- December 20, 2018
The Poet X
Elizabeth Acevedo
Xiomara Batista is a teenage girl living in Harlem. Her mother is a devout Catholic; her father a mostly-silent presence haunting the living room; her twin brother whip-smart but timid. As the only daughter in her Dominican family, there are certain expectations of Xiomara: that she attend church regularly, that she ...
Read more… - December 20, 2018
Bloody Jack: Being an account of the curious adventures of Mary “Jacky” Faber, ship’s boy
L.A. Meyer, read by Kathrine Kellgren
Mary Faber has nothing left of her family. Mother, Father and her younger sister have all died in the plague besieging London. It is the 1800s, a time when an orphan thrown forcefully onto the streets ...
Read more… - December 19, 2018
The Overstory
Richard Powers
This is a novel that will keep you thinking long after you have finished reading it. Part One (called “Roots”) is almost a stand-alone collection of short stories about each of nine main characters in the book. Their stories all are very different, but extremely compelling, and sometimes heartbreaking. Some ...
Read more… - December 19, 2018
Head On: A Novel of the Near Future
John Scalzi
John Scalzi’s new book, Head On: A Novel of the Near Future, is not your usual police procedural. It’s gripping science fiction that is inventive and unpredictable. Head On‘s narrator is FBI agent Chris Shane, who is smart, rich, and cocky. He’s also ...
Read more… - December 19, 2018
When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought
Jim Holt
For the past few years, I’ve been happily reading books about physics, written by physicists for the general public. Many of the authors, such as Brian Greene, Michio Kaku and Carlo Rovelli, are such good writers that they can fool you into thinking you ...
Read more… - December 19, 2018
Strange Star
Emma Carroll
I have been reading children’s authors lately. I have been so impressed with the issues they take on to help children see and hear the world, both the positive and not-so-positive. Issues like bullying, or dealing with a disability, or nutrition and growing vegetables, or learning to write computer language or how to ...
Read more… - December 19, 2018
Promise
Minrose Gwin
The 1936 Tupelo-Gainesville tornado outbreak is one of the deadliest ever recorded in U.S. history. Minrose Gwin’s 2018 historical novel, Promise, is about this dangerous F5 tornado that hit Tupelo, Mississippi and surrounding areas, without warning, causing wide-spread devastation during the 16-hour rampage which resulted in the deaths of 454 people and ...
Read more… - December 19, 2018
The Trouble with Goats and Sheep
Joanna Cannon
When I started this book, I told a colleague that I was predisposed to dislike it because the first few chapters are told from the perspective of 10-year-old Grace. Too charming for me, I thought.
I stuck with it though, and I am glad. There are ...
Read more… - December 19, 2018
One Goal: A Coach, A Team, and the Game that Brought A Divided Town Together
Amy Bass
From Kirkus Reviews:
United by a common dream, high school soccer players overcome racism in a town in Maine.
Lewiston was once a nearly all-white mill town on the verge of economic collapse. Then hundreds of Somali refugees poured into the ...
Read more… - December 19, 2018
The Woman in the Window
A.J. Finn
One word of advice if you pick up A.J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window: be prepared to clear your schedule. Once you get into the story, you won’t be able to walk away.
Anna Fox, once a child-psychologist who seemed to have it all, is suffering from ...
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