1. Radio Free Vermont by Bill McKibben
(2 Rave, 3 Positive, 2 Mixed)
“Bill McKibben has penned an entertaining political satire, a delightful romp through Vermont’s hills and valleys … All this nonsense creates a quick read, a delightful romp of a morality play that allows McKibben, a noted environmental activist, to make his points, including shots at our current White House occupant.”
–Gene Warner (The Buffalo News)
*
2. The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg
(2 Rave, 3 Positiv, 1 Mixed)
“…a near-perfect escape from these anxious times … The Story of Arthur Truluv is sweet and light and completely free of politics. It’s about love, hope and second chances. Miraculously, Berg’s slim story — it runs just over 200 pages — manages to settle into these themes without being sugary or cliche.”
–Trine Tsouderos (The Chicago Tribune)
Read an excerpt from The Story of Arthur Truluv here
*
3. The Revolution of Marina M by Janet Fitch
(1 Rave, 2 Positive, 3 Mixed)
“…despite the book’s size and the headiness of the material it tackles, Marina’s unlikely bildungsroman — her growth, her loves, her dreadful losses and disappointments, but, above all, her enduring hope and determination to survive, against all odds — proves so gripping that it’s hard to put the book down … In its most harrowing passages, The Revolution of Marina M. shows us the full extent of female vulnerability in chaotic times.”
–Ani Kokobobo (The Los Angeles Review of Books)
*
4. Debriefing by Susan Sontag
(1 Rave, 3 Positive, 3 Mixed)
“Sontag the personality has grown so large in death that it threatens to eclipse her work: She is remembered as a narcissist, a pugilist, the enemy of Camille Paglia, and a genius. This new collection may not offer anything strictly new, but it does allow us examine a side of Sontag that is often obscured by those two pillars of her legacy … Not all of it [her fiction] is excellent, but it is all stylish … The writing in Debriefing is never less than viciously good.”
–Josephine Livingstone (The New Republic)
*
5. The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius
(2 Rave, 3 Positive)
“To anyone who has ever said that prize-winning Washington Postcolumnist and popular spy novelist David Ignatius is too much of an apologist for the CIA, his new book is a dramatic rebuttal. The Quantum Spyis a fascinating, beautifully textured thriller in which the CIA comes across as a racist, sexist institution whose biases play right into the hands of hostile foreign powers.”
–Richard Lipez (The Washington Post)
**
1. The Gourmands’ Way by Justin Spring
(6 Rave, 4 Positive)
“…[a] riveting biography … Spring understands that every cookbook and wine encyclopedia has a fascinating backstory, which he uncovers by exploring the character and situation of each of his writers … Among the most original aspects of The Gourmands’ Way is Spring’s revelatory use of publishers’ archives and contract negotiations, which helps us understand the books these writers created … I read The Gourmands’ Way with constant interest, and I read it slowly for its many delicious details and astonishing backstories.”
–Alice Kaplan (Bookforum)
*
2 . The Extra Woman by Joanna Scutts
(4 Rave, 4 Positive, 1 Mixed)
“The resulting book is far from a straight biography and offers instead a colorful dissertation on midcentury womanhood, exploring Hillis’ impact from several angles in order to sketch out a prismatic understanding of feminism and freedom at the time … Scutts was smart to continually weave Hillis’ story into her diversions. This makes Hillis’ story feel far-reaching — she touched so many aspects of women’s rights and financial independence — but it also grounds an enormous history in a personal narrative.”
–Rachel Syme (The Barnes & Noble Review)
Read an excerpt from The Extra Woman here
*
3. The Dawn Watch by Maya Jasanoff
(3 Rave, 5 Positive)
“The Dawn Watch will win prizes, and if it doesn’t, there is something wrong with the prizes … The Dawn Watch is an expansion of the biographical form, placing an individual in total context: Joseph Conrad in world history … In a globalised world, Conrad’s writing has a new applicability; he writes about quandaries that we know.”
–Patrick French (The Guardian)
*
4. Promise Me, Dad by Joe Biden
(2 Rave, 6 Positive)
“Promise Me, Dad is Joe Biden’s poignant, instructive and deeply affecting account of a family’s struggle against a vicious brain cancer, played out against the demands of his job as vice president and the temptations of another run for the presidency. It is also a touching account of the cruel realities of cancer, especially cancer that strikes a child.”
–Tom Brokaw (The Washington Post)
*
5. Lenin by Victor Sebestyen
(5 Rave)
“Can first-rate history read like a thriller? With Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror, the journalist Victor Sebestyen has pulled off this rarest of feats — down to the last of its 569 pages … [Sebestyen has] a scriptwriter’s knack for drama and suspense that needs no ludicrous cliffhangers to enthrall history buffs and professionals alike.”
–Josef Joffe (The New York Times Book Review)
***
