STAFF PICK - The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

Sometimes I love picking up a book just because everyone is talking about it and it has BUZZ!  This first novel  was not something I would normally have picked up but a certain CEO of a Canadian bookstore chain “picked it” so I thought I’d see what the fuss is about.  I wasn’t disappointed with the story and as the twists and turns of the family unraveled I couldn’t put the book down.  I can't say that I loved any of the siblings particularly but their partners were great and their characters more than made up for the shortcomings of the four Plumbs.   Here is a brief summary from the publisher:

"Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a nineteen-year-old waitress as his passenger. The ensuing accident has endangered the Plumbs' joint trust fund, 'The Nest,' which they are months away from finally receiving. Meant by their deceased father to be a modest mid-life supplement, the Plumb siblings have watched The Nest's value soar along with the stock market and have been counting on the money to solve a number of self-inflicted problems. Melody, a wife and mother in an upscale suburb, has an unwieldy mortgage and looming college tuition for her twin teenage daughters. Jack, an antiques dealer, has secretly borrowed against the beach cottage he shares with his husband, Walker, to keep his store open. And Bea, a once-promising short-story writer, just can't seem to finish her overdue novel. Can Leo rescue his siblings and, by extension, the people they love? Or will everyone need to reimagine the futures they've envisioned? 

Louise

Staff Pick: In a Vertigo of Silence by Miriam Polli

Just like a person’s memories are ‘snatches of time’ not in chronological order, so too is In a Vertigo of Silence. Written as the collective memory of a family, the novel moves back and forth in time to reveal snatches of the lives of three different generations of a Polish immigrant family.

The writing style could be confusing and distracting, but it is not. This is due to the fully rounded characterizations and the skillful writing. With loss and female tenacity as recurring themes throughout, the characters become so well known to the reader that they will remain in the memory as friends.

The family is a matriarchy with Marishka at its head. A strong and eminently likeable woman, she came to the United States via Ellis Island with her husband, Antoni. They settled in Pennsylvania where he found work in a coal mine. Tragically, like so many other miners in the early 1920s, he perished in the mine. This when Marishka was only days away from giving birth to her third daughter… Marishka’s tenacity is evident in how she went on to become a talented seamstress, laundress and sometimes house cleaner to make ends meet.

Over time, we meet Marishka’s three daughters. Paulina, the eldest, is an artist and very close to her mother. Anna, the beautiful middle child, is a mentally fragile women who drinks to excess. Eva, the youngest, makes a ‘sound’ marriage and has one son.

We then come to meet Emily, Anna’s daughter. Emily is bullied at school partly because she comes from a fatherless family. She faced betrayal by her best friend, Wanda. In her adolescent years she developed an eating disorder. Her grandmother fears for Emily living with her disturbed mother, so she moves in with them to take over Emily’s care and welfare. Emily and her grandmother are soul mates. Things go well until Marishka becomes ill, and Anna is institutionalized. At that time both Marishka and Emily go to live with the dutiful Eva.

The strange thing is, although the bond between grandmother and granddaughter is very close, Emily grows up believing that she only has one aunt… This family secret and the reason it came about affects the entire family.

We follow Emily’s life as she goes off to college and becomes an adult. Then, after a family tragedy, the family secret is revealed…

I mused about the title. Perhaps the silence is the ‘not knowing’ of the family secret. Perhaps the vertigo is the dizzying maelstrom of emotion one feels when something shocking or life-changing is revealed.

I wondered at the many mentions of the moon. I had to look them up as I had never heard of some of them. The beaver moon, the hunter moon, the sap moon, the hunger moon, the buck moon, the planting moon. Then of course the ‘O’ in vertigo of the title on the cover is the moon… Does the author use this device to put forth the adage that the family members, although separated, are all under one moon, so therefore united? Or, did she have something profound and entirely different in mind?


Miriam Polli has written an empathetic and captivating family saga that many will enjoy. Highly recommended literary fiction!

Staff picks - The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

When a book gets a lot of buzz around it and there’s talk of movie rights, etc. then it’s truly time to check out the title and see what all the fuss is about.    

The Girl on the Train is a first novel for former journalist Paula Hawkins.  The premise is simple:  a daily train commute staring at the same buildings day in and day out.  There are predictable stops that become part of the background.  Some people are always on this train and others are occasional users.  What’s different about Rachel, the girl on the train,  is that she recognizes some of the houses at a stop.  She used to live in one, with her ex-husband, and now he’s living there with his new wife and baby daughter.   A few doors down are one of those perfect couples:   Jason and Jess (her names for them) have a great marriage, great looks, and great sex.  Rachel is envious.  But she is about to learn that things are never quite as they seem.

One day the perfect woman whose real name is Megan goes missing and the tabloids are frantic with pictures, suspects, and plenty of dirt.  Rachel is questioned by the police when her ex’s new wife Anna tells them she was drunk and out of control when Megan disappeared.   From then on Rachel inserts herself into the investigation and into the lives of those she knows and those she fantasizes about knowing. 

The ending is suspenseful and unpredictable.   I was suspicious about who the bad guy was and I was right but for all the wrong reasons.   Even the keenest detectives are occasionally stumped!

Louise

Fiction Debuts of Note: April -June 2015

Back in January, I did the first in a series of posts on promising new first novels.  It's time to take a peek at some being released in the next 3 months. Celebrate the newbies with one of these debuts!

Nothing Like Love by Sabrina Ramnanan  (April): Set in 1970s Trindad, the story of a young girl of promise whose future is turned upside down when she lands in the middle of a small town scandal. From the publisher, "A sparkling, witty and confident debut from a rising Canadian star whose Trinidadian roots and riotous storytelling heritage inform her completely delightful novel."

The Turner House by Angela Flournoy (April):  As the title implies, at the centre of this Detroit-set novel is a house; a family home that has seen 13 children pass through it. Set to be vacated by the family matriarch, the house is only worth a small percentage of what is owed on the mortgage and the Turner children must decide what to do. Ayana Mathis, author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, called it "Utterly moving and tough as nails, The Turner House is a love story as immense as the family it describes, and as complicated as the city that made them. A clear-sighted ode to the bonds that make and break us, to resilience across generations, to shared joys and solitary struggles, Flournoy's debut is as fresh and bold as they come. Commanding and un-putdownable."

The Mountain Can Wait by Sarah Leipciger (May): From a Canadian born author, a debut literary novel that is being compared to the books of Annie Proulx. From the UK publisher: "Tom Berry has always been a loner, a man content to live out his days in the wilderness with just enough ammunition and kerosene to last out the winter. A single father, he has raised his children with the same quiet and absolute dedication he brings to his forestry business, but now he’s discovering that might not have been enough." Canadian Publishing magazine Quill and Quire called it a first novel that "displays a powerful facility with language, setting, and character that in future work will undoubtedly make her a master".

White Crocodile by K.T. Medina (June): Released to positive reviews in the UK last summer, this debut thriller is now poised to capture summer readers on this side of the ocean. Tess Hardy receives a strange phone call from her ex-husband who is working in Cambodia: two weeks later he is dead and Tess travels to Cambodia to find out what happened. The Independent praised the book's "vulnerable but tenacious heroine" and The Stylist Magazine called it "a page-turning, unsettling thriller". For fans of Mo Hayder and readers of dark Scandinavian thrillers who are interested in stories set in a different locale.

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler (June): Lots of folks over on Goodreads are saying that this one will be great for fans of The Night Circus. The description makes it sound like the sort of Gothic Fiction readers frequently ask after at the library.  Simon, a librarian, receives a package from an antique bookseller -- a book of course, but a mysterious one. As he reads through the pages he finds his own family history woven into the tale. When the sister he hasn't seen in years makes a reappearance, he realizes he must quickly determine if her fate is foretold in the book's pages.

Fiction Debuts of Note: January - March 2015

I'm sure I've talked about this here before, but I love a first novel. I love the anticipation around first novels: the idea of an author who has been toiling away, trying to get their words into print and then finally, they arrive! For readers it is a chance to discover a brand new world of writing -- the sheer potential of it all is irresistible to me.

Not that it is just the idea of first novels that I'm attracted to: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marissha Pessl, The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff, White Teeth by Zadie Smith—when I go back through the list of books that I've really enjoyed, the number of first novels among them is notable.


So this year, I'm going to periodically highlight some of the first novels that are coming out: here are a few to watch out for in the first quarter.

Migratory Animals by Mary Helen Sprecht (January): From the publisher: "When Flannery, a young scientist, is forced to return to Austin from five years of research in Nigeria, she becomes torn between her two homes. Having left behind her loving fiancé without knowing when she can return, Flan learns that her sister, Molly, has begun to show signs of the crippling genetic disease that slowly killed their mother...A mesmerizing debut from an exciting young writer, Migratory Animals is a moving, thought-provoking novel, told from shifting viewpoints, about the meaning of home and what we owe each other—and ourselves"

Green on Blue by Elliot Ackerman (Feburary). Set in Afghanistan and written by a US veteran of both the Iraq and Afghan Wars, the author draws on his own experiences to tell the story of brothers Ali and Aziz and the impact of war on the lives of children. The last few years have seen a flowering of literary talent from the ranks of US war veterans: this year Redeployment by Phil Klay was a National Book Award winner, and in 2012 The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (also a first novel) was praised for its sensitive depiction of the life of a returned US soldier of the Iraq War.

The Missing One by Lucy Atkins (February): UK based author Atkin's debut suspense story about a mother, a daughter and a secret past is getting lots of rave reviews from readers of advanced copies who post on Goodreads (the word "gripping is thrown around a lot). This kind of grassroots buzz is often good news for first time authors. "The loss of her mother has left Kali McKenzie with too many unanswered questions. But while clearing out Elena’s art studio, she finds a drawer packed with postcards, each bearing an identical one-line message a Canadian gallery owner called Susannah Gillespie: thinking of you. Who is this woman and what does she know about Elena’s hidden past?" The books BC setting may make it of additional interest to Canadian readers.

Love by the Book by Melissa Pimentel (February). If those bleak Feburary days get you down, this romp -- which is getting compared to Bridget Jones' Diary and the HBO show Girls -- may be just the pick up you need. "An American living in London, Lauren is intelligent, beautiful and loves to party. So why can't she convince a man she isn't after something more serious than scrambled eggs and goodbye in the morning? Determined to snare some regular male affection, she embarks on a project: each month she will follow the rules of a different dating guide - from refusing to pay the bill to chatting up every man in her path - and will switch seamlessly to the next book at the end of each month."

The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson (March): From the publisher: "A provocative and hauntingly powerful debut novel reminiscent of Sliding Doors, that follows a woman in the 1960s who must reconcile her reality with the tantalizing alternate world of her dreams. Denver, 1962: Kitty Miller has come to terms with her unconventional single life. She can come and go as she pleases, answering to no one. Then the dreams begin. Denver, 1963: Katharyn Andersson is married to Lars, the love of her life. They have beautiful children, an elegant home, and good friends. It's everything Kitty Miller once believed she wanted - but it only exists when she sleeps."

Need more? Check out the January books to watch for post, which just so happened to include a few first novels too.

Staff Pick: The Bees by Laline Paull

Laline Paull's beautifully imagined and compelling first novel The Bees is an unusual variation on the dystopian theme: it takes place in a bee hive. When I tell people that part their eyes often glaze over and they stop listening-who wants to read a book about insects, right? How does someone even write fiction about insects? I felt the same way before I started The Bees; the book was in my house and I had nothing else to read so I picked it up as a last resort and began reading with much skepticism.

To my surprise I quickly found myself totally gripped by the story of Flora 717, a worker bee born into the lowest level of the highly complicated social structure of the bee hive. Flora doesn't conform to her class station; being unusually strong and adaptable she manages to move around within its ranks, eventually becoming an attendant to the colony's queen. She's kind of like Tris from the Divergent series -her survival depends upon keeping her unique nature a secret.

The pacing of The Bees is fast; new threats to the individual bee Flora and to her whole colony arise in every chapter, leading to some exciting battles with rival families of wasps and spiders. For me, the reading experience was very similar to reading the Hunger Games. At many points I just could not put the book down.

What I loved most about the book was the richly imagined world of the bee hive. It is at once very human and very true to the science of bee life. Flora inhabits a warm world where bees communicate by scent and dance, the hive is almost like a Renaissance palace with its intricate wax structures and courtly intrigue, and there are even some humorous moments with the foppish male bees (drones).

If you enjoyed The Bees try Barbara Gowdy's The White Bone for another gripping story of animals fighting to survive. For more imaginative dystopian worlds try Pure by Julianna Baggott, or Spark by John Twelve Hawks.

Staff Pick - Archetype by M.D. Waters

Archetype by M.D. Waters

A strong woman. A woman who goes against all that people say is true. A rebel. A fighter.


Meet Emma Burke, a true miracle to have survived a horrible accident. Or, should I say Emma Wade.

"Emma wakes in a hospital, with no memory of what came before. Her husband, Declan, a powerful, seductive man, provides her with new memories, but her dreams contradict his stories, showing her a past life she can't believe possible: memories of war, of a camp where girls are trained to be wives, of love for another man. Something inside her tells her not to speak of this, but she does not know why. She only knows she is at war with herself. Suppressing those dreams during daylight hours, Emma lets Declan mold her into a happily married woman and begins to fall in love with him. But the day Noah stands before her, the line between her reality and dreams shatters. In a future where women are a rare commodity, Emma fights for freedom but is held captive by the love of two men - one her husband, the other her worst enemy. If only she could remember which is which..." publisher

From the very first page of Archetype my mind was searching for information, answers, the key to this wildly written puzzle of a story. Waters has dispersed the past into the present with memories and characters, and pulls you into the story even more. It is a phenomenal way of writing. There were no pauses in the story, no over explanations, not one part where I could say, “Okay, I’ll put it down for a bit”. It was all greedily read to the point to exhaustion to get to the end.

Now just think this is Waters first, yes, first novel! Even better, the next installment, Prototype is on the way.

2014 Arthur Ellis Award - Best First Novel

First time novelist J. Kent Messum has won the 2014 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel for Bait.

The Arthur Ellis awards celebrate excellence in Canadian mystery writing and winners receive this very awesome statue.

In Messum's Bait "Six strangers wake up on a remote island in the Florida Keys with no memory of their arrival. They soon discover their sole common bond: all are heroin addicts. As the first excruciating pangs of withdrawal make themselves felt, the six notice a yacht anchored across open water. On it lurk four shadowy figures, protected by the hungry sharks that patrol the waves. So begins a dangerous game. The six must undertake the impossible—swim to the next island where a cache of heroin awaits, or die trying. When alliances form, betrayal is inevitable. As the fight to survive intensifies, the stakes reach terrifying heights—and their captors' motives finally begin to emerge." publisher

Past winners of the Best First Novel award include:

The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James

The Water Rat of Wanchai by Ian Hamilton

The Debba by Avner Mandelman

"Startup" by Glenn Ogura

If you read novels to relax, this debut thriller by author Glenn Ogura, “Startup” is not for you.  I was at the edge of my seat – frantically turning pages throughout.  A modern yet timeless tale of good vs. evil.  People with integrity versus the morally bereft.  Set in and around California’s Bay Area and Silicon Valley, the novel features an idealistic young entrepreneur, Zack Penny and his mentor, the ruthless CEO of a major technology business.  To further complicate things, this man, Allen Henley is also his boss and the father of the woman he loves.   When events dictate he make his move from under Allen’s wing to his own startup company, Zack believes that finally he will be able to pursue his dream of heading a tech company that values its employees – and trusts that he, and it, will become tremendously successful due to a cutting-edge, flat-screen technology founded by his friend and business colleague, Dimitre.

Zack’s dreams are short lived when he encounters roadblock after roadblock with his new venture.  Industrial espionage, corruption, personal betrayal, unethical law practices and a completely unscrupulous nemesis provide Zack with disillusion, despair and heartbreak.

“Startup” is a true page-turner.  A fast-paced legal/techno-thriller with a memorable – if slightly ‘over the top’ – climax which will appeal to all thriller readers and fans of television shows such as “The Good Wife”.

Hidden Gems - 3 top-notch Speculative Fiction novels

Three "hidden gems" of speculative fiction that have recieved critical acclaim and starred reviews.

The Dog Stars
by Peter Heller

Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. His wife is gone, his friends are dead, he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting misanthrope. In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and to pretend that things are the way they used to be. But when a random transmission somehow beams through his radio, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life--something like his old life--exists beyond the airport. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return - not enough fuel to get him home - following the trail of the static-broken voice on the radio. But what he encounters and what he must face - in the people he meets, and in himself - is both better and worse than anything he could have hoped fo.

(C) Tory Read

"Hig takes long, risky, meditative walks; tends the garden; and stubbornly takes to the air in a 1956 Cessna, searching for some remnant of civilization. Heller's surprising and irresistible blend of suspense, romance, social insight, and humor creates a cunning form of cognitive dissonance neatly pegged by Hig as an apocalyptic parody of Norman Rockwell a novel, that is, of spiky pleasure and signal resonance." - Booklist

Dreams and Shadows
by C. Robert Cargill

There is another world than our own--one no closer than a kiss and one no further than our nightmares--where all the stuff of which dreams are made is real and magic is just a step away. But once you see that world, you will never be the same. Once bold explorers and youthful denizens of this magical realm, Ewan is now an Austin musician who just met his dream girl, and Colby, meanwhile, cannot escape the consequences of an innocent wish.

"In this beautifully written debut, Ain't It Cool News Web site contributor Cargill chronicles the friendship and adventures of Ewan, stolen as a baby by the fairy-goblin crossbreeds called Bendith Y Mamau, and Colby, an eight-year-old who encounters a djinn, with an unhurried storyteller style that provides total immersion. ... Readers with delicate sensibilities should leave this one for those who enjoy a roller-coaster ride into the depths of strangeness and despair." - Publisher Weekly

Great North Road
by Peter F. Hamilton

Futuristic speculation combines with murder when a scientific expedition on a faraway planet searches for an alien species only to be stalked by a determined killer who may be a hostile alien or a member of their own team.

"The author's rapidly growing legion of fans will flock to this new title, and readers unfamiliar with Hamilton's brand of SF should be steered in its direction. It's a perfect introduction to his gifts for character design, dialogue, and sheer, big-idea-driven storytelling" - Booklist

"Hamilton excels at telling "big" stories, and his latest novel proves no exception." - Library Journal

Staff Pick - The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh

There is nothing more satisfying than discovering a talented new author who promises many enjoyable hours of reading in the future. Such a find is Laura McHugh.

Her debut novel The Weight of Blood holds the reader throughout.

The title has been cleverly chosen. The weight of blood signifies family loyalty and also guilt. Family, whether you like them or not, whether you respect them or not, still holds for most people a deep bond that surpasses all others. For family we will go against all we believe in, keep secrets that should not be kept, keep quiet about actions that should be divulged.

With a setting of a tiny, insular Ozark community, rife with superstition - the novel emits a pervasive sense of unease. The Ozarks are a place where the role of women and men are firmly divided. It is as though feminism has never been heard of…. Girls have a way of going missing there – which demonstrates how very vulnerable are those without a caring family, without that anchor-like ‘weight of blood’.

The story has four central characters: two brothers, one caring and moral – one menacing and amoral. A mother and daughter – uncannily similar in that they are very near the same age and resemble each other physically. The narrative is told mostly in the voices of Lila and Lucy, the mother a daughter, with time shifts to accommodate the fact that the plot spans two generations.

Seventeen years ago Lila Dane went missing. Her daughter Lucy who has felt the loss her entire life – wonders about the mother she never got a chance to know. Now Lucy’s school friend’s body has been discovered after being missing for over a year. Is there a connection between these two girls? As Lucy delves deeper into the disappearances, she discovers that her own family may be involved. Should the weight of blood deter her from following the path of justice? Should family loyalty sway her allegiances? Is there anyone she can trust with what she thinks is the truth?

Written with well-drawn characters in an atmospheric setting, The Weight of Blood is a page-turner in the truest sense. Congratulations to Laura McHugh on her outstanding debut novel!

Hidden Gems - 3 impressive debuts

The Returned (M) by Jason Mott

"In his exceptional debut novel, poet Mott brings drama, pathos, joy, horror, and redemption to a riveting tale of how the contemporary world handles the inexplicable reappearance of the dead. The primary focus is on Harold and Lucille Hargrave, who lost their son, Jacob, half a century ago in a tragic drowning accident on his eighth birthday. Amid global rumors about "the Returned," their son arrives at their doorstep-with an agent from the International Bureau of the Returned-still eight and healthy, as if nothing has changed in more than 50 years.

Locals have mixed feelings when Arcadia, their small, backwater Southern town, is inundated with soldiers and taken over as a refuge for the multitude of Returned who have nowhere else to go (not every family wants them back), and Mott ratchets up the tension. Are the Returned walking, breathing miracles? Or signs of the Devil and "the end of times"? Even local Pastor Robert Peters cannot decide how to respond to these people, haunted as he is by the sudden reappearance of the love of his life, a girl who died as a teen. When some of the disgruntled locals take matters into their own hands, there is an apocalypse of sorts and both the frailty and strength of human character become evident; Mott brings depth and poignancy to the Returned and their purpose for existing." - Publisher Weekly

Ghana Must Go (M) by Taiye Selasi

"A father's death leads to a new beginning for his fractured family in this powerful first novel. Kweku Sai is felled by a sudden heart attack at his home in Ghana. At the moment of his death, Kweku is filled with regret for his abandonment of his first wife, Fola, and their four children in Baltimore, many years ago, after losing his job as a surgeon.

His four children are now scattered across the East Coast: Olu, a gifted surgeon who followed in his father's footsteps; twins Taiwo and Kehinde, who share a terrible secret from childhood; and youngest daughter Sadie, who is struggling with her body image and sexuality. In the wake of their father's death, the four siblings, along with Olu's wife, Ling, reunite to journey to their mother's home in Ghana, where secrets, resentments, and grief bubble to the surface. A finely crafted yarn that seamlessly weaves the past and present, Selasi's moving debut expertly limns the way the bonds of family endure even when they are tested and strained." - Booklist

Nine Years Under: coming of age in an inner-city funeral home (M) by Sheri Booker

"*Starred Review* At 15, Booker went to work at a funeral home in West Baltimore and spent the next nine years viewing life from the perspective of death. The proprietor, Al Wylie, was fastidious and ambitious, loving to grieving families and mercurial to his staff. Having lost an aunt and fearful of losing her mother to cancer, Booker grew close to Wylie, his family, and the staff at the funeral home. Together, they watched the highs and lows of life in the neighborhood made famous by the HBO show The Wire, as drug trade and violence brought in more business.

Booker recounts emotional restraint as families grieved; the intimacy of tending to death; the discretion needed to deal with money arrangements, from Cadillac services to the blue dingy for the poor; and the diplomacy of refereeing family disputes and gangbanging retribution. She chronicles a changing urban culture as funeral garb morphed from somber black to photo-screened memorial T-shirts as more of their customers were adolescent black men. At a very tender age, Booker struggled to convince herself that death lent meaning to life for those left behind. A darkly comic memoir of life and death in urban America" - Booklist

Metaphysical Dog, and other winners...

The National Book Critics Circle have announced theirs prize winners for 2014:

Poetry
Metaphysical Dog
(M) by Frank Bidart

"Reading Frank Bidart can be a mystical, sensual, over the top, daunting experience. It can also be both ecstasy and exorcism. His poetry continually surprises and delights with its ever-changing structure, form and prosody." NBCC


First book - The John Leonard Prize
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
(M) by Anthony Marra

“A flash in the heavens that makes you look up and believe in miracles....Here, in fresh, graceful prose, is a profound story that dares to be as tender as it is ghastly, a story about desperate lives in a remote land that will quickly seem impossibly close and important....I haven’t been so overwhelmed by a novel in years. At the risk of raising your expectations too high, I have to say you simply must read this book.”  - Ron Charles, Washington Post


Autobiography
Farewell, Fred Voodoo : a letter from Haiti
(M) by Amy Wilentz

"In her gritty, surprising memoir, Wilentz enlarges her reader’s understanding and discomfort. She insists on sampling the force of Haitian history and its place in global economics, on stopping to smell the predatory journalism and an engorged, counterproductive international aid scene. This is a rare, rigorous memoir with a bibliography and index, and its author’s sharp observational experience from living in Haiti for two years and reporting there for 20, writing for the New Yorker and the Nation magazines." - NBCC


Biography
Jonathan Swift: his life and his world
(M) by Leo Damrosch

"Damrosch’s tolerance for mystery is one of the outstanding features of his spellbinding biography. Where others have filled the gaps with unsupported suppositions, Damrosch consistently surveys the available evidence and recognizes its limitations." - NCCC


Fiction
Americanah
(M) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"With Americanah, which is at once a love story, an immigrant’s tale, and a socially acute snapshot of this chaotic moment in time, she nails the idiosyncracies of three cultures. We knew Adichie was wicked smart. Now we know she can be wicked funny." - NCCC


Non-fiction
Five days at Memorial: life and death in a storm-ravaged hospital
(M) by Sheri Fink

"What Sheri Fink has delivered is a big book, not a rant, but one that is a page-turner, a book bursting with stories that defy a single narrative. This is a book about big questions. It’s about what happens when exhausted and stressed doctors and nurses are forced to practice triage, when medical resources don’t exist, and when surviving may not be living." - NCCC

New Fiction - 3 creative novels

The Blazing World (M)
by Siri Hustvedt

"With The Blazing World, internationally best­selling author Siri Hustvedt returns to the New York art world in her most masterful and urgent novel since What I Loved. Hustvedt, who has long been celebrated for her “beguiling, lyrical prose” (The Sunday Times Books, London), tells the provocative story of the artist Harriet Burden. After years of watching her work ignored or dismissed by critics, Burden conducts an experiment she calls Maskings: she presents her own art behind three male masks, concealing her female identity." - publisher

"A heady, suspenseful, funny, and wrenching novel of creativity, identity, and longing." - Booklist

Fire in the Unnameable Country (M)
by Ghalib Islam

"The universe is shaking as Hedayat, the "glossolalist" narrator of Fire in the Unnameable Country is born on a flying carpet in the skies above an obscure land whose leader has manufactured the ability to hear every unspoken utterance of the nation. He records the contents of his citizens' minds onto tape reels for archival storage. Later in Hedayat's young life, as the unnameable country collapses into disarray around him, he begins an epistle, wherein, interspersed with accounts of contemporary terrorist attacks and the outbreak of a mysterious viral epidemic, he invokes the memories of his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents to revisit the troubled country's history and expose the roots of its crisis." - puiblisher

“The 1001 Nights of its time – rooms opening into rooms, stories into stories, in the same literary mansion as Calvino, Burroughs, and other metafabulist satirists: horrifying, funny, written in a language all its own.” - Margaret Atwood 

Dept. of Speculation (M)
by Jenny Offill

"Jenny Offill’s heroine, referred to in these pages as simply “the wife,” once exchanged love letters with her husband postmarked Dept. of Speculation, their code name for all the uncertainty that inheres in life and in the strangely fluid confines of a long relationship. As they confront an array of common catastrophes—a colicky baby, a faltering marriage, stalled ambitions—the wife analyzes her predicament, invoking everything from Keats and Kafka to the thought experiments of the Stoics to the lessons of doomed Russian cosmonauts. She muses on the consuming, capacious experience of maternal love, and the near total destruction of the self that ensues from it as she confronts the friction between domestic life and the seductions and demands of art." - publisher


"Nothing depicted in this portrait of a family in quiet disarray is unfamiliar in life or in literature, and that is the artistic magic of Offill's stunning performance. She has sliced life thin enough for a microscope slide and magnified it until it fills the mind's eye and the heart." - Booklist