Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword, Halle Butler’s Banal Nightmare, and Rachel Kousser’s Alexander at the End of the World all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.
1. The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman
(Viking)
8 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from The Bright Sword here
“Resoundingly earns its place among the best of Arthurian tales … The book is long, more than 600 pages, and it feels long. The story meanders, but other than a few back story chapters that are, if not unnecessary, perhaps mistimed, nothing feels superfluous. This is a narrative that demands and rewards patience … Grossman…is at the top of his game with The Bright Sword, which is full of enviable ideas and execution. Few authors could accomplish what he has, grounding such an ambitious novel in so much tradition and history while still making it accessible and deeply affecting.”
–Kiersten White (The New York Times Book Review)
2. Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler
(Random House)
4 Rave • 3 Postitive
Read an excerpt from Banal Nightmare here
“There are some novels so searingly precise in their ability to capture a certain moment or experience that you have to stop every few pages to send another perfect quote to your group chat. Halle Butler’s latest, Banal Nightmare, is one such book … Will have many millennials intently nodding along to Butler’s clever insights. While not necessarily the first in the category of the millennial midlife novel, Banal Nightmare may be one of the most essential.”
–Amil Niazi (The New York Times Book Review)
3. Bright Objects by Ruby Todd
(Simon & Schuster)
2 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an essay by Ruby Todd here
“Smart, propulsively readable … Todd knows how to draw readers in. Her prose is elegant but accessible, her narrative embraces both mystery and quick plot pivots, and her protagonist, though flawed, remains sympathetic. And Todd’s grip only tightens as the story turns downright chilling.”
–Julia M. Klein (The Los Angeles Times)
**
1. The Rent Collectors: he Rent Collectors: Exploitation, Murder, and Redemption in Immigrant LA by Jesse Katz
(Astra House)
5 Rave
“Katz has constructed an ethnography of the crime, locating it within the intricate lacework of history, geography, policing and politics that the crime was knotted to … Katz…brings his formidable skills to mapping the territory of Macedo’s crime … Katz has constructed a riveting and masterful urban narrative … Sets out to understand an evil act and asks whether atonement and redemption are possible for the person who did it. It finds a web of meaning in which all of us are suspended, implying that many other crimes could be understood in such a holistic way if we took the time. As much as is possible after such a senseless tragedy, Katz makes some sense out of that September day.”
–Lorraine Berry (The Los Angeles Times)
2. The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld by Dan Slater
(Little Brown and Company)
4 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from The Incorruptibles here
“Exuberant … Write[s] in a breezy, fast-paced style. [He] revel[s] in the Dickensian details of the demimonde—the colorful lingo, intricate professional techniques and social snobberies of the criminal classes—looping through decades of political and economic history that spills over into chatty footnotes.”
–Debby Applegate (The New York Times Book Review)
3. Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great by Rachel Kousser
(Mariner)
2 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed
“A breath of fresh air … Kousser’s biography extends beyond Alexander’s military movements and into his emotional life … Her account is exhaustively researched—many chapters extend past 100 footnotes—but remains approachable.”
–Valorie Castellanos Clark (The Los Angeles Times)
