The Heart in Winter
by Kevin Barry
Doubleday/PRH
A love story, profanely beautiful, sad, humorous. Irish/Deadwood/Shakespeare in Butte Montana in 1891. Every word is precise, precious, heartbreaking and often very funny. Barry puts together sentences that you have to read over again for the delight of them. This is a classic.
If you want to know more about this book, or own it, please check with your local independent bookstore, or this great place bookshop.org
Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime
by Leonie Swann (trans. by Amy Bojang)
Soho Press/IPG
September 3, 2024
Agnes Sharp and her wonderfully odd friends from Sunset Hall return to sleuthing during a vacation to a beautiful seaside hotel. Complete with missing and not-so-missing bodies, a torrential rainstorm and great food this second mystery in the series is a delight. We learn more about the individuals' earlier lives which whets the appetite for another - there is a corpse back in their village that someone's going to have to deal with. It's all great fun.
If you'd like to know more about, or own this book, please check with your local independent bookstore or this great place: bookshop.org
The Naming Song
Jedediah Berry
Tor/Macmillan
Sept. 24, 2024
Berry creates a world of strife - warring factions include the named and the unnamed, as well as some people who fall between those groups, while tamed ghosts do most of the labor. There is a group of dramatists who work to keep stories of the past alive. And monsters - the kind you dream of hiding under your bed. In spite of the uncertainty, real friendships do grow.
This is a complex story which I hope is the beginning of a series.
If you would like to know more about this book, or own it, please check with your local independent bookstore, or this great place: bookshop.org
Exhalation
Stories
by Ted Chiang
Knopf/PRH
This is a varied collection of marvelous stories, concerning teaching AI, accessing memories, Einstein's theory of time travel (this one would be a brilliant Twilight Zone, but we do need Rod Serling's voice), personal responsibility and wondering if it can or will change, and much more.
Not just for a science fiction lover, these are thoughtful stories for anyone.
If you would like to know more about, or own this book, please check with your local independent bookstore or this great place: Bookshop.org .
by Morgan Talty
Tin House
This is a strong, quiet, look at family, secrets, friendship, the price of truth and the price of culture. Charles is not a young man as he's trying to care for his long estranged mother, still torn about the daughter whose life he's not in, caring for an often lapsed AA friend, and trying to stay sober himself while facing all of his past, and the Native heritage that is not his.
You'll think about this long after you finish.
If you would like to know more about, or own this book, please contact your local independent bookstore or this great place: bookshop.org .
by M.T.Anderson
Pantheon/PenguinRandomHouse
If there were still an Index Librorum Prohibitorum - the Catholic Church's list of banned books, surely Nicked would be there. It is a wonderful, rollicking, seastorm adventure of relic stealing, romance, fun and faith, set in 1087 and based on a true story.
Where is the Monty Python troupe when you need them? I'm afraid only they could do this great romp justice.
If you'd like to know more about this book, or own it, please check with your local independent bookstore or this great place: bookshop.org
