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Happy May, book lovers! This month is JAM PACKED with events and reviews, but before we get started, one quick reminder: You can buy audiobooks from Unabridged now! We've partnered with libro.fm to bring you thousands of audiobooks. Signing up is quick and easy, simply follow the link to find out how to set up an account.
Without further ado, on to the month's business. You know the drill: Scroll down for the goods. See you soon!
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See what's happening on our social sites:
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Melanie Benjamin will join by Louis Bayard in conversation on Wednesday, May 1st at 7PM. A Q&A and book signing will follow the discussion.
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"When Mary Todd meets Abraham Lincoln in Springfield in the winter of 1840, he is on no one’s short list to be president. A country lawyer living above a dry goods shop, he is lacking both money and manners, and his gift for oratory surprises those who meet him. Mary, a quick, self-possessed debutante with an interest in debates and elections, at first finds him an enigma. “I can only hope,” she tells his roommate, the handsome, charming Joshua Speed, “that his waters being so very still, they also run deep.” It’s not long, though, before she sees the Lincoln that Speed knows: an amiable, profound man who, despite his awkwardness, has a gentle wit to match his genius, and who respects her keen political mind. But as her relationship with Lincoln deepens, she must confront his inseparable friendship with Speed, who has taught his roommate how to dance, dress, and navigate the polite society of Springfield. Told in the alternating voices of Mary Todd and Joshua Speed, and inspired by historical events, Courting Mr. Lincoln creates a sympathetic and complex portrait of Mary unlike any that has come before; a moving portrayal of the deep and very real connection between the two men; and most of all, an evocation of the unformed man who would grow into one of the nation’s most beloved presidents. Louis Bayard, a master storyteller, delivers here a page-turning tale of love, longing, and forbidden possibilities." - Algonquin
In hardcover, fiction, 27.95; Algonquin Books.
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Layne Fargo join Julia Fine in conversation on Wednesday, May 8th at 7PM. A Q&A and book signing will follow the discussion.
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"Cursed. Maisie Cothay has never known the feel of human flesh: born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, she has spent her childhood sequestered in her family’s manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisie’s father, an anthropologist who sees her as more experiment than daughter, has warned Maisie not to venture into the wood. Locals talk of men disappearing within, emerging with addled minds and strange stories. What he does not tell Maisie is that for over a millennium her female ancestors have also vanished into the wood, never to emerge—for she is descended from a long line of cursed women. But one day Maisie’s father disappears, and Maisie must venture beyond the walls of her carefully constructed life to find him. Away from her home and the wood for the very first time, she encounters a strange world filled with wonder and deception. Yet the farther she strays, the more the wood calls her home. For only there can Maisie finally reckon with her power and come to understand the wildest parts of herself." - Harper Collins
In paperback, fiction, 16.99; Harper Perennial.
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Jennifer Acker will join Poetry Magazine's Don Share for an evening of readings and discussion on Wednesday, May 15th at 7PM. A Q&A and book signing will follow the program.
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"The Chandaria family—emigrants from the Indian-enclave of Nairobi—have managed to flourish in America. Premchand, the father, is a doctor who has worked doggedly to grow his practice and give his family security; his wife, Urmila, runs a business importing artisanal Kenyan crafts; and their son, Sunil, after quitting the pre-med track, has gotten accepted to a PhD program in philosophy at Harvard. But the parents have kept a very important secret from Sunil: his cousin, Bimal, is actually his older brother. And when this previously hidden history is revealed by an unforeseen accident, and the entire family is forced to return to Nairobi, Sunil reveals his own well-kept, explosive secret: his Jewish-American girlfriend, who has accompanied him to Kenya, is, in fact, already his wife. Spanning four generations and three continents, The Limits of the World illuminates the vast mosaic of cultural divisions and ethical considerations that shape the ways in which we judge one another’s actions. A dazzling debut novel—written with rare empathy and insight—it is a powerful depiction of how we prevent ourselves, unwittingly and otherwise, from understanding the people we are closest to." - Delphinium Books
In hardcover, fiction, 26.95; Delphinium Books.
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On Tuesday, May 28th at 7PM Michael Carroll and Aaron Hamburger will read from their new books, Stella Maris and Other Key West Stories and Nirvana is Here . A book signing will follow the program.
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About Stella Maris and Other Key West Stories :
"Stella Maris is about the verities of illness and death. The past and its prisoners, AIDS, the young and not so young man’s realization of his own mortality. It’s about the unpredictable nature of life, and of survival. It’s about new beginnings and final recognitions." - Turtle Point
In paperback, fiction, 17.00; Turtle Point Press.
About Nirvana Is Here :
"When his ex-husband is accused of sexual harassment in the #metoo era, history professor Ari Silverman is forced to confront long-buried trauma from his childhood, where he and his high school crush bonded over the raw emotion of Kurt Cobain's lyrics in the segregated suburbs of 1990s Detroit." - Three Rooms
In paperback, fiction, 16.00; Three Rooms Press.
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Our book club will meet to discuss Motherhood on Monday, June 3rd at 7PM. Copies of the book are available for purchase at our front counter.
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"In Motherhood, Sheila Heti asks what is gained and what is lost when a woman becomes a mother, treating the most consequential decision of early adulthood with the candor, originality, and humor that have won Heti international acclaim and made How Should A Person Be? required reading for a generation. In her late thirties, when her friends are asking when they will become mothers, the narrator of Heti’s intimate and urgent novel considers whether she will do so at all. In a narrative spanning several years, casting among the influence of her peers, partner, and her duties to her forbearers, she struggles to make a wise and moral choice. After seeking guidance from philosophy, her body, mysticism, and chance, she discovers her answer much closer to home. Motherhood is a courageous, keenly felt, and starkly original novel that will surely spark lively conversations about womanhood, parenthood, and about how—and for whom—to live." - Picador
In paperback, fiction, 18.00; Picador USA.
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Like Autumn and Winter before it, Spring is a novel of this moment (Trump, Brexit, #MeToo ), where Smith uses art and literature to navigate through the present (“the frantic landscape of the now,” says the Guardian), to get under the skin of our times, focusing this time on refugees and immigrant detention centers. We admire Smith’s inventiveness, her playfulness with words, her humor, her lively dialogue and identifiable characters, the novel’s layered structure and how she shuffles time. On the novel’s final page, Smith proclaims spring “the great connective,” and that is indeed what unites Katharine Mansfield, Rainer Marie Rilke, the artist Tacita Dean (her drawing The Montafon Letter, a potent symbol of the future rearing up in front of us!), immigrant detention centers and Shakespeare’s Pericles, lost souls and our contemporary madness. This is an utterly compelling novel for our time, an interplay of ideas and images that I loved! ED LOVED AND HIGHLY RECOMMENDS!!
In hardcover, fiction, 25.95; Pantheon Books .
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As Salman Rushdie says in the opening line of his front-page NYT Book Review of The Old Drift , “Something is happening in African literature. The women are coming,” and Namwali Serpell is part of this new wave. The Old Drift is an extraordinary, ambitious, woman-centered debut novel that tells the intertwined stories of three very different families (white and black, African, British and Italian but now all Zambian,) a multigenerational saga exploring Zambia’s past, present and near future. It moves beyond history to a kind of modern mythmaking, a panorama of history and fairytale, incorporating elements of rich fabulism and modern realism, with the novel’s greatest strength lying in its vivid and imaginative depiction of several amazing female characters. Rich in its painterly eye for detail, ED LOVED AND HIGHLY RECOMMENDS!!
In hardcover, fiction, 28.00; Hogarth.
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Available May 14th!
Max Porter’s disquieting second novel takes a seemingly simple narrative and complicates it, imbuing it with dark English folklore and prose so luminous it threatens to turn into poetry right on the page. It seems reductive to describe what the book is about, but a contemporary small English village is the setting for this story about an odd, imaginative boy named Lanny, the boy’s parents, a once-celebrated artist now living in obscurity, and “Dead Papa Toothwort,” a thought- reading, mythical being who becomes obsessed with Lanny. Though this magical tale is inspired by ancient fables, it is thoroughly modern and surprisingly topical, exploring the irrational fear of “outsiders” and the prejudices and myopia of small, isolated communities. Peppered with humor as well as a sinister eeriness, Lanny disarms you with its wit and playfulness, only to smack you with gritty, painful reality. Max Porter is an adventurous and innovative storyteller, delicately balancing the surreal with the matter-of-fact, and like his first novel, Grief is the Thing With Feathers , both narrative form and content work to tell the story. This could be gimmicky in lesser hands, but Porter is superb at what he does. Shane recommends this moving book!
In hardcover, fiction, 24.95; Graywolf Press.
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Women Talking is a powerful critique of patriarchal culture, a riveting and disturbing tale that exists both as an allegory and as an examination of the real-life, horrifying contemporary events that took place in a Mennonite community in Bolivia. Canadian novelist Miriam Toews (who was also born in a Mennonite community) tells this stark tale in the form of the minutes from the clandestine meetings between the women of the community, when they finally come together to confront their options – do nothing, stay and fight, or run away. Ethical conundrums abound, with most of the tension arising from the choice between religion or liberation, and how, if possible, to remain faithful to a system that has been used to subjugate and betray them. The focus of Women Talking is on survival over trauma, and Toews explores faith, innocence, complicity, and determination in a toxic culture of violence and systemic oppression with searing urgency and insight. There is a redemptive power in solidarity and controlling one’s own destiny, and the haunting tale of Women Talking can attest to this. Shane recommends.
In hardcover, fiction, 24.00; Bloomsbury Publishing.
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Lie With Me by Philippe Besson is an achingly beautiful novel of a writer looking back on a defining, secret affair he had with another boy in his class in 1984. The adult Philippe conveys his memories of first love in richly described, erotic detail. The novel flows so effortlessly and believably, and the precision of the language is so remarkable, that not a single sentence seems out of place, the story perfectly wrought and constructed. The novel’s simplicity belies its power--the power of just the right words to communicate intense passion, profound eroticism and the pain of exquisite desire, capturing the poignancy and heightened emotional impact of first love. It is translated with a subtle beauty and haunting lyricism by acclaimed actress/writer Molly Ringwald (yes, MOLLY RINGWALD!) in her first-ever work of translation! One of my favorite gay novels in recent years! ED LOVED AND HIGHLY RECOMMENDS!
In hardcover, fiction, 24.95; Scribner Book Company.
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There seems to be no shortage of books about Roman history and, by Zeus, I've read my fair share, but a new book by Cornell's "Red Hot Prof," Barry Strauss, always commands my attention. He has a very engaging style and Ten Caesars is filled with vivid descriptions of historical moments and nuanced presentations of ten different and notable Roman leaders. His focus on framing each Caesar within his respective historical context results in a book with an array of unique three-dimensional characters and events, including the emperors, military generals, and refreshingly, the many women who helped shape Roman history. Written for both novice and scholar, this is informative, erudite, and captivating history! Ianni recommends.
In hardcover, non-fiction, 28.00; Simon & Schuster.
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“Nearly everything we understand about global warming was understood in 1979…” begins this eloquent yet sobering account that attempts to answer the “why didn’t we stop this?” question that is on so many minds. Usually when making predictions about the future, people look to the past for guidance. But climate change of this magnitude is unprecedented in the history of mankind, and during the early stages when we could’ve stopped it, no one seriously considered the prospect of failure. Rich believes that we can’t truly comprehend our present and future plight without understanding how we so spectacularly failed when we still had a chance. Losing Earth reads like a classic Greek tragedy, with the scientists and environmentalists playing the thankless role of Cassandra. Rich takes readers on a meticulously researched and readable journey through policymakers and scientists, political toxicity and corporate propaganda, the vile fossil fuel industry, willful ignorance, denialism, and self-delusion. It’s a frustrating and in the end, devastating journey, sure to be a revelation for younger generations who are burdened with this mess. Losing Earth isn’t a warning, because climate change is here. Nor does this book provide all the answers. It does, however, provide an important framework and contextual history for this global catastrophe that we brought upon ourselves. Shane recommends!
In hardcover, non-fiction, 25.00; MCD.
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We featured Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl when it was first published by Rescue in November of 2018. After becoming an instant classic, the title was acquired by Random House and is once again available! Here we've reproduced Katharine's original review and Ed's new one:
"A coming-of-age story with a fantastic twist, this playful picaresque follows Paul, a narcissist dandy endowed with the ability to shapeshift at will. Driven to restlessness by his omnivorous performative and sexual impulses, Paul hits the road, inhabiting various identities as he winds his way from Iowa City to the Michigan Womyn's Festival to Provincetown to San Francisco, appraising the radical possibilities of his body's malleability all the while. As Paul reckons with the implications of his body's flux, he begins to come to terms with the fixed terms of his personal identity, discovery that no matter how often he changes he cannot outrun his past. Peppered with fanciful asides that hint at Paul's mythological origins and chock full of references to queer hallmarks of the 1990s, this book is a pure delight!" - Katharine
" Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl is frenetic, sexy, sexual, queer/genderqueer, smart, funny and vibrant, mixing pop culture and gender theory, a cross-country journey of adventure (Iowa City, New York City, Provincetown, San Francisco) pulsing with music and filled with an array of sex and love and desire that is gender-bending/gender-defying. Reading it felt exhilarating and liberating, a barrage of pure fun full of gorgeous writing, intellectual riffs and cultural observations. This modern cult classic takes you on a wild and riotous ride--Paul (Polly) is a shapeshifter who can change gender at will, Paul’s sexual prowess across the gender spectrum blurring the lines between masculine/feminine/boy/girl/ gay/straight/lesbian/trans. As Michelle Tea says, “if you like your humor super smart and your theory full of camp and irony and heart, you won’t be able to put this book down.” - Ed
In paperback, fiction, 16.95; Vintage .
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Available in paperback on May 7th!
The title of Rachel Kushner’s new novel, The Mars Room , refers to a seedy, San Francisco strip club, where the book’s central narrator Romy worked giving lap dances, before being sent for life to a women’s prison after killing a sicko who stalked her. We are introduced to a host of commanding, contradictory characters (mostly women, but some men) living desperate lives on the margins of society. Kushner takes an eviscerating look at incarceration, at what it means to be poor and female in America, persuasively portraying a dark and gritty picture of women trapped, not only in prison, but in the wrong body, the wrong family, the wrong circumstances. The Mars Room is a complex novel whose moral scope goes beyond prison; it asks the reader to ponder bigger questions--brutality and power, poverty and powerlessness, the possibility of redemption, and the idea of choice and free will (Dostoyevsky is referenced.) Somehow in her prose Kushner brings beauty to even the ugliest surroundings; gritty, heartbreaking, searing and tragic, The Mars Room is fiction at its finest, an immersive reading experience with the ferocious power of a Jim Carroll or Denis Johnson novel! ED LOVED AND HIGHLY RECOMMENDS!
In paperback, fiction, 17.00; Scribner Book Company.
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Available in paperback May 7th!
The Perfectionists is about the pursuit of precision—accuracy, exactitude and mechanical perfection- in measurement, inventions, tools, buildings, and science, about precision as an essential component of our civilized existence. In 10 chapters, moving forward in time and increased degrees of precision, from weapons to Model T’s and Rolls-Royces to jet propulsion engines to computer chips, in a conversational tone with many personal asides, Simon Winchester discusses our ever-increasingly precise world, and our endless drive to improve exactitude vs our reverence for craft and our fondness for the imperfect. Of interest to those who love science, technology or good narrative non-fiction. ED LOVED AND RECOMMENDS!
In paperback, non-fiction, 17.99; Harper Perennial .
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Available in paperback May 7th!
The Word is Murder is terrific! This engrossing mystery about a woman, who plans her own funeral and hours later is murdered, is so well executed that I could have read another 200 pages of it. Original, fun, and deeply satisfying. Another great book by the celebrated author of Moriarty and The Magpie Murders. Owen loved it!
In paperback, fiction, 16.99; Harper Perennial.
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Available in paperback May 7th!
I were struck from the first page of this electric debut novel, throughout which Orange brings together and tears apart an unforgettable cast of characters. Each successive voice embroiders and illuminates the experience of the “urban Native American.” As the cast is drawn together toward the Big Oakland Powwow, each character reveals their aches, loves, fraught histories, and inescapable legacies. Orange tempers the violence of this book with great beauty, and even the most troubling characters are not denied their humanity. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next! Tim and Katharine recommend!
In paperback, fiction, 17.00; Vintage .
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This book was a joy to read! With Clock Dance , Tyler masterfully brings ot life Willa Drake, starting with her childhood in the '60s and her chaotic family, to her college years and choosing between love and career, to the present day, where a strange call leads her to Baltimore, connecting her to an unforgettable family and their community of friends and neighbors. This gives us a full picture of Willa, who is patient and kind to a fault. But when will she start thinking of her own happiness? You have to read to find out! Relatively light and brisk, if you loved Kathleen Rooney's Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk I would check this book out. Tim recommends!
In paperback, fiction, 16.95; Vintagel.
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“The job of being human is not figuring things out but getting lost in thought.” –Patricia Hampl
The Art of the Wasted Day is about celebrating the daydream life, serenity over striving, the joy of being lost in thought, the need for idleness, the “wasted” day , one spent reflecting, musing, pondering, wondering, reading, ruminating, taking comfort in existence unfurling easefully, an antidote to life conceived as a to-do list. It is an extraordinary book-- joyful, rhapsodic, delightful, exuding a quiet, lyrical fierceness. Patricia Hampl, modern-day heir to the great essayist Montagne (her hero!), possesses an idiosyncratic curiousity, and these vignettes and sketches ( ESSAYS!) on loss and remembrance range from meditations on travel to the notion of solitude, Montaigne, the writing life, the reading life, essay as an art form, the Ladies of Llangollen, and Gregor Mendel, all in celebration of the “sublime sensation of just being alive.” ED LOVED THIS JUBILANT BOOK, and HIGHLY RECOMMENDS!!
In paperback, non-fiction, 17.00; Penguin Books .
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The eponymous hero of Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black is an 11-year-old enslaved boy from Barbados nicknamed “Wash”. Wash’s life on the Faith Plantation is defined by violence and hardship until one day the plantation master’s brother, an inventor nicknamed Titch, travels to Faith to attempt to build a flying machine. Titch borrows Wash to assist him in his labors, exposing him to a world of enlightment-era scientific investigation and transforming his life forever. This enthralling adventure story captures a sense of wonder at scientific discovery balanced against the human cost of progress in the 19th century. Spellbinding! Katharine recommends.
In paperback, fiction, 16.95; Vintage.
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Finally! A comprehensive and easy to understand history of the dinosaur -- one that i never knew I wanted but completely captivated me! While some readers will learn and love soaking in all of this info on paleontology, the real meat of this book, for me, was Steve's detailed account of the dinosaur's ascent and their claustrophobic fall. In the meantime, learn about why dinosaurs got so big, how impressive the T-Rex really was, and what makes birds the closest descendant! A fascinating read, and a lot of fun! Tim recommends!
In paperback, non-fiction, 18.99; William Morrow & Company .
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**Featured Backlist*
Find Guapa in our featured LGBTQ fiction shelf!
“The morning begins with shame.” So begins the story of Rasa, a gay, Muslim man living in an unnamed Arab City who has just been found in bed with is lover Taymour, discovered in the act by his grandmother Teta. He later learns that his best friend Maj has been arrested, whether for his sexual preference or for his political activism is a mystery. The novel spans a single day, containing these events and their fallout while Rasa wrestles with family history, memories of his time in the US, his country’s uncertain political landscape, and his own desires. Central to Haddad’s debut novel is the Eib, what he says “is like a social code. It binds communities and creates boundaries and creates trust. But at the same time, it can be very constricting.” For Rasa this is a burden, the threat of shame that isolates him. He is defined by the identity that his community rejects. In his post-Arab Spring home country he is queer, in post-9-11 US he is “too Arab.” Wherever Rasa finds himself, he is the “other.” The heart of this story is in the human web spun around Rasa: his loyalty to Maj, his liability to Teta, his longing for Taymour. Guapa is a remarkable novel that reckons with individual integrity, cultural conformity, and what it is to be queer in the Middle East. Matty recommends!
In paperback, fiction, 16.95; Other Press.
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