A harrowing tale of abuse in a Bolivian Mennonite community, a murder mystery set in Blitz era London, and a true crime story forty years in the making all feature among the week’s best reviewed titles.
1. Women Talking by Miriam Toews
10 Rave • 4 Positive
“In a narrative so sharp it could draw blood, Women Talking asks an immense, weighty question: How do women who have lived their entire lives in a society that severely limits their agency act when suddenly needing to exercise it? In grappling with this question, Toews, who was raised in a Mennonite town in Canada, has written a heated, heartbreaking story at once fundamental and contemporary … The book’s passionate ideology can make it feel like a manifesto being composed in real time, but Women Talking is not a polemic dressed up as fiction. This essential novel is as electrifyingly alive for its masterful storytelling as for its clear, pointed critique of the patriarchy and the insidious nature of power. This is due in no small part to the indelible characters Toews has given life to … In August, Toews has created a vessel worthy of carrying this story, proving it’s as powerful for others to listen, as it is for women to speak.”
–Laura Adamczyk (The AV Club)
2. Lost and Wanted by Nell Freudenberger
6 Rave • 2 Mixed
“Nell Freudenberger excels at one of fiction’s singular strengths—imaginative empathy without borders … Enriched by intelligent, multi-level discussions about the spacetime continuum, determinism, whether Einstein believed in God, and cosmic concepts such as entanglements, collisions, interference patterns, uncertainty, and gravity—including, most notably, the force we exert on each other—Lost and Wanted is an undoubtedly brainy book. But Freudenberger’s outstanding achievement is that it is also a moving story about down-to-earth issues like grief and loneliness.”
–Heller McAlpin (NPR)
3. The American Agent: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear
3 Rave • 5 Positive
“Through it all [Maisie] has solved sometimes harrowing cases with a mixture of intelligence, intuition, determination and compassion that makes her—and it’s an odd compliment, I know—one of the most soothing characters in crime fiction. Reading a Maisie Dobbs book is a little like spending time with an old friend you don’t see often enough, if your old friend’s gig is tracking down and capturing criminals … [Winspear] researches each novel so carefully that the series could almost serve as a history of the United Kingdom in the first half of the 20th century.”
–Colette Bancroft (The Tampa Bay Times)
4. Lights All Night Long by Lydia Fitzpatrick
4 Rave • 2 Positive
“Fitzpatrick does so many things right in Lights All Night Long, it’s hard to believe it’s a debut novel. As a mystery, it’s paced perfectly, with the novel moving seamlessly back and forth in time between Ilya’s life in Russia and his new one in America. Fitzpatrick proves to be an expert at building suspense; it’s hard not to read the book in a single sitting. She also avoids falling into well-worn tropes or clichés of fiction … Similarly, Fitzpatrick treats the blossoming relationship between Ilya and Sadie with admirable realism … It’s tricky to capture the specific, sometimes difficult language that brothers use to let each other know they care, but Fitzpatrick manages to do so perfectly, and it makes their relationship all the more beautiful and affecting … an expertly crafted mystery and a dazzling debut from an author who’s truly attuned to how families work at their darkest moments.”
–Michael Schaub (The Los Angeles Times)
5. Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
4 Rave • 1 Positive
“Welcome to the weird and wonderful universe of Trent Dalton, whose first work of fiction is, without exaggeration, the best Australian novel I have read in more than a decade … His dialogue is every bit as funny and accurate as Winton’s, his prose just as evocative, and he’s better at wrapping up the ending. The last 100 pages of Boy Swallows Universe propel you like an express train to a conclusion that is profound and complex and unashamedly commercial … Dalton’s novel takes flight in a multitude of unexpected directions.”
–John Collee (The Sydney Morning Herald)
1. The Light Years by Chris Rush
4 Rave • 2 Positive
“…a dazzling debut memoir … In sparkling, lucid prose that perfectly captures the joy, depression, anger, and wonder that characterized his adventures, the author recounts the seemingly endless hills and valleys of his unique tale … the author refreshingly avoids tying his story up with a pretty bow, and readers will wish for more from this talented writer. A captivating, psychedelically charged coming-of-age memoir.”
=2. The Last Stone by Mark Bowden
3 Rave • 3 Positive
“…a stirring, suspenseful, thoughtful story that, miraculously, neither oversimplifies the details nor gets lost in the thicket of a four-decade case file. This is a cat-and-mouse tale, told beautifully. But like all great true crime, The Last Stone finds its power not by leaning into cliché but by resisting it—pushing for something more realistic, more evocative of a deeper truth … Bowden is very good at showing how both sides in this protracted interrogation are lying.”
–Robert Kolker (The New York Times Book Review)
=2. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
3 Rave • 3 Positive
“What makes this book a joy to read is that it offers a wise and witty meld of the author’s personal insights and clinical observations plus bite-sized nuggets of psychology without ever lecturing or boring the reader … For those who are skeptical, fearful or turned off by the idea of the talking cure, this fly-on-the-wall view of the subject just might convince you that therapy is remarkably worthwhile … a most satisfying and illuminating read for psychotherapy patients, their therapists, and all the rest of us.”
–Karen R. Koenig (The New York Journal of Books)
4. Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens’s London by Claire Harmon
2 Rave • 4 Positive • 2 Mixed
“Harman brilliantly reconstructs the crime and its impact … Murder by the Book does not read like a Victorian whodunit or 19th-century melodrama. Harman tells the story straight, without recourse to suspense or surprises. Instead she keeps us captivated through a series of hard facts and incredible events … This is an assiduously researched and superbly written book that ends with Harman examining unanswered questions, and reminding us that truth can be stranger than fiction, particularly when inspired by it.”
–Malcolm Forbes (The Minneapolis Star Tribune)
5. Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison
1 Rave • 5 Positive
“Who knew literary criticism could be so much fun? … Alison (Nine Island) offers a well-stocked ‘museum of specimens,’ from the work of writers both widely known (Philip Roth, Raymond Carver and W.G. Sebald, one of her favorites) and less so (Marie Redonnet and Murray Bail). She meticulously but briskly unearths an impressive body of evidence to support her argument … Alison’s gift for close reading brings to mind fellow novelist and critic Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, and her enthusiasm for this literary archeology project is infectious … Meander, Spiral, Explode is a joyous celebration of literature’s robust shape-shifting qualities.”
–Harvey Freedenberg (Shelf Awareness)
