A Good Life

by Virginie Grimaldi

translated by Hildegarde Serle

Europa Editions

May 28, 2024

    Grimaldi is a best-selling author in France; this is her first book to be translated and released here in the states. With any luck, we'll get many more.

    Family, love, abuse, mental illness and the struggle to make "a good life". This book manages to include all of these things without becoming terribly heavy and while maintaining a great sense of humor.

If you would like to know more about, or own this book, please try your local independent bookstore or this great place:bookshop.org

 Behind You Is the Sea

by Susan Muaddi Darraj

HarperCollins Publishers

    This is a warm and loving portrait of three Palestinian-American families - their happy moments and their very sad ones. There are generational, economic and cultural differences, but also much love and a constant struggle to take good care of each other. 

    A quick read that will stay with you.

If you'd like to know more about this book, or own it, please try your local independent bookstore or this great place bookshop.org .

 The Trees

by Percival Everett

Graywolf Press

    This is an amazing work of art. It is at once horrifying, moving, challenging and funny. It is terribly, sadly, very relevant to our times. The brutal murders, acts of much deserved retribution, confound the racist local police and the Black FBI investigators, as the killings spread. Yet Everett manages at several different points to make you laugh out loud. 

    This should be, and most likely won't be, required reading in high schools.

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 .

 Absolution

by Alice McDermott

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

    The setting is Saigon in 1963, towards the end of the beginning of America's escalation. The characters are mainly American officers' wives, mostly very innocent and well-meaning. Is philanthropy - the attempt at doing good really pure, or is it an act of contrition, aimed at resolving the conscience of the giver? Because the narrators are writing from a distance of many years, they can see the way officers' wives were treated as useless appendages - to be protected from the realities of their situation. This disregard has a great deal to do with the wives' attempts to help the Vietnamese citizens in whatever small ways they can.

    Alice McDermott is an amazing writer.

If you would like to know more about this book, or own it, please contact your local independent bookstore or this great place bookshop.org .

 Remember Us

by  Jacqueline Woodson

Penguin Random House

    This is listed as a middle grade book but I think anyone over the age of 10 or so will love it. As she does in her adult novels, Woodson brings a real care for language and an immense belief in memory to the story of Sage growing up in a beloved neighborhood that is burning down. She manages an optimistic look at changes in ourselves and our world, what we remember and forget about everything around us.

AND it won the Walter Dean Myers Award 2024!  Yay!

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 .

normal rules don't apply

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 .

 Mr Wilder and Me

by Jonathan Coe

Viking Press

   Billy Wilder is nearing the end of a fantastic career; Calista is a young Greek woman whose career as a film composer hasn't begun. She's hired as a translator for Wilder's latest production and becomes a small part of a big motion picture, meeting people who are kinder but not nearly as happy as she would have them.

    Told from Calista's much later perspective, there is much reminiscence of a simpler time for her, but also Wilder's own memories of the War and what the Holocaust took from him and the world.

   This is a deceptively straightforward story with many great layers.

If you would like to know more about this book, or own it, please try your local independent bookstore or bookshop.org

 Halcyon

by Elliott Ackerman

Knopf/PRH

May 23, 2023

    When does compromise become hypocrisy? 

    Faulkner said "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

    Halcyon is the stately Southern mansion owned by Robert Ableson - esteemed attorney, WW ll hero and recently dead. Ackerman brings Ableson and all around him to vibrant life. This novel manages to involve science, politics, Confederate monuments, family secrets, Civil War battles, much more, and still be fun.

If you would like to know more about or own this book, please contact your local independent bookstore or bookshop.org

The Gospel of Orla

by Eoghan Walls

Seven Stories Press/PRH

    This is the strangest book I've read in a long time. It's also absolutely wonderful.  Fourteen year old Orla's voice is unique and compelling - her grief so real and her hope so strong that you can't help wishing for a miracle. There's also Jesus and an elephant named Fantasmo who are important characters in Orla's world.

If you would like to know more about Orla, or own this book, please check your local independent bookstore orbookshop.org

 The Wind Knows My Name

by Isabel Allende

Ballantine Books/PRH

June 6, 2023

    Among the memorable characters in this novel are Simon Adler, who as a child is sent by his tearful mother away from Vienna in 1938 on a kindertransport to England and Anita Diaz whose mother is separated from her at the Mexican border in 2019. The story follows both of these refugees as they make their way to new lives and the people who help them forward. Allende manages to create feeling for all the individuals in very succinct and distinct ways.

If you would like to know more about  or own this book, please try your local independent bookstore or bookshop.org

 Now is Not the Time to Panic

by Kevin Wilson

HarperCollins

    Frankie and Zeke are wonderfully eccentric adolescents, creative and creatively odd, who we are lucky to have found each other. They are fully brought to life in this tale that will resonate with any of us who had too much imagination and too little common sense growing up. Humorous and heartbreaking.

If you would like to know more about this book or own it please contact your local independent bookstore or bookshop.org.

All That Is Mine I Carry With Me 

by William Landay

Bantam Books

    This is on one level a great suspense story told with many twists, and on another a wonderfully understated family story. The love between two of the children, Jeff and Miranda, is never overdone but manages to be the glue that keeps the emotional heart of the novel together.

    All of the characters are very well and quietly presented, even Dan who you constantly wish you could smack and his son, Alex, who has unfortunately inherited much of his Dad's personality. This is an interesting look at how families can splinter and the destruction that can occur.

If you would like to know more about this book or own it please contact your local independent bookstore or bookshop.org.

 Night of the Living Rez 

by Morgan Talty

Tin House

    These are stories of a family living in a Native American village in Maine. They are at times funny, but often heart-wrenching stories of people with too little money and hope but enough love and friendship. They are not in any chronological order which becomes a way of seeing the universal in the specific.

    It's awfully nice when a book you love wins awards (NBCC, among them) as this has. 

If you would like to know more about or own this book, please try your local independent bookstore or bookshop.org

 The Dog of the North

by Elizabeth McKenzie

Penguin Press

   This is for anyone who has an eccentric or difficult family member (or several), and makes the poor decision to try to help them out. Penny Rush is at first somewhat relieved to have the distraction from her impending divorce of dealing with her Grandparents and finds herself falling into a quick friendship with her Grandmother's inept accountant, Burt. What happens in the next few days shows the power of Penny's friendship as well as her own emotional turmoil and does it with great dark humor. 

    It would make a lovely and very funny film - Tom Hanks would do Burt well.

If you would like to know more about or own this book, please try your local bookstore or bookshop.org