The Best Reviewed Books of the Week

Annie Proulx Stories, James Gleick’s The Telephone, Siân Hughes’s No Such Thing As Monday, and Lauren Elkin’s Vocal Break all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.

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Fiction

1. No Such Thing As Monday by Siân Hughes
(Henry Holt)

5 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from No Such Thing As Monday here

“Fractious and darkly funny … Against almost every indication I’ve given you so far, this ouroboros of ongoing traumas somehow manages not to be head-smashingly bleak. Steffie is one of those fictional creations you probably would and should run screaming from in real life, but on the page, she’s a pretty great hang: spiky, sharp-witted, blazingly self-aware … Hughes has a canny, lyrical ear for her misfits and underdogs, and a touch tender enough to nudge their fate toward better things.”

–Leah Greenblatt (The New York Times)

2. The Key Biscayne Affair by Xita Rubert
(Ecco)

3 Rave • 2 Positive

“Sly, rewarding … Throughout this slender novel, Rubert’s style offers a welcome respite from the minimalism which attenuates so much contemporary fiction. Her sentences are audacious, on tiptoe and reaching. There are wisdoms on every page, shimmering like silica in the sidewalk.”

–Michael Shorris (The Brooklyn Rail)

3. Annie Proulx Stories: New & Selected
(Scribner)

4 Rave

“Reading it is like opening the hall closet and having the contents of an antique junk shop, laced with spiky and rusted farm implements, spill out and maim your dog. I mean this as praise … Anyone who’s kept pace with Proulx over the decades knows her short stories are her thorniest and most essential work … I’m aware I’ve made the bulk of Proulx’s stories sound insane. And they are. But the inundation is purposeful and artful. From her chaotic style she coaxes out wild, wind-chapped poetries, as if she were the caller of a cosmic hoedown.”

–Dwight Garner (The New York Times)

4. O Now! by Niall Williams
(Bloomsbury)

3 Rave • 1 Positive

“In this shimmering jewel of a novella, the canny and perceptive Williams offers a quiet, lyrical, deeply satisfying contemplation of life’s deepest riddles.”

–Carol Haggas (Booklist)

5. Don’t Stop Snowing by Gabriel Bump
(Algonquin)

1 Rave • 4 Positive

“Bump paints with the novel’s primary hue: melancholy, which, like a blizzard, can be desolate and romantic at once … David’s narration routinely has a depth of insight, about identity, the fragility of family and the tragedies into which we’re all born. This is delivered with such elegant ease that it sneaks up on readers, who may find themselves tearing up, as I did more than once.”

–Rob Franklin (The New York Times Book Reveiw)

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Nonfiction

1. The Telephone: A New History by James Gleick
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

4 Rave • 3 Positive
Read an excerpt from The Telephone here

“James Gleick’s latest book, The Telephone, restores the old instrument to its rightful place in history. And, furthermore, it burnishes a once mundane tool with dignity and mystique … Gleick is a respected science writer who likes to get out of the lab onto those streets and beyond, with a touch of Doc and his DeLorean from Back to the Future … This elegant survey should be required reading for digital natives.”

–Alexandra Jacobs (The New York Times)

2. The Intangibles: Friendship, Fatherhood, and the Love of the Game by Nick Paumgarten
(Penguin)

5 Rave • 1 Positive

“Inventive … Vivid … Hockey fans will adore this, and more casual readers will be charmed by Paumgarten’s thoughtful examinations of manhood. It’s a winner.”

–Publishers Weekly

=3. Vocal Break: On Women, Music, and Power by Lauren Elkin
(Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)

3 Rave • 2 Positive
Read an excerpt from Vocal Break here

“Elkin offers no grand thesis on the female voice beyond that women’s vocal styles are rich and varied, subject to undue manipulation and criticism and generally underserved by the music business … At the core of this book is not just sharp analysis but a deep appreciation for singing and how it represents expression and freedom.”

–Fiona Sturges (The Guardian)

=3. Aristocracy, American Style: Class Privilege and the Persistence of Elite Power by Nancy Isenberg
(Viking)

3 Rave • 2 Positive
Read an excerpt from Aristocracy, American Style here

“Isenberg’s astute examination illuminates how the craving for not solely wealth but status-driven power and far-reaching influence have shaped our contemporary society … A richly detailed analysis of class systems with as much relevance to today as at the time of our nation’s founding.”

–Kirkus

5. Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are by Mona Chalabi
(Random House)

1 Rave • 3 Positive

“The result—a dazzling mix of journalism, data visualization and memoir—is both a joy to read and a serious provocation … a riveting exemplar of financial transparency … Considering its bedrock is hard numerical data, Ten Lives is a deeply affecting book. Her subjects’ stories reveal how easily systemic problems such as lack of affordable healthcare or childcare can overturn lives in modern America.”

–Rachel Clarke (The Guardian)