January 2020 Book List

January 2020 Book List

Book lists around Christmas and the New Year are not always typical in terms of content with regard to book lists from the rest of the year. This month you should look for the book lists that offer up the Best Books of 2019. Every site that reviews books usually has such a list. When you look over the offerings from the NYT you will find the suggestions at the beginning of December were quite lengthy. Since books make wonderful gifts for many readers the list is rounded out with appealing suggestions for books as presents. It is now past Christmas but it’s never to late to give a great book to a book lover and you will find some books for art lovers and those who love the dance world

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Literature and Fiction

The Long Petal of the Sea: A Novel by Isabel Allende

Small Days and Nights: A Novel by Tishani Doshi

Show Them a Good Time by Nicole Flattery

Dear Edward: A Novel by Ann Napolitano

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

Little Gods: A Novel by Meng Jin

Topics of Conversation: A Novel by Miranda Popkey

The Black Cathedral: A Novel by Marcial Gala and Anna Kushner

Processed Cheese: A Novel by Stephen Wright

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston

Mysteries and Thrillers

The Vanishing (Fogg Lake) by Jayne Ann Krantz

The Tenant by Katrine Engberg

The Missing American (An Emma Djan Investigation) by Kwei Quartey

The Better Liar by Tanen Jones

No Fixed Lines (22) (A Kate Shugak Investigation) by Dana Stabenow

Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg

The Rabbit Hunter by Lars Kepler

House on Fire: A Novel by Joseph Finder

The Wife and the Widow by Christian White

First Cut: A Novel by Judy Melinek, MD, TJ Mitchell

Biographies and Memoirs

Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life after Which Everything was Different by Chuck Palahniuk

Race of Aces: WW II’s Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become Masters of the Sky by John R. Bruning

Father of Lions: One Man’s Remarkable Quest to Save the Mosul Zoo by Louise Callaghan

Will: A Memoir by Will Self

Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Fremont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War by Steven Inskeep

Building a Life Worth Living: A Memoir by Marsha M Linehan

We Will Rise: A True Story of Tragedy and Resurrection in the American Heartland by Steve Beaven

Uncanny Valley: A Memoir by Anna Wiener

The Magical Language of Others: A Memoir by E J Koh

Nonfiction

Hill Women: Finding a Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains by Cassidy Chambers

Leadership Strategy and Tactics: Field Manual Jocko Willink

Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything by B J Fogg, PhD

The Third Rainbow: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg

The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-first Century by Peggy Orenstein

Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl Wu Dunn

Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife by Ada Calhoun

Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World by Matt Parker

History

999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz by Heather Dune Macadam and Caroline Moorehead

Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry that Unraveled Culture, Religion, and a Collective Memory in the Middle East by Kim Grattas

Overground Railroad: The Green Book and Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy Taylor

Wilmington’s Lies: The Murderous Coup of 1898 by David Zucchino

Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe by Kathy Peiss

Mengele: Unmasking the “Angel of Death” by David G Marwell

Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time by Gaia Vince

Science Fiction

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez

The Secret Chapter (The Invisible Library Novel) by Genevieve Cogman

NYT Book Update

12/9/2019

Fiction

Mary Toft: or The Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer

The Second Sleep by Robert Harris

10 Best Crime Books of 2019

The Bird Boys by Lisa Landlin

The Chestnut Man by Soren Sviestrup

Conviction by Denise Mina

The Good Detective by John McCain

Heaven My Home by Attica Locke

The Never Game by James Deaver

The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke

The Night Fire by Michael Connelly

The Old Success by Martha Grimes

Sarah Jane by James Sallis

Nonfiction

Still Here by Alexander Jacobs (Bio of Elaine Stritch)

Listening for America by Rob Kapilow

Life Isn’t Everything: Mike Nichols, as Remembered by 150 of His Closest Friends by Ash Carter and Sam Kashner

A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar (Art)

Art Books

Climbing Rock By Francois Lebeau

Silent Kingdom by Christian Vizl

Light Break – Photos of Ray DeCarava

The Sound I Saw – Photos of Ray Cavara (Harlem Photographer

Nonfiction

Novel Houses by Christina Hardyment

The Seine: The River that Made Paris by Elaine Sciolino

Art Books

The Lost Books of Jane Austen by Janine Barchas

Nonfiction

The Europeans by Orlando Figes

The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit by Eleanor Fitzsimons

It’s Gary Shandling’s Book edited by Judd Apatow

Irving Berlin by James Kaplan

Texas Flood by Alan Paul and Andy Aledort (Stevie Rae Vaughn)

A Pilgrimage to Eternity by Timothy Egan

I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz, Ed. By Sara J Kramer

Vanity Fair’s Women on Women, Ed. By Radhika Jones with David Friend

Parisian Lives by Deirdre Bair (Beckett and Beauvoir)

Disney’s Island by Richard Snow

Art Book

Rihanna (Memoir)

Nonfiction

Infused: Adventures in Tea by Henrietta Lovell

Life in a Cold Climate by Laura Thompson (Nancy Mitford)

Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren

Horror Stories by Liz Phair

Out Loud by Mark Morris

Dance

Love, Icebox: Letters from John Cage to Merce Cunningham by Laura Kuhn

Ballerina Project by Dane Shitogi

The Style of Movement: Fashion and Dance by Ken Brower and Deborah Ory

12/13/2019

Fiction

On Swift Horses by Shannon Pufahl

Find Me by André Aciman

The Shortlist

Walking on the Ceiling: A Novel by Aysegul Savas

The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna by Juliet Grimes (family saga)

How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee

Nonfiction

The Man Who Solved the Market by George Zuckerman

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang

Battling Bella by Leandra Ruth Zarnow (Bella Abzug)

Return to the Reich by Eric Lichtblau

The Shadow of Vesuvius by Daisy Dunn (Bio of Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger)

12/20/2019

Crime

Just Watch Me by Jeff Lindsay

A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh

Shatter the Night by Emily Littlejohn

Bryant and May: The Lonely Hour by Christopher Towles

Fiction

The Sacrament by Olaf Olafson

They Will Drown in their Mother’s Tears by Johannes Anyuru

Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeeks

Nietzsche and the Burbs by Lars Iyer

The Mutations by Jorge Comensal

Nonfiction

97,196 Words by Emmanuel Carere (essays)

User Friendly by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant

Busted in New York by Darryl Pinckney (essays)

Essays One by Lydia Davis

They Don’t Represent Us by Lawrence Lessig

The Great Democracy by Ganesh Sitaraman

Of Morsels and Marvels by Maryse Condé

Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey through the Twentieth Century by Sarah Abrevaya Stein

The Cartiers: The Untold Story Behind the Jewelry Empire by Francesca Carter Brickell

12/27/2019

Nonfiction

The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison, Ed by John F Callahan and Marc C Conner

Genius and Anxiety by Norman Lebrecht

The Confounding Island by Orlando Patterson

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (Memoir)

The Depositions by Thomas Lynch

One Long River of Song by Brian Doyle

Great Society: A New History by Amity Shlaes

1/2/2020

Crime

A Small Town by Thomas Perry

Naked Came the Florida Man by Tim Dorsey

The Playground by Jane Shemilt

Fiction

The Heap by Sean Adams

10 Minutes, 38 Seconds, in this Strange World by Elif Shafak

The Corner that Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Medieval Bodies by Jack Hartnell

The Revisionaries by A R Moxon

The Heart is a Full-Wild Beast by John L’Heureux

The Bishop’s Bedroom by Piero Chiara

Science Fiction

Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender

Homesick by Nino Cipri (Short stories)

Nonfiction

Uncanny Valley By Anna Wiener (Memoir)

Trump and His Generals by Peter Bergen

A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel

The Shortlist

The Sea Journals: Seafarers Sketchbooks by Huw Lewis-Jones

An Underground Guide to Sewers: Or: Down, Through and Out in Paris, London, New York &c by Stephen Halliday

Expeditions Unpacked: What Great Explorers Took Into the Unknown by Ed Stafford

New and Noteworthy

Crossing the Rubicon: Caesar’s Decision and the Fate of Rome by Luca Fezzi

Yellow Earth by John Sayles

The American People, Volume 2: The Brutality of Fact by Larry Kramer

Once More to the Rodeo: A Memoir by Calvin Hennick

Publisher’s Weekly

12/13/2019

I’ve Seen the End of You: A Neurosurgeon’s Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know by W. Lee Warren, MD – NF

You Were There Too by Colleen Oakley – F

Naked Came the Florida Man by Tim Dorsey – F

Cesare by Jerome Charyn – F

One of Us is Next by Karen M McManus – F

A Collective Bargain: Unions, Organizing, and the Fight for Democracy by Jane McAlevey – NF

Waltz into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich – F

The Art of Dying by Ambrose Parry – F

Kill Reply All: A Modern Guide to Online Etiquette by Victoria Turk – NF

The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala – F

Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything was Different by Chuck Palahniuk – Memoirs

All The Days Past by Mildred D. Taylor – F

Spitfire: A Livy Nash Mystery by M. L. Huie – F

Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino – NF

A Long Time Comin’ by Robin W. Pearson – F

That’s all of the PW Tip sheets that I found in my files this month. You can look for the online.