by Kate Atkinson
PenguinRandomHouse
This is an amazing collection of oddly connected stories that is both frighteningly lovely and sometimes just frightening. Fairy tales, romance, mystery, science fiction and wonderful fantasy all combine to create a reading experience like none before.
If you would like to know more about this book, or purchase it, please check your local independent bookstore or this wonderful place bookshop.org .
by Lauren Groff
PenguinRandomHouse
This is a novel of rare and disturbing beauty - a lyrical, terrifying tale of a young girl who has left the brutality of civilization and is trying to stay alive in the beautiful and equally (but differently) brutality of nature. There are wonderful descriptions of the forest she is running through - the passage from winter to spring as she tries to find food and shelter.
Beyond the adventure of her seeking the basics is a greater philosophical seeking that will leave the reader thinking for quite a while.
If you would like to know more about, or own this book, please try your local independent bookstore or this great place: bookshop.org .
by Denis Johnson
Macmillan Publishers
These are stories of people whom you hope you never meet - narrated by a kindred soul whose difference is that he is continually wounded by the beauty around him. Johnson's prose is strong, honest, lyrical and hypnotic. You can't turn away from his incredibly moving portraits, like the train wreck that most of these lives are.
If you would like to know more about this book, or purchase it, please visit your local independent bookstore or this great place bookshop.org .
by Alice Winn
Penguin Random House
This brilliant novel begins in 1914 and follows two young men, as well as many of their school friends, from their idyllic, upper crust boarding school through the horrific years of WWI. This is beautifully written in spite of the vivid descriptions of the casualties. Poetry, nature and the love that these boys share - in various guises - balance, and enhance, the terrors of the war. It's amazing to see how very young these boys are as they go off to die for their country.
If you would like to know more about this book, or purchase it, please check with your local independent bookstore or this great place - bookshop.org .
by Mark O'Connell
Doubleday/PRH
This is a fascinating and disturbing look at an Irish murderer, Malcolm Macarthur who brutally killed two innocent people in 1982. Mark O'Connell tries to make sense of the horrific violence and the man who seems to not completely understand what he's done. Macarthur spent thirty years in Irish prisons and willingly talks with O'Connell after his release, but there is real frustration for O'Connell as he (and we) do not come to really understand why this happened.
It's very well written and a book you won't easily put down.
If you would like to know more about, or purchase this book, please try your local independent bookstore or this great site: bookshop.org .
