November 2017 Book List

Books seem to be available so quickly that the topics authors have written about this month are still trending on social media and in the news. Some books are self-published and the turnaround on that can happen fast, but even books from publishers seem to arrive on the market faster than they once did. You will find lots of nonfiction titles in this list that talk about Russia and obviously the news is the source of interest for that subject. You will also find books that may have been timed to appear close to Halloween. And you will find new books by popular authors also in this lengthy book list. Once again, I will have to choose selectively for my future reading endeavors as there are too many titles to cover. This time I find myself attracted to some of the biographies and memoirs.

November Editor’s Picks

Vacationland by John Hodgman (NF)

The City of Brass by SA Chakraborty

The Vanity Fair Diaries 1883-1992 by Tina Brown

An American Family by Khzir Khan

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Everything is Awful and Other Observations by Matt Bellassai

In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende

Literature and Fiction

Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory McGuire

Heather, the Totality by Matthew Weiner

Future Home of the Living God: A Novel by Louise Erdrich

The Revolution of Marina M: A Novel by Janet Fitch

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter

Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda

Hunter of Stories by Eduardo Galeano, Mark Fried

Mysteries and Thrillers

The Unclaimed Victim by DM Pulley

The House of Unexpected Sisters (The New Ladies #1 Detective Agency Novel) by Alexander McCall Smith

The Midnight Child (Jack Reacher) by Lee Child

Hardcore Twenty Four by Janet Evanovich

Artemis: A Novel by Andy Weir

The Quantum Spy: A Thriller by David Ignatius

The Extraditionist (A Benn Bluestone Thriller) by Todd Merer

End Game (Will Robie Series) by David Baldacci

The Rooster Bar by John Grisham

Wonder Valley: A Novel by Ivy Pochoda

Typhoon Fury by Clive Cussler

Science Fiction and Fantasy

The Sisters of the Crescent Empress by Leena Likitalo

Artemis: A Novel by Andy Weir

The Nine (Thieves of Fate) by Tracy Townsend

Biographies and Memoirs

An American Family by Khizer Khan

Gold Dust Woman: The Biography of Stevie Nicks by Stephen Davis

The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spy Master James Jesus Angleton by Jefferson Morley

The Vanity Fair Diaries 1985-1992 by Tina Brown

Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine by Joe Hagan

American Witness: The Art and Life of Robert Frank by R. J. Smith

Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life by Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life by Robert Dallek

Vacationland by John Hodgman

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser (NF)

Nonfiction

It’s All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree by AJ Jacobs

Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How “The Graduate” Became the Touchstone of a Generation by Beverly Gray

Garden of the Lost and Abandoned: The Extraordinary Story of One Ordinary Woman and the Children She Saved by Jessica Yu

Troublemakers: Silicon Valley’s Coming of Age by Leslie Berlin

Everything is Awful and Other Observations by Matt Bellassai (Comedy)

The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief and Compassion, Surprising Observations of a Hidden World by Peter Wohlleben, Jane Billinghurst

What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner

Dawn of New Everything: Encounters with Realty and Virtual Realty by Jason Lanier

The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks

Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone by Richard Lloyd Parry

October 8

Fiction

Manhatten Beach by Jennifer Egan

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott

A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe

The Twelve-Mile Straight by Eleanor Henderson

New People by Danzy Senna

Sisters by Lily Tuck

3 Novels set in Ireland – Past and Present

A Son Called Gabriel by Damian McNicholl

The Good People by Hannah Kent

The Trout by Peter Cunningham

Nonfiction

A Force so Swift by Kevin Peraino

The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt

Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend by Meryl Gordon

World without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer

The Choice (Memoir) by Edith Eva Eger

What She Ate by Laura Shapiro (6 women and what they ate)

October 15

Nonfiction

Grant by Ron Chernow

2 Books on Sleep

Snooze: The Lost Art of Sleep by Michael McGirr

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

More nonfiction

The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World by Michael Ignatieff

The Unfinished Palazzo by Judith Mackrell

Cuz by Danielle Allen (a woman writes about a cousin she loved who spent his life in prison)

Greater Gotham by Mike Wallace

The Riviera Set by Mary S. Lovell

The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home by Denise Kiernan

Fiction

Crime Fiction

Good Me Bad Me by Ali Land

Deep Freeze by John Sanford

The Scarred Woman by Jussi Adler-Olsen translated by William Frost

Cast Iron by Peter May

Other fiction

Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed

Savage Country by Robert Olmstead

October 22

Fiction

The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas

For Two Thousand Years by Michael Sebastion

The Revolution of Marina M by Janet Fitch

The Red Haired Woman by Orphan Pamuk

Nonfiction

“Riot Days”: A Memoir of Punk Protest and Prison Activism by Maria Alyokhina (member of Pussy Riot)

The Future is History by Masha Gessen

Stalin, 2^nd vol., Stephen Kotkin

Red Famine by Anne Applebaum

Lenin by Victor Sebestyen

4 Books on Revolution

Arc of Utopia: The Beautiful Story of the Russian Revolution by Leslie Chamberlain

Lenin 2017: Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through by VI Lenin, Ed Slavojzizek

The Experiment: Georgia’s Forgotten Revolution 1918-1921 by Eric Lee

Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution: Mob Justice and Police in Petrograd by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa

(There are more lists of “great” books about Russia in the NYT Book Review for Oct. 22, but they are not new)

October 29

Fiction

Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn

Thriller Roundup

Dead on Arrival by Matt Richtel

The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius

The Marriage Pact by Michelle Richmond

Shadow of the Lions: A Novel by Christopher Swann

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson

Other fiction

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Best True Crime Stories

Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America’s Greatest Unsolved Murder by Pia Eatwell

The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder that Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty by Philip Jett

Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City by Kate Winkler Dawson

Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits: The Crime Spree that Gripped Belle Epoque Paris by John Merriman

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater (for teens and parents)

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty

Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years by Christopher Frayling

The Apparitionists by Peter Manseau

After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry

Ghost of the Innocent Man by Benjamin Rachlin

4 Suspense Novels

The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld

The Blind by AF Brady

Keep Her Safe by Sophie Hannah

The Second Sister by Claire Kendal

November 5, 2017

Nonfiction

The Impossible Presidency by Jeremi Suri

The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman

Democracy and Its Crisis by AC Grayling

I Hear She’s a Bitch by Jen Agg

Friends Divided by Gordon Wood (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson)

We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Schlesinger: The Imperial Historian by Richard Aldous

Oriana Fallaci: The Journalist, the Agitator, the Legend by Christina DeStefano translated by Marina Harss

Crime Fiction

Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly

The Midnight Line by Lee Child

After the Fire by Henning Mankell

Fiction

All the Dirty Parts by Denise Handler

Smile by Roddy Doyle

11 New Recommended Books

The Power by Naomi Alderman

Sticky Fingers by Joe Hagan

Five Carat Soul by James McBride

The Apparitionists by Peter Manseau

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn

Black Dahlia, Red Rose by Pia Eatwell

After the Eclipse by Sarah Perry

The Dark Net by Benjamin Parcy

Ghost of the Innocent Man: A True Story of Trial and Redemption by Benjamin Rachlin

Prince: A Private View by Afshen Shahidi

October 9

The Shattered Lens: A War Photographer’s 81 Days of Captivity in Syria – A Story of Survival by Jonathan Alperyrie with Stash Luczkiw (NF)

Tool of War by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Education of a Young Poet by David Biespiel (NF)

In the Distance by Herman Diaz (F)

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman (F)

The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe (YA-F)

The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost by Peter Manseau (NF)

Jewish New York: The Remarkable Story of a City and a People by Deborah Dash Moore (NF)

A Working Woman by Elvira Navarro translated from Spanish by Christina MacSweeney (F)

The Secret Life: Three True Stories of the Digital Age by Andrew O’Hagan (NF)

Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation: From 1470 to the Present by Serhii Piokhy (NF)

Uncertain Glory by Joan Sales translated from the Catalan by Peter Bush (NF)

The Gourmand’s Way: Six Americans in Paris and the Birth of a New Gastronomy by Justin Spring (NF)

October 16

American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West by Nate Blakeslee (NF)

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine (Thriller)

Extreme Cities: The Perils and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change by Ashley Dawson (NF)

The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris (NF)

Righteous: An IQ Novel by Joe Ide (F)

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson (NF)

Venom: The Secrets of Nature’s Deadliest Weapons by Ronald Jenner and Eivind Undheim (NF)

Where the Past Begins by Amy Tan (Memoir)

Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (NF)

Renoir: An Intimate Biography by Barbara Ehrlich White (NF)

October 23

The Thin Light of Freedom: Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America by Edward L Ayers (NF)

The Safe: A Novel by Christophe Boltanski translated from the French by Laura Marris (NF)

Verax: The True History of Whistleblowers, Mass Surveillance and Drone Warfare by Pratap Chatterjee and Khalil (NF)

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys into the Medieval World by Christopher de Hamel (NF)

American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent by Tamer Einoury and Kevin Maurer (NF)

The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums by Will Freidwald (NF)

Meant to Be by Julie Halpern (YA Fantasy adults might enjoy)

Literally Me by Julie Houts (F)

The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks (F)

Dying to Live: A Detective Kubu Mystery by Michael Stanley (F)

October 30

In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende (F)

The Meaning of Belief: Religion from an Atheists Point of View by Tim Crane (NF)

Murder in an English Village by Jessica Ellicott (F)

In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer’s by Joseph Jebelli (NF)

Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 by Stephen Kotkin (NF)

After the Fire: A Novel by Henning Mankell (F)

Calder: The Conquest of Time by Jed Perl (NF)

November 6

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays by Hanif Abdurraqib (“providing the reader with the sensation of seeing the world through fresh eyes”) (NF)

Mrs. Ormond: A Novel by John Banville (F)

Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish, and the Art of Growing a Backbone by Juli Berwald

Fool’s River (A Poke Rafferty Thriller) by Timothy Halliman (F)

Black Tudors: The Untold Story by Miranda Kaufman (NF)

Nobu: A Memoir by Nobu Matsuhisa (NF)

The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State by Nadia Murad (NF)

Freya by Anthony Quinn (F)

Bonfire: A Novel by Krysten Ritter (Thriller) (F)

The Illiac Crest by Christina Rivera Garza translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker (F)

The Buried Giant by Kasuo Ishiguro – Book

I almost didn’t read The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro because it sounded childish and so I put it on my list of books-to-read, but it was a ways down. Then Ishiguro won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature and I moved the book to the top of my list. I discovered that this is no child’s book, although it is a fantasy that reads a bit like a fairy tale, but more in the old Grimm’s brother’s mode than in the newer spirit of the culturally appropriate versions we tell our children these days.

There is a giant buried under Briton but no one remembers it’s there because a mist or spell has made people forget their past almost as soon as they have lived it. The Saxons live in complexes of interconnected caves and we find Axl and Beatrice in a cave, a lonely cave, set at the very end of such a series of caves. As punishment, perhaps for being elderly, they are no longer allowed to have a candle to get them through the long, dark night. In a snatch of memory that comes and goes they remember that they have a son and they think they remember that he went south to a new village. Perhaps the mist is getting less dense and that is why these thoughts slip through.

Beatrice and Axl seem a lovely, devoted couple. They hold hands. Axl hugs her quite a lot. He addresses her as Princess (does it seem after a while to resemble the “yes dear” uttered by some modern husbands?) Beatrice and Axl have talked many times about leaving their village and going to their son. On this particular occasion they finally make their departure. Beatrice has a pain in her side that will not go away but she keeps up with her husband. On their journey they also hope to find out what causes this infernal mist on their minds. They decide to take a longer route in order to consult some wise people about Beatrice’s pain and as a result they meet some surprisingly interesting people, and they become part of some very significant events.

But memory is not always as sweet as we think it will be. Sometimes, perhaps what is buried should remain buried. The giant that has been buried is all of the animosity that survived the invasion of the Britons into the Saxon lands. And the mist makes sure that these things stay buried. How do Beatrice and Axl come to learn of this? How does their journey turn into a quest? The Britons had an enlightened leader. He tried to stop his men from raping and pillaging, but battles release chemicals that leave men wanting rewards for their victories and the toll on the Saxons is as terrible as the toll in any war when the victors help themselves to the “spoils” of war.

Are there parallels in this for our times? I see some in the Pandora’s Box of ancient hatreds that were harbored in the hearts of various cultural/religious groups in Iraq and kept in check only by a ruler who used threats and tortures to keep these groups from each other’s throats. I see this in our own country which has buried the victory of the anti-slavery forces in order to keep our nation whole, an act which allowed the losers to act like the victors for far too long at the expense of Americans of African Descent and our future unity. This has implications for those who like to say that the Holocaust never happened.

While forgetting may keep the peace for a while the costs of forgetting may be great and the repercussions different than could ever be imagined. Forget or remember – is either a good choice as long as there is hate and war and “the other”? Now I don’t know if these parallels were all intended by Ishiguro in his book The Buried Giant, or if you will interpret the tale in similar ways, but the story is following me around like a bit of a nag and asking me to think about it some more, and that is a good thing.

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie – Book

The author of The Golden House, Salman Rushdie, and I have lived through the same decades, but his life has been global and large; mine provincial and small. Mr. Rushdie was born in Mumbai, however his influences were both British and Indian. Everyone remembers that he lived in fear of his life as a Muslim under a fatwa because of his book, The Satanic Verses.

In The Golden House, Rushdie writes as a New Yorker. He tells a tale of a Mumbai family, hiding with new identities, under a mysterious veil of danger in New York City. Our narrator is a young American man raised by professorial and loving parents on the edges of the MacDougal-Sullivan Gardens. (They’re real, look it up.) The Golden family lives at the other end of the Gardens and these recent arrivals are endlessly fascinating to René, the son of Gabe and Darcy.

The Goldens were “reborn” when they left Mumbai to live in America with their adopted Roman names. The father claimed the name of Nero, with all its end-of-empire symbolism. His first son took the name Petronius, the second chose Lucius Apuleius (Apu) and the third became Dionysus or D. The names were perhaps a bad idea.

René had always wanted to be a film maker but his life seems too prosaic until it becomes entangled in the low key, but rather tragic, lives of this family with no mother and, seemingly, no past. This novel is, among other things, an homage to great movies/films – European, Hollywood, Bollywood. Salman Rushdie, bursting still with crackling intellectual energy pulls into his story references to the movies he has loved, the same movies we love, except for a few so highbrow they may never have been available in the hinterlands I have inhabited. These movies still live vividly in his prodigious memory and in the minds of many a film buff.

As the Golden family comes apart, because you really cannot escape the past, a politician known as the Joker, guess who, a clownish grafter, is running for the American Presidency. (The parallels between American Democracy and the fall of Rome are hardly subtle.) As we know the Joker wins the election.

This is a very readable novel, without the Muslim/Indian baseline which is foreign to most Americans and makes some Rushdie novels seem somewhat dense. The Golden House is a tour de force by a man who is comfortable in cultures around the globe and does not mind splashing around in his literary bona fides for our enjoyment. Eliot’s “Prufrock” and Shakespeare get cameos among the films – “I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” Not yet, Mr. Rushdie, not yet.

Those of us who are shell-shocked with worry for American Democracy can find some comfort in the decision this British/Indian man made to put on his New York/American persona in order to help us through these chaotic days (and nights, and months, and years). What began as a comedy could easily become a classical tragedy. However, I think you will read this tragedy with a great big old smile on your face (at least some of the time).

Notes on a Foreign Country by Suzy Hansen – Book

Suzy Hansen won a writing fellowship in 2007 from Charles Crane, “a Russophile and scion of a plumbing-parts fortune,” and it allowed her to go abroad for 2 years. She went to Turkey, much to the dismay of her family and friends. This grant was rumored to have been reserved for spies but Suzy was in Turkey as a journalist. The book she wrote is called Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World. Hansen goes off to Turkey believing that America is the exceptional nation that it claims to be. She had been taught, as we all have, to feel a certain smugness about being American, brought up in a can-do nation where freedom reigns. But the people of Turkey had not been indoctrinated in the American version of American history. They experienced the Turkish version of American interaction and they were not as enamored of America as some of us, in all our innocence, tend to be.

America has had a sort of missionary zeal about spreading the wonders of our Democracy to nations it has deemed might be tending towards Communism. The period after WWII was all about a sort of contest between Russia and America to divide the world’s nations like so many spoils of war, much the way England and Spain, in all their pride, divided up the world (something the world did not necessarily know about or agree to). We tend to think of America as being different from those early imperialists, but what Hansen learned in Turkey, and then in Greece, and Afghanistan is that imperialism was still practiced by America, but in different forms.

America went on a tear after the Marshall Plan went into effect in the post-world war II years and aggressively wooed any nation that it thought might be susceptible to Communism. It offered “modernization” in the form of convincing nations to develop their resources and to welcome industry and business (Capitalism). It tempted citizens with luxury goods and pricey comforts. Before nations even realized what was happening they began to lose their individuality, their unique culture, even in some cases their language.

America tempted governments with weapons and military accessories like planes and ships and if they were reluctant America would even support political turmoil and install a new leader. All these meddlesome things were done in the arrogant belief that people wanted to live like everyone lived in America. If they even had to modify their Muslim faith to fit in these new tastes that it would turn out well for them (or for America anyway) in the end. According to Ms. Hansen, America, in its extreme hubris has wreaked havoc with cultures all over the world and we have a lot to answer for. She is not alone in this belief.

I was torn as I read this book. I have always respected the idea of democratic governance. I also knew that America had never, from its very beginnings, lived up to its creed. Our forefathers said that all men are created equal and they wrote it down for all to see, even though they kept slaves who were also human beings, and some of them even admitted that these slaves were human beings. The very fact that our Constitution was based on a lie may have doomed American democracy from its inception. That may be why we see ourselves in one rather glittery way and why others think that luster is quite tarnished.

I understand what Suzy’s European friends felt and I understand that they experienced America from a different perspective than we often do. I am rather ashamed of the America she describes in this nonfiction book based on her first-hand observations. Probably, although you may resist the message that Ms. Hansen brings us from our neighbors on this planet, you should still give this book your careful attention. She and her favorite author, James Baldwin, can help you readjust America’s halo.

I want America to face up to its flaws and do better. Although that seems quite impossible right now, I want America to eventually succeed in finding a balance between power and humility. If we cannot mend our ways in the world it is possible that the American culture, as many claim, will truly be in decline. I would hate to see the idealistic aims of our democracy disappear because we cannot contain our rapaciousness, which is often a sin that comes with power.

In the Epilogue Suzy Hansen talks about America after Trump:

“But I did believe that in at least one way Trump voters were little different from anyone else in the country. They, like all Americans, had been told a lie: that they were the best, that America was the best, that their very birthright was progress and prosperity and the envy and admiration of the world. I did not blame those voters for Trump’s election…I blamed the country for Trump’s election because it was a country built on the rhetoric and actions of American supremacy or ‘greatness,’ or ‘exceptionalism,’ … it had been built on the presupposition that America was and should be, the most powerful country on the planet.”

I have not given up on my country yet, despite all its flaws, although I have never been more tempted to become an American in exile, a lifestyle I cannot afford. It never hurts an individual to do some introspection and it never hurts a nation (made of individuals) to turn critical and honest eyes inward. Suzy Hansen’s book Notes on a Foreign Country was an emotional and an intellectual journey.

House of Spies by Daniel Silva – Book

The book, House of Spies by Daniel Silva contains a classic spy story with a plot as twisted as the highways through the south of France and the narrow ways in the souks of Morocco. Gabriel Allon is the lead spy in House of Spies, and he has been featured in a previous Silva novel, The English Spy. Allon is a genius at putting together successful operations when ordinary security methods have failed.

He calls in a team of very effective, if reluctant, operators who are not full-time spies. They are tied to him for reasons that are personal (he saved them from a previous, possibly life-ending fate.) Allon knows the heads of government spy networks all over Europe – in this case, England, America, and France. He is also unusual because he heads Israeli security operations.

Saladin is a terrorist/drug supplier (an unusual combination for a Muslim if he is one) who has been very successful at hiding any details which might allow authorities to track his location. Engaging in very few face-to-face contacts by conducting most of his business through intermediaries, and changing his appearance if he feels exposed have sufficed to keep him out of the shared national security data banks.

Gabriel calls on Christopher Keller, who has worked with him before and who is a very talented assassin. Keller has found a way to live a private and satisfying life on the island of Corsica which is controlled by a mafia-style “don” who is fond of and loyal to “family” and who considers Keller a family member. Keller is someone who once led an underground operation in Ireland against the IRA where he connected with Gabriel Allon.

Choosing to listen to this book rather than read it was a big mistake for me. The plot is almost byzantine and I am not, apparently, a good listener. I’m not as used to processing words aurally as visually, but I still managed not to miss much (only caught myself napping twice). The careful, but lengthy preparations lead to a messy and almost disastrous end to this operation.

If you are a fan of nonstop action, and I believe I have made this point before, Silva is possibly not your man. Once again he has written a spy tale that is more brainy than adrenaline-filled. However it is memorable.

The Late Show by Michael Connelly – Book

Detective Renée Ballard is a cop on the night shift aka the late show in Michael Connelly’s book, The Late Show. She works in an LA precinct. Ballard was a promising detective on the day shift until the Lieutenant leading her team began to stalk her sexually, refusing to believe that no meant no. When she lost her case against him she became a pariah and the late show, to which she was demoted, gave her some less judgmental space in which to do what she loved, bring bad people to justice.

But the night shift did not run at the same intense pace that animated the precinct in the daytime. She had a brilliant partner on the day side, but he betrayed her and took the side of her lieutenant.

Now, seemingly buried in the minor crimes of a precinct that no longer buzzed with activity, with a partner, Jenkins, who has a wife with cancer and is doing his job as if it is always an eight hour shift, Ballard gets sucked back into a case that is being led by the man who was her harasser. At the same time she is pursuing a serial abuser who likes to tie up, beat up, and torture women; a case that hooks in to all her current demons. There is also a case, more typical of the late show, of a report of theft of credit cards from an upscale home.

This book moves fast and falls squarely in the area of people who like their recreational reading to include a bit of social commentary. It’s The Late Show by Michael Connelly.

September, 2017 Book List

Another month, another book list. So many books, so little time. However having too many books on our book list is never a bad thing, sort of like a buffet can never have too many offerings. Amazon, this month, listed all the new fall books with publication dates, so some of the titles on the Amazon list are not yet available. Just a reminder that books make great gifts.

Aug. 11

A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

A Doll for the Throwing by Mary Jo Bang (book length sequence of prose poems)

The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes (A Stewart Hoag Mystery) by David Handler

Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World by Suzy Hansen

Ghost of the Innocent Man: A True Story of Trial and Redemption by Benjamin Rachlin

The House of Government: A Saga of Russian Revolution by Yuri Slezkine

Fog by Miguel de Unamuno, trans. from the Spanish by Elena Barcia

Aug 18^th

Stay With Me: A Novel by Ayobami Adebayo

Shooting Ghosts: A US Marine, a Combat Photographer, and their Journey Back from War by Thomas J. Brennan and Finbarr O’Reilly (NF)

Eastman Was Here: A Novel by Alex Gilvary

Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard (1^st of a projected quartet of autobiographical volumes) (NF) *

Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty

Unraveling Oliver by Liz Nugent

The Room of White Fire: A Novel by T. Jefferson Parker

Aug. 25

The New Voices of Fantasy, edited by Peter S Beagle (NF)

Snap Judgement: a Sam Brinkman Legal Thriller by Marcia Clark

The Burning Girl: A Novel by Claire Messud

Sundays in August by Patrick Modiano, trans. from the French by Damion Searls

The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, edited by Jeronimo Pizzero, trans. from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa

The Big Indie Books of Fall 2017

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

The Stone Building and Other Places by Asli Erdogan

The People are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage by Jared Yates Sexton (NF)*

Mean by Myriam Grerba

A Year in the Wilderness: Bearing Witness in the Boundary Waters by Amy and Dave Freeman (NF)

The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits by Tiya Miles

Gilded Suffragist by Johanna Neuman (NF)

Democracy and its Crisis by A.C. Grayling (NF) *

Marita: The Spy Who loved Castro by Marita Lorenz (NF)

Solar Bones: A Novel by Mike McCormack

The Glass Eye by Jeannie Vanasco

They Can’t Kill us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib (Essays)

A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet by Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore (NF)

Sept. 1

Jumping at Shadows: The Triumph of Fear and the End of the American Dream by Sasha Abramsky (NF)*

Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova (NF)

A Legacy of Spies by John Le Carré (George Smiley)

The World of Tomorrow: A Novel by Brendan Mathews

Black Rock White City by A.S. Patric

The Golden House by Salmon Rushdie *

Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith

Gorbachev: His Life and Times by William Taubman

Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward

Sept. 8^th

Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar

The Devouring: A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery by James R. Benn

Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime by Ben Blum

The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt

Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss

The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz

Warcross by Marie Lu

Voice in the Dark by Ulli Lust and Marcel Beyer, trans. from the German by Nika Knight

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Katalin Street by Magda Szabó, trans. from the Hungarian by Len Rix

Aug. 11

Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perrotta

The Chalk Artist by Allegra Goodman

Moving Days by Joshua Cohen

Broken River by Robert Lennon

South Pole Station by Ashley Shelby

Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory

Tornado Weather by Deborah E. Kennedy

A House Among the Trees by Julia Grass

Bed-Stuy Is Burning by Brian Platzer

Crime Fiction

The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Philips

Arrowood by Mick Finlay

Need You Dead by Peter James

Nonfiction

Chief Engineer by Erica Wagner

Devil’s Bargain by Joshua Green *

The World Broke in Two by Bill Goldstein

Aug. 18^th

Nonfiction

Freud by Frederick Crews

The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine

The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich

The Once and Future Liberal by Mark Lilla

To Siri with Love by Judith Newman

Life in Code by Ellen Ullman

Surfing with Sartre: Does Riding a Wave Help Solve Existential Mysteries? by Aaron James

Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean (econ. James McGill Buchanan)

Wrestling with His Angel by Sidney Blumenthal (2^nd volume of Lincoln biography)

North Korea

Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty by Bradley Martin

The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Kang Chol-hwan and Pierre Rigoulot

Nuclear North Korea: A Debate on Engagement Strategies by Victor Cha and David Kang

Fiction

The Destroyers by Christopher Bollen

The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet

The Little French Bistro by Nina George

A French Wedding by Hannah Tunnicliffe

Impossible Views of the World by Lucy Ives

Crime Fiction

Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton

The Driver by Hart Hanson

The Rat Catcher’s Olympics by Colin Cotterill

Crime Scene by Jonathan Kellerman and his son Jason Kellerman

Aug. 25^th

A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert

The Locals by Jonathan Dee

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt

Motherest by Kristen Iskendrian

Nonfiction

Wild Things by Bruce Handy

Into the Grey Zone by Adrian Owen

No Apparent Distress by Rachel Pearson

Chester B. Himes by Lawrence P. Jackson

You Can Do Anything by George Anders

A Practical Education by Randall Stross

Campus Confidential by Jacques Berlinerblau

The New Education by Cathy N. Davidson

Little Soldiers by Lenora Chu

Sept. 1

Nonfiction

Notes on a Foreign Country by Suzy Hansen

Sargent’s Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas by Donna M. Lucey

‘Good Booty’: The Sexual Power of Music by Ann Powers

‘Warner Bros’: A History of the Studio and the Family by David Thomson’s

“I’ll Have What She’s Having” by Erin Carlson (Nora Ephron)

Life and Adventures of Jack Engle: An Autobiography by Walt Whitman

Manly Health and Training: To Teach the Science of a Sound Mind and a Beautiful Body by Walt Whitman

Fiction

The Woman Who Had Two Navels by Nick Joaquin

Tales of the Tropical Gothic by Nick Joaquin

Crime Novels

Glass Houses by Louise Penny

Séance Infernale by Jonathan Skariton

The Doll Funeral by Kate Hamer

Killer Harvest by Paul Cleave

When the English Fall by David Williams

Grace by Paul Lynch

Out in the Open by Jesus Carrasco

Made for Love by Alissa Nutting

Pages for You by Sylvia Browning

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Final Demand by Deborah Moggach

My Sister’s Bones by Nuala Ellwood

You’ll Never Know Dear by Hallie Ephron

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

Sept. 8^th

Nonfiction

Fantasyland by Kurt Andersen

Collecting the World by James Delbourgo

Black Detroit by Herb Boyd

Gorbachev by William Taubman

Enraged by Emily Katz Anhalt

A Disappearance in Damascus by Deborah Campbell

Beautiful Bodies by Kimberly Rae Miller

David Litt, an Obama Speech-writer Who Wants No Credit by David Litt

Fiction

The Burning Girl by Claire Messud

The Body in the Clouds by Ashley Hayes

The Party by Elizabeth Day

A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Careers for Women by Joanna Scott

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

Dirt Road by James Kelman

The Followers by Rebecca Wait

Best Fall Books (Some of these books can only be pre-ordered. They are not yet available from the publisher.)

A Legacy of Spies: A Novel by John Le Carré

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Hardcore Twenty Four by Janet Evanovich

A Column of Fire by Ken Follett

The Rooster Bar by John Grisham

Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine by Joe Hagan

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Unqualified by Chris Pratt

My Absolute Darling: A Novel by Gabriel Tallent

Origin by Dan Brown

The Girls Who Takes an Eye for an Eye: A Lisbeth Salander Novel by David Lagercrantz

To Be Where You Are (A Mitford Novel) by Jan Karon

Two Kinds of Truth (A Harry Bosch Novel) by Michael Connelly

The Sun and Her Powers by Rupi Kaur

The Midnight Line: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child

Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward

End Game (Will Robie Series) by David Baldacci

Don’t Let Go by Harlan Coben

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

Artemis: A Novel by Andy Weir

Sourdough: A Novel by Robin Sloan

The Rules of Magic: A Novel by Alice Hoffman

Winter Solstice by Elin Hilderbrand

It Devours: A Welcome to Night Vale Novel by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror (John Dies at the End) by David Wong

Without Merit: A Novel by Colleen Hoover

Paris in the Present Tense: A Novel by Mark Helprin

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Future Home of the Living God: A Novel by Louise Erdrich

The Twelve Mile Straight: A Novel by Eleanor Henderson

Autonomous: A Novel by Annalee Newitz

The Quantum Spy: A Thriller by David Ignatius

Snap Judgment by Marcia Clark

Fever by Deon Meyer and K.L. Seefers

Five Carat Soul by James Mc Bride

Hanna Who Fell From the Sky: A Novel by Christopher Meades

Nonfiction

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown

The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance by Tom Brady

Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History by Katy Tur

Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team by Simon Sinek and David Mead

Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee

Coming to My Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook by Alice Watersi

Grant by Ron Chernow

It Takes Two: Our Story by Jonathan Scott and Drew Scott

Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson

Unstoppable: My Life So Far by Maria Sharpova

Sisters First: Stories from Our Wild and Wonderful Life by Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush

Waiting for the Punch: Words to Live By from WTF Podcast

Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery by Scott Kelly

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty

Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake by Kathryn Miles

David Bowie: A Life by Dylan Jones

Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone by Satya Nadella and Greg Shaw

My Taking of K-129: How the CIA Used Howard Hughes to Steal a Russian Sub in the Most Daring Covert Operation in History by Josh Dean

T is for Transformation: Unleash the 7 Superpowers to Help You Dig Deeper, Feel Stronger, and Live Your Best Life by Shaun T

Going into Town: A Love Letter to New York by Roz Chast*

Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything by Kelly Weinersmith and Zack Weinersmith*

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life by Robert Dallek

Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone by Richard Lloyd Parry

What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner

Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A by Danielle S. Allen

Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir by Amy Tan

Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime by Ben Blum

Blood Lines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty by Melissa del Bosque

WTF?: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us

The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks

Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell by David Yaffe

Chuck D Presents This Day in Rap and Hip Hop History by Chuck D and foreword by Shepard Fairey

The Bloody Patriots: How I Took Down an Anti-government Militia with Beer, Bounty Hunting and Badassery by Bill Fulton and Jeanne Devon

The Art of Stopping Time: Practical Mindfulness for Busy People by Pedram Shojai

We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations that Matter by Celeste Headlee

Lou Reed: A Life by Anthony DeCurtis

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liza Mundy

Member of My Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness that Ended the Sixties by Dianne Lake and Deborah Herman

Inside Camp David: The Private World of the Presidential Retreat by Michael Giorgione

Real American: A Memoir by Julie Lythcott-Haims

The Ghosts of Langley: Into the CIA’s Heart of Darkness by John Prados

A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa by Alexis Okeowo

A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions by Muhammed Yunus

The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown

Supernormal: The Untold Story of Adversity and Resilience by Meg Jay

The Mayflower: The Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America by Rebecca Fraser

American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent by Tamer Elnoury with Kevin Maurer

The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google by Scott Galloway

Visit my site: http://notabene718.com

to see my published books and my book reviews

Evicted by Matthew Desmond – Book

Matthew Desmond’s book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City summarizes the lengthy and intimate researches of this sociologist with a MacArthur Genius Grant who has done his due diligence. His interest is in analyzing and discovering ways for breaking up stubborn, seemingly impossible-to-resolve problems that make life a misery for poor folks, especially black poor folks, and single mothers who are at the absolute bottom of the economic heap.

Mr. Desmond, a young man, still in college, moves into two different poor neighborhoods in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since he is white he perhaps would have been distrusted in a minority neighborhood so he started out in a trailer park at the edge of the city with a more mixed-race population. This allowed him to make some connections, see some possible housing issues and eventually he was able to enter the predominately black North Side as a resident. He roomed with a black policeman called Officer Woo (a childhood nickname).

Obviously poverty and all of the things attendant on it, such as lack of education or training, being limited to low paying jobs, being hungry and having to spend too much time finding food for your family, not having an appropriate job wardrobe are all factors that contribute to keeping poor people from rising.

But Matthew Desmond decided to focus on the issue of housing and he exposes an angle on urban poverty that we have not yet explored in enough detail. He looks specifically at the part evictions play in squelching opportunity. He looks at a cycle that allows ever higher rents that do not decrease for low value properties. He looks at the gap between incomes and rents. He introduces us to the people he met who let him have access to their personal finances. I will issue a warning to you that they still haunt him even as he moves on to pursue his own life, and they will stay with you also.

Anecdotal studies are difficult because of the fact that the researcher is present and interacting. This can change the data in ways that are quite subtle, and perhaps not so subtle, sort of the way in which a rock bends the current in a stream. Desmond tried to keep his presence somewhat personal even as he also stuck to his position as a writer and a recorder of the lives of the people he met. He calls his report, his book, an ethnography, which seems accurate enough.

Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey has a book club every summer. He chooses a title and everyone who signs up for the book club reads the same book. There is a discussion session at a certain date. This is the book for summer, 2017. You could probably still sign up.

I’m not going to summarize Desmond’s findings or his suggestions for fixing this seeming unresolvable dilemma of inner cities which seem to act like traps, robbing Americans of the comforts we expect life in America to offer. These observations are the entire content of his book. However, I will say, “Good choice, Cory Booker!”

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy – Book

In her most recent novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy talks about modern India (which is not as modern as you would like it to be). Two women are the focus of her story, Anjum and Tilottama. However, this is really a story of human rights and human intolerance and finding happiness when and where you can.

Anjum is born a boy. However upon closer examination he has the organs of both of the sexes – a hermaphrodite. His mother is able to keep this biological state a secret until puberty. At puberty the boy, Aftab, realizes she is not a boy. Are such things accepted in India? Yes and no. Anjum would never find a life in “normal” India society but one day she follows a transgender shopper from the market and she learns that there is a separate society of transgender Indian people, that the name for some transgender persons, including Anjum, is “hijra,” and in her neighborhood the hijra live in a house called the Khwabgah.

Within this group she is able to have a circumscribed but full social life. She adopts a homeless child and becomes her rather jealous mother. Although she must face a life separate from her parents and siblings, she is protected by superstition and left to her own devices. Fortunately, although feelings about Muslims are running high (as they do periodically in India), and although Hindus are attacking and slaughtering Muslims with little provocation, it is bad luck to kill hijra. This does not prevent Anjum from experiencing something so horrifying that it turns her life upside down.

Tilottama is a young woman with considerable charm despite her dark “café au lait, except very little lait” skin, which is not considered desirable. In fact she is desirable enough to attract three men (and more) who are in school with her. Naga, Musa, and “Garson Hobart” meet Tilo when practicing to stage a play (which never opens). These four are caught up in the off again – on again brutal war for control of Kashmir, a province coveted by India proper, Pakistan and China. Kashmiris want only to be a free and independent nation. Musa becomes a Kashmiri spy and a fighter for the independence movement. Tilo loves Musa who she can connect with only in the moments he snatches away from the movement.

The lives of our two main characters, Anjum and Tilo, become intertwined over, of all things, a homeless child.

Now it may seem as if I am telling the whole novel and that this will make it unnecessary to read this book. But that is not so. Arundhati is a prize-winning author and not by mistake. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is a 400+ page book. It is detailed without being dry; it is instructive without being pedantic, and long without seeming long. This book cannot be summarized. It must be experienced.

Arundhati Roy never sugarcoats political flaws of corruption and religious intolerance in India, corruption that possibly tops the corruption we lament in our own government. She also explores the courage of people who lead authentic lives.

If you enjoy travelling to another culture without leaving your comfort zone and you want to avoid the touristy spots and get some in-depth exposure to the true spirit of a nation, Arundhati Roy is your ticket. You will gain exposure to an internal turmoil that inspires people, frightens people, and generates great courage and great grief. Don’t be a chicken. What you learn makes the journey worthwhile.

I’ll end with Roy’s beginning quote, “I mean, it’s all a matter of your heart…” –Nâzim Hikmet

July 2017 Book List

Publisher’s Weekly

June 2

Confessions by Augustine (newly translated by Sarah Ruden)

Black Detroit: A People’s History of Self-Determination by Herb Boyd (NF)

Felix Y_z by Lisa Bunker (YA)

Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter? by Heath Fogg Davis (NF)

The People We Hate at the Wedding by Grant Ginder (F)

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Kennedy and the King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle Over Civil Rights by Steven Levingston (NF)

A Fugitive in Walden Woods by Norman Lock (F)

Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou (translated from the French by Helen Stevenson) (F)

How to Be a Muslim: An American Story by Haroon Moghul (NF)

This Impossible Light by Lily Myers (F in poetry)

We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria by Wendy Pearlman (NF)

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhoti Roy (F)

The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny by Michael Wallis (NF)

June 16

The Girl in Between by Sarah Carroll (F)

The Boy Who Loved Too Much: A True Story of Pathological Friendliness by Jennifer Latson (NF)

Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death by Adrian Owen (NF)

Flesh, and Bone and Water by Luiza Sauma (NF)

Open Heart: A Cardiac Surgeon’s Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table by Stephen Westaby

The Force by Don Winslow Morrow (F)

June 30

American, English, Italian, Chocolate: Small Subjects of Great Importance by Rick Bailey (NF)

The Graybar Hotel by Curtis Dawkins (F)

Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan by Elaine M Hayes(NF)

Trophy: A Novel by Steffen Jacobsen (F)

Who is Rich? By Matthew Klam (F)

The Disappearances by Emily Bain Murphy (F, YA)

All We Shall Know? A Novel by Donal Ryan (F)

A Stone of Hope: A Memoir by Jim St. Germain

Words on Bathroom Walls: A Novel by Julia Walton (F, YA)

July 7

The Great Nadar: The Man Behind the Camera by Adam Begley (NF)

Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World by Billy Bragg (NF)

Alone by Christophe Chabouté (visually stunning) (F)

Death on Delos by Gary Corby (F)

Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 AD to the First Crusade by Anthony Keldellis (NF)

Dirt Road by James Kelman (F)

Hum If You Don’t Know the Words by Bianca Marais (F)

The Art of Starving by Sam J Miller (F, YA)

My Heart Hemmed In by Marie N Diaye (translated from the French by Jordan Stump) (F)

Conversations with Friends: A Novel by Sally Rooney

So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley by Roger Steffens (NF)

The End by Fernanda Torres (F)

July 14

The Late Show by Michael Connelly (F)

No Good Deed by Kara Connolly (F, YA)

The Epiphany Machine by David Burr Gerrard

Ants Among the Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India by Sujatha Gidla (NF)

Soul Cage by Giles Murray (F)

The Library of Fates by Adit Khorana (F, YA)

Like a Fading Shadow by Antonio Mũnoz Molina (translated from the Spanish by Camilo A Ramirez) (F)

Arbitrary Stupid Goal by Tamara Shopsin (Short Stories)

Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Dassow Walls (NF)

July 21

The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II by Svetlana Alexievich (translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsby) (NF)

Refugee by Alan Gratz (F)

Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed (F)

The Way We Die Now: The View from Medicine’s Front Line by Seamus O’Mahony (NF)

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips (F)

Amazon

Literature and Fiction

Spoonbenders: A Novel by Daryl Gregory

Goodbye Vitamin: A Novel by Rachel Khong

The Outer Cape: A Novel by Patrick Dacey

Tornado Weather: A Novel by Deborah E. Kennedy

AFTERLIFE by Marcus Sakey

Before Everything by Victoria Redel

The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo by Ian Stansel

Rufuge: A Novel by Dina Nayeri

Quiet Until the Thaw: A Novel by Alexandra Fuller

Who is Rich? A Novel by Matthew Klam

Camino Island by John Grisham

Mysteries and Thrillers

The Late Show by Michael Connelly

Fierce Kingdom: A Novel by Gin Phillips

The Lying Game: A Novel by Ruth Ware

The Dead Comedians: A Murder Mystery by Fred Van Lente

Zero Sum (A John Rain Novel) by Barry Eisler

House of Spies: A Novel (Gabriel Allon) by Daniel Silva

Every Last Lie by Mary Kupica (A gripping novel of psychological suspense)

AFTERLIFE by Marcus Sakey

Biographies and Memoirs

Sting-Ray Afternoons: A Memoir by Steve Rushin

Chester H. Himes: A Biography by Lawrence P. Jackson

Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship by Michelle Kuo

Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughn by Elaine M Hayes

To the New Owners: A Martha’s Vineyard Memoir by Madeleine Blais

Giant of the Senate by Al Franken

Nonfiction

A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Ben Mezrich

Everything All at Once: How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd, Tap into Radical Curiosity and Solve Any Problem by Bill Nye

Science Fiction and Fantasy

When the English Fall: A Novel by David Williams

New York Times

June 18

Everything under Heaven: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power by Howard French (NF)

Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides Trap? By Graham Allison (NF)

Be Like the Fox by Erica Benner (Machiavelli) (NF)

Goethe: Life as Work of Art by Rudiger Sofranski (NF)

Raven Rock by Garrett M Groff (History of the Cold War) (NF)

I Was Told to Come Alone by Souad Mekhennet (NF)

A Little More Human by Fiona Maazel (F)

Camino Island by John Grisham (F)

You Belong to Me by Colin Harrison (F)

Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig (F)

According to a Source by Abby Stein (F)

Among the Lesser Gods by Margo Catts (F)

The Invisible Mile by David Coventry (F)

June 25

The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone by Lev Grossman (NF)

A Fine Mess by T R Reid (NF)

Lincoln and the Abolitionists by Fred Kaplan (NF)

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein (NF)

The Seeds of Life by Edward Dolnick (NF)

The Boy Who Loved Too Much by Jennifer Latson (NF)

Murder in Matera by Helen Stapinski (NF)

Awkward by Ty Tashiro (NF)

If I Understood You, Would I Have this Look on my Face? By Alan Alda (NF)

Best New Crime (4 titles)

Wolf on a String by Benjamin Black (F)

The Force by Don Winslow (F)

The Templars Last Secret by Martin Walker (F)

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan (F)

Fly Me by Daniel Riley (F)

Some Rise by Sin by Philip Caputo (F)

A Good Country by Laleh Khadivi (F)

July 2

Kennedy and King by Steven Levingston (NF)

The New Urban Crisis by Richard Florida (NF)

An English Governess in the Great War by Mary Thorp (NF)

Hundreds of Interlaced Fingers: A Kidney Doctor’s Search for the Perfect Match by Vanessa Grubbs (NF)

Healing Children: A Surgeon’s Stories from the Frontiers of Pediatric Medicine by Kurt Newman (NF)

Open Heart: A Cardiac Surgeon’s Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table by Stephen Westaby (NF)

Sometimes Amazing Things Happen: Heartbreak and Hope on the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Ward by Elizabeth Ford (NF)

Fiction

Modern Gods by Nick Laird

Based on a True Story by Delphine de Vigan

Little Sister by Barbara Gowdy

Compass by Mathias Énard

July 9

Fiction

Beautiful Animals by Lawrence Osborne

Saints for All Occasions by Courtney Sullivan

The Doorposts of Your House and on Your Gates by Jacob Bacharach

Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny

The Zoo by Isobel Charman (NF)

The Chickenshit Club by Jesse Eisinger (NF)

Hue 1968 by Mark Bowden (NF)

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M Sapolsky (NF)

The Hue and Cry at Our House by Benjamin Taylor (NF)

The Best Land Under Heaven by Michael Wallis (NF)

Love, Africa by Jeffrey Gettleman (NF)

Return to Glory by Matthew DeBord (NF)

July 16

Scandinavians: In Search of the Soul of the North by Robert Fergusson (NF)

Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley (NF)

Among the Janeites: A Journey through the World of Jane Austen Fandom by Deborah Yaffe (NF)

The Making of Jane Austen by Devoney Looser (NF)

The Genius of Jane Austen: Her Love of Theater and Why She Works in Hollywood by Paula Byrne (NF)

Jane Austen: The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly (NF)

The Widow Nash by Jamie Harrison (F)

The Half Wives by Stacia Pelletier (F)

The Underground River by Martha Conway (F)

July 23

The Home that was Our Country by Alia Malek (NF)

We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled by Wendy Pearlman (NF)

Hunger by Roxane Gay (NF)

The Fate of the West: The Battle to Save the World’s Most Successful Political Idea by Bill Emmott (NF)

One Another’s Equals: The Basis of Human Equality by Jeremy Waldron

Henry David Thoreau: A Life by Laura Dassow Walls

The Islamic Enlightenment by Christopher de Ballaigue (NF)

Young Radicals: In the War for American Ideals by Jeremy McCarter (NF)

Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughn by Elaine M Hayes (NF)

The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (NF)

Fiction

There Your Heart Lies by Mary Gordon

The Changeling by Victor LaValle

4 new mysteries

The Smack by Richard Lange

The Fallen by Ace Atkins

City of Masks by S D Sykes

The Late Show by Michael Connelly

Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash

Black Moses by Alain Mobanckou

Quiet Until the Thaw by Alexander Fuller

Check out my book reviews and my published books at

http://notabene718.com/