1. Provenance by Ann Leckie
(4 Rave, 2 Positive, 2 mixed)
“It is difficult for me to write this review without simply gushing READ THIS NOW. (But seriously: read this now) … every bit as good as her previous work and very different in theme, tone, and approach … Part coming-of-age story, part murder mystery, part political thriller, and part exploration of questions of memory, meaning, and cultural identity as represented by physical relics of the past, Provenance is an extraordinarily good book. Tightly paced and brilliantly characterised—as one might expect from Leckie—with engaging prose and a deeply interesting set of complicated intersecting cultures, it is a book that I loved, and one that I expect to read again.”
–Liz Bourke (Tor)
*
2. Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
(4 Rave, 5 Positive, 4 Mixed, 2 Pan)
“…steeped as it is in dystopian darkness, Cedar’s diary is most remarkable for the amiable, heartfelt way in which it captures what’s familiar — in friendships and families, in communities and in nature. It is against this prosaic background, so artful in its seeming artlessness, that the loss anticipated in this novel registers in all its depth and sorrow.”
–Ellen Akins (The Minneapolis Star Tribune)
Read an excerpt from Future Home of the Living God here
*
3. In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
(2 Rave, 3 Positive, 3 Mixed)
“Allende, as effervescent in her compassion, social concerns, and profound joy in storytelling as ever, brings both humor and intensity to this madcap, soulful, and transporting tale of three survivors who share their traumatic pasts while embarking on a lunatic mission of mercy … Allende has a rare and precious gift for simultaneously challenging and entrancing readers by dramatizing with startling intimacy such dire situations as the desperation behind illegal immigration and domestic violence, then reveling, a page later, in spiritual visions or mischievous sexiness or heroic levity.”
–Donna Seaman (Booklist)
Read an interview with Isabel Allende here
*
4. Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda
(3 Rave, 1 Positive, 1 Mixed)
“…a dizzying, kaleidoscopic thriller that refuses to let readers look away from the dark side of Southern California … It’s difficult to discuss how the lives of the characters in Wonder Valley come together without giving away the revelations that make the novel nearly impossible to put down. That’s not to say the book is dependent on twists; while Pochoda takes her readers in unexpected directions, it’s the memorable characters and beautiful prose that make the novel so successful.”
–Michael Schaub (The Los Angeles Times)
*
5. Ka by John Crowley
(4 Rave, 1 Positive, 1 Pan)
“Ka is a beautiful, often dreamlike late masterpiece … The novel expands upon ideas and themes Crowley has examined in nearly all his fiction; it feels at once valedictory and celebratory … Elegiacal and exhilarating, Ka is both consoling and unflinching in its examination of what it means to be human, in life and death. If, as Robert Graves wrote, ‘There is one story and one story only,’ we are very lucky that John Crowley is here to tell it to us.”
–Elizabeth Hand (The Los Angeles Times)
**
1. The Wine Lover’s Daughter by Anne Fadiman
(7 Rave, 4 Positive)
“…a wonderfully engaging memoir of both her father, Clifton Fadiman, and of what it was like to grow up in a highly bookish and privileged household … By recording both her past experiences and her current thoughts about those experiences, she keeps The Wine Lover’s Daughter consistently absorbing and, once begun, you will be hard-pressed to stop reading, even though the book should probably be savored like a grand cru rather than guzzled down like cheap beer. Either way, though, you’re in for a good time.”
–Michael Dirda (The Washington Post)
Read an excerpt from The Wine Lover’s Daughter here
*
2. Bunk by Kevin Young
(4 Rave, 5 Positive, 1 Mixed)
“…[an] enthralling and essential new study of our collective American love affair with pernicious and intractable moonshine … Bunk is a sort of book that comes along rarely: the encompassing survey of some vast realm of human activity, encyclopedic but also unapologetically subjective …a panorama, a rumination and a polemic at once, asks more of the reader. It delivers riches in return …represents instead a deliberate and even violent confrontation with our determination to locate a susceptibility to bunk elsewhere, whether in the deplorable past or merely in the deplorable other.”
–Jonathan Lethem (The New York Times Book Review)
*
3. Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits by John Merriman
(4 Rave, 2 Positive, 1 Mixed)
“This is the kind of book you pick up and can’t put down and then spend weeks after convincing your friends and co-workers to read it so you can talk about it … a must-read for fans of history and true crime alike. It grips the reader and pulls you into a tale so wonderful you almost can’t believe it’s true.”
–Dan Arel (The Huffington Post)
*
4. Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser
(3 Rave, 2 Positive)
“…an impressive piece of social history that uses the events of Wilder’s life to track, socially and politically, the development of the American continent and its people … Prairie Fires could not have been published at a more propitious time in our national life. In the 1930s, populists like the Wilders were a minority voice in America; it was rather the characters in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath who reflected the mood of the country. They resembled the people who, in their millions, greeted Roosevelt as a savior, convinced that his was the view required for national survival. Today, the balance of power has reversed. The Wilders among us now occupy a position so influential they have been able to elect someone of their own persuasion to the American presidency. The frontier mentality they still embody is less likely to shore up a potentially failing democracy than to wreck it altogether.”
–Vivian Gornick (The New Republic)
*
5. The Glass Eye by Jeannie Vanasco
(2 Rave, 3 Positive)
“..[a] brilliant, obsessive memoir about grieving … Reminiscent of Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, The Glass Eye isn’t a straightforward memoir: Rather, it’s a self-aware chronicle of her struggles as she talks us through her process on the page (‘I worry I’m too easily swayed by the sonic impact of a line’) or researches the sparse facts of her half sister’s death. As the pages fly by, we’re right by Vanasco, breathlessly experiencing her grief, mania, revelations, and — ultimately — her relief.”
–Isabella Biedenharn (Entertainment Weekly)
Read an excerpt from The Glass Eye here
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