Carlo Rovelli’s White Holes, Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory, Alice McDermott’s Absolution, and Caster Semenya’s The Race to Be Myself all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.
1. The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
(Gallery/Saga Press)
10 Rave
“Emotive and eschews realism for the supernatural. It combines current concerns about race and justice for young Black men with an intensely readable, immersive story with decisive paranormal features. In fact, the novel’s extended, layered denouement is so heart-smashingly good, it made me late for work. I couldn’t stop reading. I needed to find out what was going to happen next, and next, and next … A supernatural historical novel and a straight-up page-turner. This is a difficult combination to sustain for nearly 600 pages, but Due accomplishes it, and in so doing invites us to consider what it means to be enthralled, even entertained, by a young man’s ethical dilemmas, and to find ourselves unexpectedly rooting for revenge, for the living and the dead.”
–Randy Boyaga (The New York Times Book Review)
2. The Glutton by A. K. Blakemore
(Scribner)
6 Rave • 3 Positive
“The author brings her powers of language and research to bear on a historical novel that announces from the start that it plans to break the rules. She opens with a description that seems to gestate and eat itself, like an ouroboros … Visceral … This is a sensory feast that asks us what brutality we are prepared to witness, taste, hear, smell and touch. While some may find the prose overstuffed, others will relish a compelling, urgent, empathic, beautifully revolting novel that wants to kick the stuffing out of our complacency.”
–Kim Sherwood (Times Literary Supplement)
3. Absolution by Alice McDermott
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
5 Rave • 1 Positive
“It’s futile to predict where a great writer’s boundless imagination will take us and, as Absolution affirms, McDermott is a great writer … What draws out McDermott’s most incisive, compassionate writing is the expat world of ‘the wives’ … McDermott possesses the rare ability to evoke and enter bygone worlds…without condescending to them.”
–Maureen Corrigan (NPR)
**
1. White Holes by Carlo Rovelli
(Riverhead)
3 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Going beyond that horizon towards a new understanding of space, time and black holes is the principal goal of physicist Carlo Rovelli’s wonderful new book … White Holes, like Rovelli’s other works, is remarkably short—less than 200 pages. But the clarity of his explanations is unparalleled. As a scientist who is also a popularizer, I often find myself marveling at the acuity of his passages. More than just an ability to explain cutting edge ideas in physics, Rovelli’s erudition and sensitivity lets him make contact with the broadest human yearnings for making sense of the world … taking the journey with Rovelli is more than worth the price of the book. Dante gave us his tour of the underworld. We could not do better than having Rovelli as a guide into the dark world of black holes.”
–Adam Frank (NPR)
2. The Race to Be Myself by Caster Semenya
(W. W. Norton & Company)
4 Rave • 2 Positive
“Here, for the first time, Semenya shares her perspective on the trauma and horrific treatment she endured to fulfill her dreams of reaching her potential as a female athlete and providing her family with financial support. Told with candor, Semenya’s story reminds readers to treat all humans with dignity and that being different does not mean being wrong.”
–Brenda Barrera (Booklist)
3. Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided by Scott Eyman
(Simon & Schuster)
2 Rave • 3 Positive
“A beautifully composed and unique look at how Chaplin was characterized as an immoral sexual deviant and Soviet-sympathizing subversive. The author vividly documents the federal government’s relentless pursuit of Chaplin … A brilliant must-read about the epic and turbulent life and times of a cinematic titan.”
