Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng – Book

Celeste Ng writes about families. In her first novel, Everything I Never Told You, one of her characters, the family’s oldest child Lydia, who is found dead in a lake, takes us on an exploration of the dynamics in her mixed race (white mom “Oriental” dad) family. In her second book, Little Fires Everywhere Ng introduces us to two modern families, one that may look like a classic nuclear family (except for the fact that their house is on fire), and another that looks like anything but. In this second book we focus, in flashback, on Elena Richardson, her husband and their four children (Lexi, Tripp, Moody and Izzy). Elena is a mom who never realized her dream to be a famous journalist, a mom who may think that she limited her future by settling down and putting her family first and her journalistic goals second. But it is quite possible that it is her inability to untie herself geographically from the Shaker Heights neighborhood into which she was born (where the author also was born) that kept her in a position on the local paper instead of in a big city news room. Elena loves Shaker Heights because it is a neighborhood founded on principles of security and stability and community involvement that she finds comforting.

Elena is not a real hands-on mom, but her sort of distracted style seems to suit her first two children, at least until the decisions of puberty begin to challenge their judgment. Her style does not suit her two younger children quite as well, and, in fact, put her at odds with her youngest daughter Izzy, an impulsive and creative child who needs affection and approval, as opposed to the disapproval and dismissal she experiences from her mom. Izzy does not take her mom’s tempers and slights quietly as her brother Moody does; she acts out to make sure she gets attention, even if that attention is mostly negative.

When Mia Warren enters the lives of this geographically planted family she brings with her a whiff of a sort of gypsy existence, and she brings her daughter, Pearl, the fortunate recipient of her seemingly effortless warmth and affection. Elena hires Mia to help in the morning and cook dinners in the evening, and Elena’s children bask in the parental interest exhibited by Mia, while Pearl longs for the geographical stability of the Richardson family. Mia and Pearl have moved too many times, but this time Mia promised Pearl she would stay put. Eventually Elena becomes jealous of the attractions between her children and Mia. She sees a clue in a photograph in a museum, a photo of Mia with a baby and she uses journalistic research techniques, and resources she has not needed for years, to investigate Mia and to expose her secrets. Why does Mia seem to have no roots – a burning question to a woman to whom roots have seemed all important? Is Mia someone who could be a danger to Elena’s children?

We, as readers, also understand that Mia has a secret in her past and that even Pearl does not know what that secret is. We find Mia likeable but we don’t totally trust our judgment which is based on too little information. We don’t think her secret could be anything terribly bad, but we don’t know. Elena Richardson earns our censure for invading Mia’s life and our gratitude because she unlocks the secrets that Mia guards so carefully. Mia also gave up what could have been a successful career for her daughter but until we get the facts we are not sure why. (Can’t tell you.)

There is another story within this story about an Asian immigrant mom, befriended by Mia, who loses her job just after the birth of her baby. Since the father has bowed out of the relationship the mom, Bebe Chow, finds she cannot care for her baby. She leaves her at the local fire station. The baby is subsequently given to a long-time childless couple, friends of Elena Richardson and her husband. When Bebe gets a new job, she tries to get her child back and finds she must fight this affluent and loving couple in court. (Interesting note about Audible, it encourages creative spelling of characters’ names.)

We are asked to think about what makes someone a parent. Is blood stronger than any other bond? Are children ever born to the wrong parents? Should children sometimes get to pick their own parents? We see the supportive relationship that has developed between Mia and Izzy. What happens in this relationship is one event in this book that raises many questions in our minds and hearts, but I would spoil the book for you if I discussed it here. (Moody’s role in the family is another matter that we continue to contemplate after finishing Ng’s book.) I did find that I liked Celeste Ng’s second book, Little Fires Everywhere, better than her first one.

January 2018 Book List

Amazon

Literature and Fiction

Red Clocks: A Novel by Leni Zumas

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson

Green: A Novel by Sam Graham-Felsen

The Boat People: A Novel by Sharon Baia

Heart Spring Mountain: A Novel by Robin MacArthur

Oliver Loving: A Novel by Stefan Merrill Block

The Music Shop: A Novel by Rachel Joyce

A State of Freedom: A Novel by Neel Mukherjee

This Could Hurt: A Novel by Jillian Medoff

Biographies and Memoirs

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD by Bill Minutaglio, Steven L. Davis

Here’s the Real Magic: A Magical Search for Wonder in the Modern World by Nate Staneforth

Winter by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Brave by Rose McGowan

The Epic City: The World on the Streets of Calcutta by Kushanava Choudhury

The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica by Laurie Gwen Shapiro

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors, ashe bendele

The Wizard and the Prophet, Two Remarkable Scientists and their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World by Charles L. Mann

Furnishing Eternity: A Father, A Son, a Coffin and a Measure of Life by David Giffels

The Girl on the Velvet Swing: Sex, Murder and Madness at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century by Simon Baatz

Mysteries and Thrillers

The Wife: A Novel of Psychological Suspense by Alifair Burke

Robicheaux: A Novel by James Lee Burke

The Woman in the Window: A Novel by A. J. Finn

Gnomon: A Novel by Nick Harkaway

The Bomb Maker by Thomas Perry

Anatomy of a Scandal: A Novel by Sarah Vaughan

Need to Know: A Novel by Karen Cleveland

The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey

Munich by Robert Harris

The Chalk Man: A Novel by C. J. Tudor

The Wife Between Us: A Novel by Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen

Nonfiction

The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life by Kevin Simler and Robin Hansen

The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam by Max Boot

When: The Scientific Study of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink

The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow’s World by Charles L. Mann

The Deepest Will: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity by Nadine Burke Harris, MD

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson

Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan

Saving Tarboo Creek: One Family’s Quest to Heal the Land by Scott Freeman, Susan Leopold Freeman

Achtung Baby: An American Mom on the German Art of Raising Self-Reliant Children by Sara Zaske

Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life and the Next War on Violence by Patrick Sharkey

The New York Times Book Review (Abbreviated Lists at Christmas Time because Special Seasonal Books are Reviewed, which I won’t list here)

December 17^th

Nonfiction

Cartoon Country by Collen Murphy

Vacationland by John Hodgeman

The Gifted Generation by Daniel Goldfield

A Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary, translated by John Markham

The Kites by Romain Gary

The Vanity Fair Diaries: 1983-1992 by Tina Brown

Bloodlines by Melissa del Boque

The Trade by Jere Van Dyk

Fiction

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

Timeless by Armand Baltazar

December 24^th

Nonfiction

God: A Human History by Reza Aslan

What the Qur’an Meant by Garry Wills

Belonging: 1492-1900 by Simon Schama

The Book of Separation by Tora Mirvis

The Great Shift by James L Kugel

The Exodus by Richard Elliott Friedman

The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah by Adam Valen Levinson

Martin Luther by Eric Metaxas

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel

Bethlehem, Tracing the Life of a Storied Little Town by Nicholas Blincoe

Heaven on Earth by Michael Shermer

Finding Oneself in a Coffin by David Giffels

Fiction

Crimes of the Father by Thomas Keneally

By the Book by Francis Ford Coppola

Found object

Harriet Tubman’s hymnal

December 31^st

Nonfiction

Windfall by Meghan O’Sullivan

Megafire by Michael Kodas

Firestorm by Edward Struzik

The Great Quake by Henry Fountain

Quakeland by Kathryn Miles

The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen

Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures by Ben Megrich

Understanding the Mammoth: A Tale of Giants, Unicorns, Ivory, and the Birth of a New Science by John McKay

The Only Girl in the World by Maude Julien

The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg

Inheritance of the Earth by Chris Thomas

Column of Fire by Ken Follett – Book

Column of Fire by Ken Follett is the third book in the Kingsbridge Series and my least favorite of the three. It’s not that it was difficult or did not tell a story. It was not so terrible that it made me set it aside or stop reading. I liked the fictional characters placed among the actual historical figures enough to wonder what would happen to them but I did not feel strongly invested in them. I always realized they were fictional and there to involve the reader in the events occurring in the mid 1500’s and beyond in England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Religion was the key issue of these times after the declarations of Martin Luther and the beginnings of a Protestant movement that was growing and alarming Catholics. Protestants thought they could talk directly to God without a priest as intermediary. They published Bibles in national languages, rather than Latin, so people could read the Bible by themselves or in church services. They did not feel any allegiance to the Pope in Rome. Catholics saw Protestants as heretics and felt it their religious duty to crush them and their interpretation of Christianity. As Column of Fire begins Protestants are hunted by Catholics, considered criminals by royals, and must practice their religion in secrecy. But this book also covers the pivotal moment when events, especially in England, turned this dynamic around. By the end of the story Catholics are on the defensive and, at least in England, Protestants can worship without fear.

Since England had recently lost Queen Mary Tudor, a strongly Catholic queen, there were two women who could possible take the throne, Elizabeth Tudor, tolerant of Protestantism, and Mary Queen of Scots, strongly Catholic. The story of how Elizabeth took the throne and how she held it against Catholic sympathizers who stood to lose both their brand of religion and lots of power and money has fascinated readers for centuries. Elizabeth held her throne with the help of talented spies and one of these spies was William Cecil.

Ned Willard becomes one of Cecil’s spies, moving in and out of France, with family in Spain for a while (Barney Willard), who later becomes a shipper and a ship’s captain adding more clout to Ned Willard’s information network. There is a villain, in fact there are two and they are just about as hateful as you would like them to be. Pierre Armande de Guise is an ambitious, soulless creature who uses information he steals through his first wife Sylvie Palot, a list of important Protestants in Paris, to ingratiate himself with the de Guise family and to realize his life time ambition of being a royal (however tangentially). Rollo Fitzgerald, brother of Ned’s first love Margery trains a group of sinister priests and hides them in English households for when Mary Queen of Scots takes the throne from Elizabeth, and an invasion plan is afoot.

Even with the historical drama of this critical time in Europe the book never really taps into that drama. Women are expendable and are damaged by the villains but few men are and there is just little tension and fright in most of the telling of this story. Fortunes do switch from the Catholic Fitzgeralds to the Protestant Willards but Ned is never in any real danger and seems more like a nice guy than a spy. So, what we get in Column of Fire by Ken Follett is a good story, but not a great story.

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

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