Jeff VanderMeer’s Absolution, André Aciman’s Roman Year, and Nick Harkaway’s Karla’s Choice: A John le Carré Novel all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.
1. Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer
(MCD)
6 Rave • 2 Positive
“VanderMeer has outdone himself … Area X does strange things to the bodies, and perhaps more importantly to the consciousness, of deserving and undeserving alike. VanderMeer has similar ambitions; he seeks to broaden his readers’ horizons and expand their sense of the possible. Maddening, haunting, and compelling, this is essential reading for anyone interested in the boundaries of speculative fiction. Just as Lowry finds it difficult to think without his swear words, many readers will find it near impossible to discuss Absolution without superlatives.”
–Matthew Keeley (The Boston Globe)
2. Karla’s Choice: A John Le Carré Novel by Nick Harkaway
(Viking)
2 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an interview with Nick Harkaway here
“Harkaway writes with great worldliness and dash, and his sense of tradecraft is impressively convincing … Tightly and cleverly plotted, but as the car chases accelerate and we race toward a propulsive conclusion, we’re reminded that le Carré’s books were never about the action … Gripping and expert, clearly the work of a professional, but the one thing it’s not—and never could be, alas—is a John le Carré novel.”
–Pico Iyer (AirMail)
3. How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? by Anna Montague
(Ecco)
1 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from How Does That Make You Feel, Magda Eklund? here
“Montague is such a gifted, sensitive and big-hearted writer that she can extend her imaginative sympathy even to Magda’s parents, whose strict Protestant religion taught them to revile this essential aspect of their daughter.”
–Ann Levin (Associated Press)
**
1. Roman Year: A Memoir by André Aciman
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
8 Rave • 1 Positive
Read an excerpt from Roman Year here
“This is not, in style or spirit, a sad book. It’s filled with canny adaptiveness and invention … Aciman is a sensitive and passionate writer, and this volume’s packed with human incident … A brave, sensuous, tender chronicle.”
–Joan Frank (The Boston Globe)
2. My Good Bright Wolf: A Memoir by Sarah Moss
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
6 Rave
Read an excerpt from My Good Bright Wolf here
“Full of daring. It is a complicated tale and her telling is many-sided, as full of devastation as it is wisdom … A lesser writer would overdo these refrains. But Moss wears them lightly, subtly using the doubting voice and the heroic wolf to tangle preconceptions of reality as she forges her own way of writing memoir.”
–Ellen Peirson-Hagger (The Observer)
3. Patriot: A Memoir by Alexei Navalny
(Knopf)
5 Rave • 1 Positive
“Honest, full of penetrating wit and with a nice ear for mockery, he was nonetheless as cheerful and empathetic as Putin is malevolent and threatening. He wielded cheerfulness as a weapon and never lost faith that the right side must eventually prevail, even if he might no longer be around to see it.”
–Will Englund (The Washington Post)
