February 2019 Book List

February 2019 Booklist

There is no clear pattern in the books available this February, most of which were published in January. Topics are varied. Fiction seems to have made a comeback. Fiction titles outnumber nonfiction. Plenty of crime offerings and some thrillers that look quite interesting. There is even an offering from a daughter whose mom was a numbers runner. I am still working on Churchill: A Walk with Destiny by Andrew Roberts, which has me immersed in British politics, and right now in World War II. This is a great book but very long and I have not been able to set aside good time for reading. However, this book is well worth the investment in time that it takes to read the over 1,000 pages. Churchill is a fascinating political figure and, given his contributions to bucking up Britain, which had to fight Germany almost alone until America finally entered the war, he was a true hero in Britain. In fact he should be remembered as a hero by all of us, because Hitler didn’t win and we owe that to Churchill and the people of the UK.

Amazon

Literature and Fiction

The Cassandra: A Novel by Sharma Shields

The End of Loneliness: A Novel by Benedict Wells

Golden Child: A Novel by Claire Adam

The Age of Light: A Novel by Whitney Scharer

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

Lost Children Archive: A Novel by Valeria Luiselli

The Study of Animal Languages: A Novel by Lindsay Stern

Finding Dorothy: A Novel by Elizabeth Lells

The Night Tiger: A Novel by Yangsze Choo

Enchantée by Gia Trelease

Mystery and Thriller

American Spy: A Novel by Lauren Wilkinson

Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds: The First Official Stranger Things Novel by Gwenda Bond

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Early Riser: A Novel by Jasper Fforde

Stalker: A Novel (Joona Linna) by Lars Kepler

The Next to Die: A Novel by Sophie Hannah

Never Tell: A Novel by Lisa Gardner

The Killer Collective by Barry Eisler

The Moroccan Girl: A Novel by Charles Cumming

Biographies and Memoirs

Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life by Guy Kawasaki

Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam Houston

Jimmy Neurosis: A Memoir by James Oseland

The Unwinding of the Miracles: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything that Comes After by Julie Yip-Williams

Wild Bill: The True Story of America’s First Gunfighter by Tom Clavin

No Beast So Fierce: The Terrifying True Story of the Champawat Tiger: The Deadliest Animal in History by Dane Huckelbridge

Figuring by Maria Popova

Together: A Memoir of a Marriage and a Medical Mishap by Judy Goldman

Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman

Daniel Morgan: An Inexplicable Hero by James Kenneth Swisher

Nonfiction

Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of America’s Opioid Crisis by Jack Riley

The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, A Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film by W. K. Stratton

Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances that Flow through Our Lives by Mark Miodownik

Parkland: Birth of a Movement by Dave Cullen

Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster by Adam Higginbotham

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport

Nature’s Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present by Philipp Blom

How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency by Akiko Busch

Good Kids, Bad City: A Story of Race and Wrongful Conviction in America by Kyle Swenson

The Shape of Life: One Mathematician’s Search for the Universe’s Hidden Geometry by Shing-Tung Yau, Steve Nadis

Underground: A Human History of the World’s Beneath Our Feet by Will Hunt

Science Fiction and Fantasy

Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

Polaris Rising: A Novel: The Consortium Rebellion by Jessie Mihalik

Early Riser: A Novel by Jasper Fforde

Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation by Ken Liu

A People’s Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers by Charlie Jane Anders, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Charles Yu, Victor LaValle, and John Joseph Adams

The New York Times Book Review

Jan. 6th

Crime

The New Iberia Blues by James Lee Burke

The Burglar by Thomas Perry

No Sunscreen for the Dead by Tim Dorsey

Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones

North of Dawn by Nuruddin Farah

Poetry

The Flame by Leonard Cohen

Nonfiction

Born to Be Posthumous by Mark Dery

The Future of Capitalism by Paul Collier

Never Home Along by Rob Dunn

The War Before the War by Andrew Delbanco

Fault Lines by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E Zelizer

Nonfiction Shortlist (Topic-Food)

The Bread and the Knife: A Life in 26 Bites by Dawn Drzal

Crave: A Memoir of Food and Longing by Christine S. O’Brien

Kitchen Yarns by Ann Hood

Jan. 13 th

Fiction

Sugar Run by Mesha Maren

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg

Revolution Sunday by Wendy Guerra

My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (Nigeria)

The Shortlist – 2 Japanese Writers

The Frolic of the Beasts by Yukio Mishima, trans. by Andrew Clare

The Cake Tree in the Ruins by Akiyuki Nosaka, trans. by Ginny Tapley Takemore

Nonfiction

Anne Frank’s Diary in Graphic Form by Ari Folman and David Polonsky

Duped by Abby Ellin

An Unlikely Journey by Julián Castro

The Breakthrough by Charles Graeber

Jan. 20 th

Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley

Unquiet by Linn Ullmann

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

Restoration Heights by Will Medearis

Nonfiction

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff

The Birth of Loud by Ian Port

Breaking and Entering by Jeremy Smith

Bluff City by Preston Lauterbock

Prisoner by Jason Rezaian

The Shortllist

Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason by William Davies

The Free Society in Crisis: History of Our Times by David Selbourne

Try Common Sense: Replacing the Failed Ideologies of Right and Left by Philip K. Howard

Jan. 29 th

Nonfiction

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer

Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

The World According to Fannie Davis by Bridgett M. Davis (A daughter writes about her mother – a number’s runner)

In My Mind’s Eye: A Thought Diary by Jan Morris

Help Me by Marianne Power

Aristotle’s Way by Edith Hall

The Longest Line on the Map by Eric. Rutkow

Russell Baker books (Mr. Baker just passed)

So This is Depravity

Growing Up (Pulitzer Prize)

The Good Times

Book of American Humor

The Upside-Down Man

The Norton Book of Light Verse

Fiction

Hark by Sam Lipsyte

The Perfect Nanny by Leila Silmani

The Falconer by Dana Czapnick

An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria)

The Shortlist – History in Fiction

The Churchill Woman by Stephanie Barron

The Eulogist by Terry Gamble

The Perilous Adventures of the Cowboy King by Jerome Charyn

Mad Blood Stirring by Simon Mayo

Feb. 1 st

Best Winter Thrillers

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

As Long As We Both Shall Live by JoAnn Chaney

The Plotters by Un-Su Kim

Watching You by Lisa Jewell

The Current by Tim Johnston

The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Fay

Crime Fiction

Tombland by C. J. Sansoms

The Black Ascot by Charles Todd

The Suspect by Fiona Barton

The Murder Pit by Mick Finlay

Fiction

Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li

The Weight of a Piano by Chris Cander

The Dakota Winters by Tom Barbash

The Spirit of Science Fiction by Roberto Bolaño

The Shortlist – 4 novels

Golden Child by Claire Adam

The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay

The Patricide of George Bejamin Hill by James Charlesworth

Talent by Juliet Lapidos

Publisher’s Weekly

Jan 7 th

New Iberia Blues: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke – F

Thick: and Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cotton – NF

Burned: A Story of Murder and Crime that Wasn’t by Edmund Humes – NF

The Banished Immortal: A Life of Li Bai by Ha Jin – NF

Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones – F

Wanderer by Sarah Léon, trans. from the French by John Cullen – F

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss – F

An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma – F

How to Date Men When You Hate Men by Blythe Roberson – NF with humor

Mouthful of Birds by Samantah Schweblin, trans. from the Spanish by Megan McDowell – SS

Looker by Laura Sims – F

The Drowning by J. P. Smith – Thriller

Slayer by Kiersten White – F

Jan 11 th

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders – Science Fiction

Big Bang by David Bowman – F

The Breakline by James Brabazon – Thriller

Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely by Andrew S. Curran – NF

No Sunscreen for the Dead by Tim Dorsey – Crime novel

Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by Edith Hall – NF

Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal (Pride and Prejudice Pakistani-style) – F

Last Night in Nuuk by Naviaq Komeliussen, trans. from the Danish by Anna Halager – F

Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee – F

Hark by Sam Lipsyte – F

Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer – YA – F

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro – NF

Unquiet by Linn Ullmann – F

The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay – F

The Dreamers by Karen Thompson – F

Jan. 18 th

The Weight of a Piano by Chris Cander – F

The Kingdom of Copper by S. A. Chakraborty – Fantasy

The Current by Tim Johnston – Thriller

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land – Memoir

The Alarming Palsy of James Orr by Tom Lee – F

Camelot’s End: Kennedy vs Carter and the Fight that Broke the Democratic Party by Jon Ward – NF

The Magic Feather Effect: The Science of Alternative Medicine and the Surprising Power of Belief by Melanie Warner – NF

The Nowhere Child by Christian White – F

Last Boat of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao’s Revolution by Helen Zia – NF

Jan. 25 th

Golden Child by Claire Adam – F

The Twenty-Ninth Year by Hala Alyan – SS

The Prisoner of Limnos by Lois Mc Master Bujold – F – Series

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen – F

Deep Creek: Finding Hope I the High Country by Pa Houston – Essays

Out of the Dark by Gregg Hurwitz – Orphan X – F

The Plotters by Un-Su Kim, trans from the Korean by Sora Kum-Russell – Thriller

We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin – F

Feb. 1 st

Stalin’s Scribe: Literature, Ambition, and Survival: The Life of Mikhail Soloknov by Brian J. Boeck – Bio

Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson – NF

Europe: A Natural History by Tina Flannery with Luigi Boitani – NF

El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America by Carrie Gibson – NF

Lady First: The World of First Lady Sarah Polk by Amy S Greenberg – Bio

What We Did by Christobel Kent – F

A People’s Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction From 25 Extraordinary Writers, edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams – SS

The Ruin of Kings: A Chorus of Dragons, Bk. 1 by Jenn Lyons – Fantasy

Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken – F

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides – F

I Am A God by Giacomo Sartori, trans. from the Italian by Frederika Randall – F

The Age of Light by Whitney Scharer – F

Off Season by James Sturm – Graphic Fiction

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by EsméWeijun Wang – NF

The Glovemaker by Ann Weisgarber – F

Becoming by Michelle Obama – Book

becoming-michelle_obama-getty-h_2018

“For eight years, I lived in the White House, a place with more stairs than I can count – plus elevators, a bowling alley, and an in-house florist. I slept on a bed that was made-up with Italian linens. Our meals were cooked by a team of world class chefs and delivered by professionals more highly trained than those at any five-star restaurant or hotel. Secret Service agents, with their earpieces and guns, deliberately flat expressions, stood outside our doors, doing their best to stay out of our family’s private life. We got used to it eventually, sort of – the strange grandeur of our new home and also the constant, quiet presence of others.

The White House is where our two girls played ball in the hallways and climbed trees on the South Lawn. It’s where Barack sat up late at night poring over briefings and drafts of speeches in the Treaty Room, and where Sunny, one of our dogs, sometimes pooped on the rug. I could stand on the Truman Balcony and watch tourists posing with their selfie sticks and peering through the iron fence, trying to guess at what went on inside. There were days when I felt suffocated by the fact that our windows had to be kept shut for security, that I couldn’t get some fresh air without causing a fuss. There were other times when I’d be awestruck by the white magnolias blooming outside, the everyday bustle of government business, the majesty of a military welcome. There were days, weeks, and months, when I hated politics. And there were moments when the beauty of this country and its people so overwhelmed me that I couldn’t speak.

Then it was done.”

This is the voice of Michelle Obama in her biography/memoir, Becoming. Her story would be a great American story if she and Barack had never occupied the White House as President and First Lady, but it becomes a public rather than a private story because that happened. It happened to these two quintessentially American people while they were still quite young. Michelle spent her childhood on Chicago’s South side which was calmer and safer than it is today. She had a childhood that rivals that of any middle class American. She had two steady, loving parents. She had a father with MS who downplayed his physical challenges and went off to his job every day. Her extended family kept in touch with each other because her father had a beloved car (the deuce and a half) and he loved to go visit family members near and far. She knew racism but her parents kept it at a distance.

Michelle’s life was so much like the life I lived with my family that it evoked times that offered more stability than many children find today. She was good in school, she learned to play piano from her stern aunt who lived downstairs. As she grew her confidence in herself grew until it took her all the way to Princeton and a prestigious downtown Chicago law firm, where a young man named Barack Obama became a summer intern, then Michelle’s beau, and eventually her husband. Michelle had no calling for politics. While Barack finished a delayed college stint, she quit her fancy firm to do things that would lift up the people who grew up around her on Chicago’s South Side, and other, even poorer, Chicago neighborhoods, by running two very successful community programs. But Barack believed that the way to help even more people led through politics and, once he began, his career path took off like a rocket aimed right at Washington, DC and the Presidency.

Barack’s childhood was not as conventional as Michelle’s. He was the product of an unlikely union between a white woman from Kansas and a man from Kenya. His parents were estranged but his mother liked to travel. He spent several childhood years in Indonesia, but his real home was in Hawaii with his grandparents. He obviously also received enough loving support to grow into a very calm and confident person who ended up at Harvard, the Senate, and the White House.

This is a book that I enjoyed cover to cover. It uses no literary devices, no fiction-writing skills. It is what it is and that perfectly represents Michelle Obama; at least it seems she must be as she presents herself or she could not have written this memoir. If this were not her authentic self then she could not have written such a sweet book, and I mean sweet in the sense of offering a true taste of a good life, an American sweet spot, so far well-lived. The gracious way the Obamas lived in the White House makes them one of the great American Presidential families. I liked Michelle Robinson Obama before I read her story, and I like her even better now. The amenities of the White House, and the duties of state did not overwhelm her, but she did not take the privileges for granted either. Leaving the White House was a bittersweet experience because of the people who made their lives there so comfortable, not because she would miss the trappings of power. Barack and Michelle may be the first couple who did not arrive in the President’s house through an aristocratic American family.

Photo Credit: From a Google image search – Getty

January 2019 Book List

book-club-recomendations

January 2019 Book List

The year is beginning with a pretty slim list of new books. Many of these books were on my previous lists. The Amazon always publishes a list of the books for the current month, so those titles are new. The New York Times Book Review did not offer a lot that was new and Publisher’s Weekly was mostly looking back at the best books of 2018 so I did not even include PW in this month’s list. This gives us a bit of breather to try to catch up on our reading. (haha)

Amazon

Literature and Fiction

Elsey Come Home: A Novel by Susan Conley

The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obloma

Ghost Wall: A Novel by Sarah Moss

Unmarriageable: A Novel by Soniah Kamal

Late in the Day: A Novel by Tessa Hadley

99 Nights in Logar by Jamil Jan Kochai

The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay

The Weight of a Piano: A Novel by Chris Cander

Sugar Run: A Novel by Mesha Maren

Mysteries and Thrillers

Freefall: A Novel by Jessica Barry

The Burglar by Thomas Perry

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen

The Au Pair by Emma Rous

The Suspect by Fiona Barton

The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

The Dreamers: A Novel by Karen Thompson Walker

No Exit: A Novel by Taylor Adams

She Lies in Wait: A Novel by Gytha Lodge

The Current: A Novel by Tim Johnston

Nonfiction

The Longest Line on the Map: The United States, the Pan American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americans by Eric Rutkow

The Soprano Sessions by Matt Zoller Seitz, Alan Sepinwall, David Chase

It Was All a Dream: New Generation Confronts the Broken Promise to Black America by Reniqua Allen

Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer

The Birth of Loud: Leo Fender, Les Paul and the Guitar-Pioneering Rivalry that Shaped Rock ‘n’ Roll by Ian S. Port

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Freuer

Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff

Why We Fight: One Man’s Search for Meaning Inside the Ring by Josh Rosenblatt

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff

Breaking and Entering: The Extraordinary Story of a Hacker called “Alien” by Jeremy Smith

Biographies and Memoirs

Queen Victoria: Twenty-Four Days that Changed Her Life by Lucy Worsley

Out of the Gobi: My Story of China and America by Weijian Shan

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro

When Death Becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon by Joshua Mezrich

Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison – Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High Stakes Diplomacy and the Extraordinary Efforts it Took to Get Me Out by Jason Rezaian

Bluff City: The Secret Life of Photographer Ernest Whithers by Preston Lauterbach

Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Rabitz and the Secret History of L.A. by Lili Anolik

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land, Barbara Ehrenreich

The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America by Tommy Tomlinson

Joy Enough: A Memoir by Sarah McColl

Science Fiction and Fantasy

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

48 Hours by William R Forstchen

The Winter of the Witch (3^rdbook in the Winternight Trilogy) by Katherine Arden

Marked by S. Andrew Swann

New York Times Book Review

Dec. 9

Fiction

The Little Snake by A. I. Kennedy

Those Who Knew by Idra Novey

Love is Blind by William Boyd

Short Story Collections

Catch, Release by Adrianne Harun

Better Times by Sara Batkie

Its Color They Are Fine by Alan Spence

The Dogs of Detroit by Brad Felver

Nonfiction

Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know by Colm Toibin

Why Religion? By Elgin Pagels

The End of the End of the Earth by Jonathan Franzen (essays)

We Begin in Gladness by Craig Morgan Teicher

John Marshall by Richard Brookhiser

Books That Give Hope

Interior States by Meghan O’Greblyn (essays)

What If this Were Enough? by Heather Havulesky (essays)

Books by Lucia Berlin

Evening in Paradise: More Stories by Lucia Berlin

Welcome Home: A Memoir with Selected Photographs and Letters by Lucia Berlin

Books About What Ails America

The Politics of Petulance by Alan Wolfe

America Compromised by Lawrence Lessig

Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster by Stephen I. Carter

Dec. 16

Poetry – This week NYT Book Review featured poetry.

Nonfiction

Kurt Vonnegut’s World War II Scrapbook

New and Noteworthy

Perennial by Kelly Forsythe

Anagnorisis by Kyle Dargan

Who is Mary Sue? By Sophie Collins

The Gilded Auction Block by Shane McCrae

So Far So Good by Ursula K LeGuin

The Terrible by Yrsa Daley Ward

There Will Be No Miracles Here by Casey Gerald

Dec. 23

Nonfiction

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Man in the Glass House by Mark Lamster

The Patch by John McPhee (essays)

The Day that Went Missing by Richard Beard

Bringing Down the Colonel by Patricia Miller

Creating Things that Matter by David Edwards

Fewer, Better Things by Glenn Adamson

Nothing is Lost: Selected Essays by Ingrid Sischy

The Nationalist Revival by John B Judis

Fiction

All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuraha Roy

Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates

Come With Me by Helen Schulman

The Shortlist

Inhuman Resources by Pierre Lemaitre

An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten (short stories)

Some Like Me by M.R. Carey

Dec. 30

Fiction

Insurrecto by Gina Apostol

Graphic Novels That Defy Gender Norms

Dirty Plotte by Julie. Doucet

Fruit of Knowledge: TheVulva vs The Patriarchy by Liz Stromquist

My Brother’s Husband, Volume 2 by Gengoroh Tagame, trans. by Anne Ishii

Flocks by L. Nicols

Fiction

In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne

The Day The Sun Died by Yan Lianke

Nonfiction

Late-Life Love by Susan Gubar

God in the Qur’an by Jack Miles

The British in India by David Gilmour

3 French Novels

Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants by Mathias Énard, trans. by Charlotte Mandel

Sleep of Memory by Patrick Modiano, trans. by Mark Polizzotti

Strike Your Heart by Amélie Nothomb, trans. by Alison Anderson

New and Noteworthy – Audiobooks

Where Do We Go From Here by Bernie Sanders

Jeff Wayne’s The War of the World’s: The Musical Drama by H.G. Wells

Broken Ground by Val McDermid

Wrinkle in Time by Margaret L’Engle

Chasing Hillary by Amy Chozick

8 New Books We Recommend

Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl: Volume 1 and 2 by Uwe Johnson, trans. by Damian Searls

The Word Pretty by Elisa Gabbert

Come With Me by Helen Schulman

The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century by Mark Lamster

The Patch by John McPhee

Nothing is Lost: Selected Essays by Ingrid Sischy, edited by Sandra Brant

The Day That Went Missing by Richard Beard

Someone Like Me by M.R. Carey

Exit Strategy: Book 4: Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells – Book

exit-strategy-cover-crop Fiction Unbound

Exit Strategy is Book 4 in The Murderbot Diaries Series by Martha Wells and it is the last book in the series. You’re probably getting pretty sick of hearing the term murderbot by now (although there is something horrifyingly titillating about the idea) and our own murderbot has changed his look so much that he is now actually more of a Sec/Unit (Security Unit). In the world of The Murderbot Diaries, murderbots are frightening bots, taller than humans, half constructed of organics and half non-organics, wearing armor and helmets that they can darken to hide behind. They have, we guess by reading between the lines, a reputation for being almost unbeatable, although it sounds as if combatbots can take them down. Why would people create murderbots to begin with? When you read about some of the illegal things corporations get up to in The Murderbot Diaries you can see that they might need to assassinate people who know their secret evil deeds. This is what a murderbot is, essentially, an assassin, although murderbots can also be used for protection from a universe that is still full of unknown alien things.

Our Murderbot becomes what is essentially a detective, hunting down clues to solve two mysteries at once. One mystery is to unravel whether he/it did actually go off the rails and murder a whole group of miners and their security forces (bots). The other mystery is to find out why GrayCris is filing lawsuits against the very person (Dr. Mensah) who should be filing charges against GrayCris. The corporation covers its tracks and destroys negative evidence or kills anyone who could testify. The only untethered witness snoping into their affairs is Murderbot. GrayCris wants Murderbot murdered. They really want this badly. They have lots of connections and humans don’t realize how bad the corporation is. Murderbot has only the allies he meets on his travels and he is almost reduced to parts many times as he investigates.

Murderbot has also been meeting humans who are not rapacious, greedy crooks. He works for a few groups of humans he encounters at the various transport hubs he hitches rides to. He favors transports that have bot pilots and are on runs that are empty of humans, but as soon as he gets off a transport (with his disguised appearance – yes apparently a bot can adopt a disguise) he keeps meeting these vulnerable humans who need security but who could never afford it. He’s susceptible to honest, but naïve humans and so he helps them. It has the beneficial side effect of allowing our bot to acquire currency cards. Bots don’t get paid. They do not have money. Money is always helpful to anyone, especially to a detective though.

As Murderbot disguises itself so the corporation and HubSystem cannot find it, interestingly, its appearance gets more and more human, less and less like a murderbot. A murderbot is so distinctive it could never sneak around the universe. ART on the deep space university research transport helps Murderbot make its arms and legs two inches shorter. Murderbot stops wearing the helmet and the armor. He grows his hair. He allows his mentor to instruct the med unit (a machine) to place small hairs on his “skin”, the organic parts of him. He keeps the gun ports in his arms but organic flaps cover them most of the time. He grows out his hair. He wears human clothing. And he has the ability to hack security systems so that his presence is erased. He can also hide his weaponry from security scans.

In Exit Strategy Murderbot must get Dr. Mensah away from the clutches of GrayCris who will do anything to stop her from escaping, as she happens to be on a transport hub that is home to their corporate offices. They are even more avid to capture her now that Murderbot is back and she seems to have evidence of what they have been up to. We can guess what fate will await each of them if caught. Murderbot also has to decide how much human contact he wants and what he wants to do next. If they make it. It is an action-packed wrap up. Later, Murderbot (perhaps).

Photo Credit: Google Image Search – Fiction Unbound

Artificial Condition: Book 2: Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells – Book

Artificial condition Check Midnight News

In Book 2 of The Murderbot Diaries(Artificial Condition) our reluctant Murderbot leaves the new friends he made in his last assignment, the leader of PreservationAux, Dr. Mensah and her colleagues. Dr. Mensah has just purchased him so he will not have to accept any more company assignments. Although Murderbot really likes and respects Dr. Mensah, he sees this as just another owner who wants to exercise control over his life. He has hacked his governor module. He has turned himself into a free (rogue) construct (an organic and non-organic entity). He is the bot who has been learning how to keep HubSystems from finding him by hacking into security systems and erasing himself. He cannot see a way that he can tolerate a bucolic life among humans. He is terribly uncomfortable around humans, who are usually equally uncomfortable around murderbots. He let these particular humans see his organic face and they now see him as almost human and they want to protect his right to autonomy, even though very few humans seem to even have a true right to autonomy in this world built by the author, Martha Wells.

Why does Murderbot dress up in human clothing, take off his armor and his helmet and run away from PreservationAux? At first it just seems to be panic about feelings for humans that are not a part of his programming. Murderbot looks for transports that are just being ferried around by bots. He offers to share the 35,000 entertainment feeds he has downloaded with the pilot bots and these bored bots usually go for it. But it turns out that Murderbot is also carrying around a mystery. Was he or was he not responsible for killing multiple innocent humans in a mining incident? Is he too tainted to be around humans? Will he be driven to commit more murders, especially now that he is a “rogue” murderbot? He has research to do and documents won’t provide the answers because someone has erased the incident from the records.

He makes a new friend when he hitches a ride on a university’s deep space research transport that is empty of humans right now and being shuttled by a very classy bot. Of course, Murderbot loves to act all cynical and constantly, but only internally, offers satirical observations on the bot he calls “ART”. “ART” uses the university’s medical lab to make certain adjustments in Murderbot so that it won’t be instantly recognizable by its physical configuration. When Murderbot, now known as Eden, reluctantly accepts a new mission from people so clueless that they will be killed if he doesn’t help, he also ends up getting to find out more about the incident in the Ganaka Mine Pit.

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells offers us a great mix of mystery, corrupt humans and corporations, threats of imminent death, and humor as we follow this particular Murderbot and find the experience very relatable indeed. Who knew a bot could be such an interesting fictional character? OK, we all did, since there are other examples of robots as main characters in novels, but still this is a great addition to this small area of science fiction.

Photo Credit: From a Google Image Search – Check Midnight News

All Systems Red: BooK 1: Murderbot Diaries – Book

all-systems-red Tor.com

All System Red: Book 1 of The Murderbot Diariesby Martha Wells is an instant hit with me. It is a fine addition to the science fiction and artificial intelligence genres. There is a picture of our particular murderbot on the cover of the book but even the term for this class of robots is designed to instill fear. Encountering one could make you start looking back over your life in case you might be a target. Murderbots are big, they are a combination of organic and mechanical elements, which seems like a poor design for a bot that constantly encounters violence and woeful bodily injuries, injuries which can only be repaired with the help of human or tech systems. Many a murderbot ends up on a scrap heap.

But our murderbot is not happy with his assigned role in society. He (it seems like a he) has figured out how to escape the control of HubSystems by overriding his governor module. If a regular murderbot is scary, a rogue murderbot could turn your hair white if it decided that it liked killing and went on a campaign of mass murdering. But our bot discovers 35,000 entertainment modules buried in the hub system which it can now download at will. He starts binging on series created for human entertainment and he begins to resent any time that he is asked to do the work he was designed to do.

In this first adventure Murderbot finds himself assigned by the company to a group of scientists doing research on an unnamed planet. Mysterious things begin to happen and his humans (horror of horrors) seem to want to befriend him. Martha Wells, you did a good thing, writing The Murderbot Diaries for us to enjoy. I have already moved on to Book 2. These are not long books, sort of a small tray of four tasty amuse bouche. Martha Wells won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award for best novella All Systems Red.

Photo Credit: From a Google Image Search – Tor.com

Find me on goodreads.com as Nancy Brisson

Of Blood and Bone by Nora Roberts – Book

of blood and bone Characters Wanted

Of Blood and Bone by Nora Roberts is the second book in a trilogy called Chronicles of the One. This is a dystopian saga, but it is not Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Roberts pits wholesomeness, the sweetness of summer sunshine, bees, honey, family, children, love—life lived simply and communally—against lives that feature hate, fear, intolerance, and brutality.

When Mr. McLeod cracked the shield and dark Magick was loosed on the world, two-thirds of the world’s population died of an incurable virus which became known as the Doom. Many survivors found themselves with magical talents. Some became faeries, some elves, and some witches. The world split into the light and the dark and war was in the air. Humans who survived with no magical talents also split between good and evil. Some humans felt that magical creatures were an abomination and they tortured, killed, or executed them whenever they got the chance. What was left of governments captured magical creatures ostensibly to save them and to study them, but they imprisoned them and strapped them to metal tables so they could learn what they could and then eliminated them. And gangs bent on chaos and mayhem killed anyone who was vulnerable.

The child of Lana and Max, two witches who had to flee NYC in the worst days of the Doom (Book 1), Fallon Smith, was known to be “the One” who would set things right before she was even born. Fallon has lived quietly on an isolated farm with her family but now, on her thirteenth birthday, Mallick comes to take Fallon away for training. From here on the story resembles the King Arthur story, except this time the King is a woman. Mallick is her Merlin and when she successfully finishes her training she wins the sword and the shield from the sacred well. During her training she also wins three unusual and powerful companions.

It’s a great tale even if Fallon is a bit like heroic Barbie and the young man, Duncan that she meets in New Hope is a bit too much like Ken. Fortunately, although the novel holds out the promise of romance at some point in the future, for now it stays focused on war and setting the world to rights. This seems as if it would make a great YA fantasy series depending on where it goes in Book 3.

I liked Of Blood and Bone. Apparently, in real life, there was a little issue about two similar titles between two authors, but it was settled amicably I believe. I look forward to the third book. But if we find ourselves in a truly dystopian world I don’t expect that Magick (or even magic) will save us. There is too much fantasy in this to put it in the category of dystopian literature. Still when you need entertainment this trilogy could be a fun choice for a quick break from more serious fare.

Photo Credit: From a Google Image Search – Characters Wanted

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover – Book

Westover-632x362 Barnes and Noble

Educated is a memoir by Tara Westover. There were seven children in the Westover family and they loved their father and their mother as children do. He, the father, had a powerful charisma, although his entire world view, shared passionately with his children bordered on insanity. He was ostensibly a strict Mormon, but so paranoid that his religious beliefs were completely twisted by his absolute distrust of the government and of socialism, which he saw as synonymous with government; and of what he called “the Illuminati” (all prevalent fears stoked in current conspiracy theories). In addition he was a survivalist who hoarded food, guns, fuel and who did not allow his children to go to school. The family lived on rural land at the foot of a mountain in Idaho.

Gene Westover used religious guilt, end-of-days conviction, and parental disappointment expressed in lengthy religiously-toned sermons to manipulate his children and his wife to perform dangerous work that was well beyond their strength and skills level. His children and his wife, and even he, the father sustained horrible injuries. But doctors and medicine were things he categorized as socialism and therefore “of the devil”. Tara’s mom was a herbalist, and when forced by her husband, a midwife. Everyone in the family, even if almost injured to the point of dying, was treated with externally applied herbal salves and tinctures designed to be taken internally. In a few cases family members were taken to a hospital. Still childhood in this family, even though they loved their parents, sounded like living in one of the rings in Dante’s Inferno. Even negative situations often offer some positive side effects, and, in this case, learning to deal with dangerous situations did give some of these children strength and ingenuity.

Tyler is one of the Westover children who refused to be a part of the insanity whenever he could escape his father’s notice and he learned ways to do that fairly often. He loved books and music and cleanliness and order. He was the first of the children to go to, and finish, college. Shawn and Luke, two of Tyler’s older brothers left home but they continued to do jobs that required physical stamina, like long distance trucking and they eventually returned home to work in the family junkyard and to build barns and silos with their dad and the other kids.

Shawn had such anger in him, and he had a mean, violent streak, which could be almost lethal when mixed with skills in martial arts and a body made strong by hard work. He started out teasing his little sister Tara, but he eventually became judgmental with unpredictable outbursts of bullying, physical torture and mental abuse, frequently calling Tara, who was twelve and then thirteen, a whore. Her parents never intervened.

Fear that he would do her major harm or even kill her eventually drove Tara to listen to Tyler, who told her that even though her parents lied about the home schooling, if she can pass the ACT she can go to college. Tara had some experiences in the community outside the family domain. She’d been able to sing in the church choir and take part in some community theater. Her dad seems proud when she shines in public. She has taught herself to read and do math through algebra, but gets help from a friend to learn trigonometry. She passes the ACT on her second try and is accepted to Brigham Young University where she becomes an A student. Good fortune slowly pulls her out of the grasp of her delusional family. During her undergraduate days I continued to hold my breathe every time she used a college break to go home. Her professors helped her get into Cambridge in London, and then, for her doctoral studies, into Harvard. She did have to deal with some psychological fallout.

This is a powerful story that aroused my anger and left me at times in despair. Tara Westover makes the point that the lives of her college educated family members differ in quality to the lives of those who did not leave the family, even though Tara’s mother eventually made the family very wealthy with one of her herbal concoctions. Education opened Tara’s eyes to how little her father knew or chose to accept of actual history and how his powerful demeanor and limited world view hurt his family, who he wished to hold onto as virtual prisoners. Tara’s family disputes her version of events in the family. There are lawsuits pending.

Photo Credit: From a Google Image Search – Barnes and Noble

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Unsheltered floral KUOW

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver is not the first book by this author that I have read. I have enjoyed her writing since her first book, The Bean Trees, appeared in 1988. I have also read Pigs in Heaven, Prodigal Summer, Flight Behavior, and The Poisonwood Bible (although I think I read all these books before I joined goodreads.com).

Kingsolver is an environmentalist who likes to use fiction to call attention to the havoc human excesses wreak on nature. She does it subtly, but unmistakably in very readable novels, that reflect the changing zeitgeist of the 30 years she, and we, have lived through since she started writing.

Her inspiration for Unsheltered came when she learned of a woman scientist named Mary Treat and she was given access to her notes and correspondence. Dr. Treat was a woman ahead of her time, a wife who thrived when her husband left her. She was fascinated by the plants and insects that lived in the Pine Barrens that were near her home. She filled her living room with small jars that look like terraria, but each contained a tower-building spider (small variety of tarantula).

Mary Treat wrote letters to Charles Darwin, who had recently published his Origin of the Species, a book that seemed to refute God, and set the world on fire, and he wrote back. She wrote to Dr. Asa Gray and he also answered her letters. Mary Treat is real, and a truly interesting woman. Thatcher Greenwood is also real. When he married his wife Rose, her family owned the house next door to Mary Treat. Thatcher Greenwood was hired to teach science in a high school run by a man who believed Darwin to be an abomination. The house he is living in was poorly built and is falling apart, as is his life.

A parallel story 150 years after Darwin’s book was published, gives us a family of the Trump era, living in the second incarnation of Thatcher Greenwood’s house, which was rebuilt by a second someone, equally without regard for sound building principals. A twice-unlucky house. When Willa’s family inherits the house in New Jersey from her Aunt, it is at a time when the economy is changing for everyone. Willa, a writer, loves her solid career footing but then the magazine she writes for folds. If she stays in New Jersey she will have to accept freelance writing jobs. Iano, her husband, a professor of political science cannot find a path to tenure, and in middle age is still working as an adjunct.

Their son, Zeke, is left, tragically, with a baby son, who he leaves with Willa to try for a tech startup with his college roommate. He owes $110,000 in college loans which he must pay off. Tig, their daughter, is an enigma as a member of what seems to be a whole new generation. She is a dynamic, pint-sized activist with dreadlocks who lived in Cuba for a year and took part in the Occupy movement. Tig (short for Antigone) may have the best grasp on our new shifting social landscape.

The house is what ties the two eras together and the two “evolutionary” women, Mary Treat and Antigone Tavoularis (Tig). As the house falls down around the inhabitants some find it extremely unsettling and others find it strangely freeing.

Kingsolver is a queen of dialogue, which makes her novels flow easily along, in spite of how dense the content seems after the fact. It was interesting that she never mentioned the modern folks who still deny Darwin and the sneaky tactics they often employ to make it mandatory to teach “Creationism” in 21st century schools. She may not have wanted to focus on something more political than environmental. The literary device that has us skipping back and forth over 150 years in every other chapter makes the reader look forward to getting back to the story line that will be taken up in the next chapter.

We have wandered pretty far from nature and I wonder how many of us would feel comfortable without a home base. Is there a generational divide, or will that disappear as mature responsibilities must be met? Will we have to learn to respect nature and live in greater harmony, without many of the creature comforts that we have convinced ourselves prove that we are above other living things. Will we ever be able to overcome our sense of superiority and separateness which allows us to believe that our survival trumps (sorry) theirs? Will we ever learn to feel our organic connection to every living and nonliving thing on this planet?

Engaging our thoughts is a hallmark of a skilled author. I can’t decide if the separation in time is so large that this felt more like two stories that blinked on and off like lights or if the connections are powerful enough to unify the novel. However this is a relatively insignificant flaw which was not jarring enough to ruin my enjoyment of Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Unsheltered.

Photo Credit: From a Google Image Search – KUOW (cropped)

December 2018 Book List

Books new 2 TheEconomist

It’s time for the December 2018 Book List. December is often not the best month for newly published books since people are looking backward to pick their best books of the past year, but that is not so true this year. With the holidays coming up there is a book on this list to interest almost every adult on your gift list. There is crime, fantasy, art, picture books (coffee table), mystery, music, romance, America’s foreign policy and our role in the world, Dungeons and Dragons, graphic novels, biographies and memoirs, books on feminism, books on racism, books on beauty. I love the idea of all these books, but of course I cannot read them all. My quick picks are followed by an asterisk but I may change my mind or get tantalized by some other title on this month’s list. Happy holidays, peace on earth, and I hope you get to read at least one great book this month.

Amazon

Literature and Fiction

North of the Dawn: A Novel by Nurrudin Farah

The Dakota Winters: A Novel by Tom Barbash

The Songbird by Marcia Willett

The Day the Sun Died by Yan Lianke, Carlos Rojas

Radiant Shimmering Light by Sarah Selecky

The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose

Once Upon a River: a Novel by Diane Setterfield

Trying by Emily Phillips

Milkman: A Novel by Anna Burns*

Mystery and Thriller

The Mansion: A Novel by Ezekiel Boone

Broken Ground (Karen Pirie) by Val McDermid

Watching You: A Novel by Lisa Jewell

Once Upon a River: A Novel by Diane Setterfield

Milkman: A Novel by Anna Burns

Pandemic by Robin Cook

The Kingdom of the Blind: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny

Before We Were Strangers by Brenda Novak

Biographies and Memoirs

Never Grow Up by Jackie Chan

My Thoughts Exactly by Lily Allen

King of the Dinosaur Hunters: The Life of John Bell Hatcher and the Discoveries that Shaped Paleontology by Lowell Dingus

Kitchen Yarns: Notes on Life, Love and Food by Ann Hood

All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson by Mark Griffin

The Warner Boys: Our Family’s Story of Autism and Hope by Curt Warner, Ava Warner with Dave Boling

Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life by Albert Louis Zambone

The Annotated Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant by Ulysses S Grant, Elizabeth Somet

Bring It On Home: Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin and Beyond-The Story of Rock’s Greatest Manager by Mark Blake

Nonfiction

The Atom: A Visual Tour (The MIT Press) by Jack Challoner

This Is Cuba: An American Journalist Under Castro’s Shadow by David Aristo

Theater of the World: The Maps that Made History by Thomas Reinerstsen Berg, Alison McCullough

Congo Stories: Battling Five Centuries of Exploitation and Greed by John Pendergast, Fidel Bafilemba, Sam Ilus (illustrator)

McSweeney’s Issue 54: The End of Trust by Dave Eggers, Julia Angwin, Madeline Ashby

Influenza: The Hundred Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History by Dr. Jeremy Brown

You Are a Badass Every Day by Jen Sincero

Unruly Waters: How Rains, Rivers, Coasts and Seas have Shaped Asia’s History by Sunil Amrith

Dear Los Angeles: the City in Diaries and Letters, 1542 to 2018 (Modern Library) by David Kipen

Science Fiction

Bright Light: Star Carrier: Book Eight by Ian Douglas

The Day the Sun Died by Yan Lianke and Carlos Rojas

Sword Heart by T. Kingfisher

The Frame-Up (The Golden Arrow Mysteries) by Meghan Scott Molin

Marked By Stars (Songs of the Amaranthine, Book 1) by Forthright

Blood and Bone: Chronicles of the One, Book 2 by Nora Roberts *

The Razor by J. Barton Mitchell

The Mortal Word (The Invisible Library Novel) by Genevieve Cogman

New York Times Book Review

Nov. 11

Nonfiction

Frederick Douglas by David W. Blight

The Souls of Yellow Folk by Wesley Yang (essays)

Always Another Country: A Memoirs of Exile and Home by Sisonke Msimang

The Letters of Sylvia Plath, Vol. 2 edited by Peter Steinberg and Karen Kubil

Heart by Sandup Janhar

Becoming by Michelle Obama

The Shortlist

Consent on Campus: A Manifesto by Donna Freitas

Equality for Women = Prosperity for all by Augusto Lopez-Claros and Bahiyyih Nakhjavani

Can We All Be Feminists?: Seventeen Writers on Intersectionality, Identity, and Way Forward for Feminism by June Eric-Udorie

Fiction

Gone So Long by Andre Dubus III

Fiction (women with cancer)

Craving by Esther Gerritson, trans. by Michele Huchinson

The Bus on Thursday by Shirley Barrett

Fiction (cont.)

The Novel of Ferrar by Giorgio Bassoni

Samuel Johnson’s Eternal Return by Martin Riker

Night of Camp David: What Would Happen if the President of USA Went Stark-Raving Mad? By Fletcher Knebel (new reprint)

Nov. 18

Audiobooks

Accessory to War by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Parker: Selected Stories by Dorothy Parker read by Elaine Stritch

Patti Smith at the Minetta Lane: Words and Music by Patti Smith, read by the author

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris, read by Richard Armitage

My Squirrel Days by Ellie Kemper, read by the author

Out of My Mind by Alan Arkin, read by the author

We Are Not Yet Equal: Understanding Our Dark Racial Divide by Carol Anderson and Tonya Bolden, read by Robin Miles

We Say #Never Again, edited by Melissa Falkowski and Eric Garner, read by Melissa Falkowski, Eric Garner and the Parkland student journalists

Fiction

The Feral Detective by Jonathan Letham

Scribe by Alyson Hagy

Love Songs for a Lost Continent by Anita Felicelli

Useful Phrases for Immigrants by May-Lee Chai

Destroy All Monsters by Jeff Jackson

Nonfiction

(5 Books About Being Jewish in America)

The Chosen Wars: How Judaism Became an American Religion by Steven R Weisman

The New American Judaism: How Jews Practice their Religion Today by Jack Wertheimer

The Jewish American Paradox: Embracing Choice in a Changing World by Robert Mnookin

God is in the Crowd: Twenty-First Century Judaism by Tal Keinan

Dear Zealots: Letters From a Divided Land (Essays)

General nonfiction

Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts

Best of Enemies by Gus Russo and Eric Dezenhall

Storm Lake by Art Cullen

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

The Red and the Blue by Steve Kornacki

Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture by Ed Morales

The Shortlist (Americas’s Role in the World)

A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism by Jeffrey Sachs

Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower by Michael Beckley *

The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World by Robert Kagan *

Nov. 25

Nonfiction

Debussey: A Painter in Sound by Stephen Walsh

Fryderyk Chopin by Alan Walker

Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975 by Max Hastings*

The Hell of Good Intentions by Stephen M. Walt *

Schumann: The Faces and the Masks by Judith Chernaik

There Will Be No Miracles Here by Casey Gerald

In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum

I Am Dynamite! A Life of Nietzsche by Sue Prideaux

Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming. Who You Are by John Kaag

A Graphic Tribute to Anne Sexton by Katie Fricas

Dec 2

Fiction

(Other worldly)

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells (fourth part of Murderbot Diaries) *

Ghostographs: An Album by Maria Romasco Moore

The Monster of Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (second in a series)

Heresy by Melissa Lenhardt

Romance

Consumed by J R Ward

High Risk by Brenna Aubrey

Beautiful Sinner by Sophie Jordan

Rafe by Rebekah Weatherspoon

General Fiction

An Almost Perfect Christmas by Ruth Reichl

Berlin by Jason Lutes (graphic novel)

The Waiter by Matias Faldbakhen

Jeeves and the King of Clubs by Ben Schott

The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey *

Crime novels

Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny

Bryant and May: Hall of Mirrors by Christopher Fowler

The Shadows We Hide by Allen Eskens

Suitcase Charlie by John Guzlowski

More Fiction

The Last Poets by Christine Otten

Nonfiction

Hungover by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

(3 Art Books)

Henry Taylor: The Only Portrait I Ever Painted of My Mama was Stolen by Sarah Lewis, Charles Gaines, Zadie Smith, and Rachel Kaadzi Ghansak

The Sweet Flypaper of Life by Ray De Carava and Langston Hughes

I Too Sing America: The Harlem Renaissance at 100 by Will Haygood

Magnum China edited by Colin Pantall and Zheng Ziyu, add. Text by Jonathan Fenby (photos)

Chalk: The Art and Erasure of Cy Twombly by Joshua Rivkin

Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History by Michael Witmer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, and Sam Witwer

Food on the Move: Dining on the Legendary Railway Journeys of the World edited by Sharon Hudgins (essays)

Publisher’s Weekly

Nov 9

Money in the Morgue by Ngaio Marsh and Stella Duffy (mystery)

Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters edited by David Kipen (NF)

Miss Blaine’s Prefect and the Golden Samovar by Olga Wojtas (F)

Hearts of the Missing by Carol Potenza (mystery)

The Blood by E S Thomson (crime

Eighteen Below: A Fabian Risk Novel by Stefan Ahnhem, trans. from the Swedish by Rachel Wilson-Broyles (F)

King of the Road by R S Belcher (F)

My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren (F) (rom-com)

Deep War: The War with China and North Korea – The Nuclear Precipice by David Poyer (NF)

On Thomas Merton by Mary Gordon (Bio)

Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful by Arwen Elys (NF)

Army of Empire: The Untold Story of the Indian Army in World War I by George Morton-Jack (NF)

The Kansas City Star Quilts Sampler: 60+ Blocks from 1928-1961 by Barbara Brackman (Art Picture Book)

A King in Cobwebs by David Keck (Fantasy)

Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages by Gaston Dorren (NF)

Hunting Game by Helene Tursten, trans. from the Swedish by Paul Norlen (crime)

Nov 16

Faking It: The Lies Women Tell About Sex—and the Truths They Reveal by Lux Alptraum (NF)

City of Broken Magic by Mirah Bolender (Fantasy)

The Houseguest by Amparo Davilia, trans. from the Spanish by Audrey Haris and Matthew Gleeson (Short stories)

I Am Young by M. Dean (Short stories)

All the Life We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy (F)

Ways to Hide in Winter by Sarah St. Vincent (F)

Your Place in the Universe: Understanding Our Big, Messy Existence by Paul M Sutter (NF)

Dec 3

The Dakota Winters by Tom Barbash * (F)

Cold, Cold Heart by A J Cross (F)

Photo Credits: From a Google Image Search – The Economist