, and fighting for.”
–Hanif Abdurraqib (4Columns)
Read Kiese Laymon’s “What Bill Cosby Taught Me About Sexual Violence and Flying”
*
3. The Library Book by Susan Orlean
4 Rave • 7 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Orlean’s work in general has that elusive quality to it: exquisitely written, consistently entertaining and irreducible to anything so obvious and pedestrian as a theme … a loving tribute not just to a place or an institution but to an idea … Her depiction of the Central Library fire on April 29, 1986, is so rich with specifics that it’s like a blast of heat erupting from the page … What makes The Library Book so enjoyable is the sense of discovery that propels it, the buoyancy when Orlean is surprised or moved by what she finds.”
–Jennifer Szalai (The New York Times)
Read an interview with Susan Orlean here
*
4. Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Max Hastings
5 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed
“This is a long book but not a bloated one; this war demands the detail that Hastings provides. His basic arguments are not particularly new, but the book itself is still original. What makes it so magnificent is its intimacy. Hastings possesses the journalist’s instinct for a good story, the tiny anecdote that exposes a big truth. Large tragedies are illustrated through very personal pain.”
–Gerald DeGroot (The Times)
*
5. The Big Fella: Babe With and the World He Created by Jane Leavy
3 Rave • 6 Positive
“Few sports analysts explain the sabermetrics certifying Babe Ruth’s baseball achievement more lucidly than Leavy … The same insight and verve that attracted readers to Leavy’s portraits of Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax manifest themselves here as she traces the improbable transformation of the insecure Little George into the imposing Sultan of Swat, master of the diamond and unparalleled national celebrity … an American icon brought to life.”
–Bryce Christensen (Booklist)
