I'm reading up a storm over here! Want to know what's good? Read on!
Need to Know, by Karen Cleveland. CIA analyst Vivian Miller loves her job and her family. Her husband is her best friend, they know one another better than anyone. Or so she thinks. One chance click as she researches brings her personal life crashing down around her, forcing Vivian to wonder whether her whole life is really a lie. This thriller from newcomer Cleveland is fast-paced and tightly plotted, gripping and compelling. I absolutely couldn't stand to put it down. Highly recommended. Also available in Large Print and audio.
My Absolute Darling, by Gabriel Tallent. Tallent's debut novel is not a read for the faint of heart. Fourteen-year-old Turtle lives a life unimaginable to her neighbors and classmates. Her father and grandfather live off the grid, her father obsessed with the certainty that doomsday is nigh. He prepares Turtle for this eventuality, teaching her to forage, to shoot, to hunt, to survive. She does survive, but she only imagines thriving after meeting Jacob, a boy who makes her want to live a normal, safe, sustainable life. Turtle must struggle to be her own hero, to extricate herself from the twisted relationship with her father. This is a harrowing, heartbreaking story, and I cannot wait to see what Tallent writes next. Also available in audio.
George & Lizzie, by Nancy Pearl. It has been a month for me to read debut novels, it seems. Nancy Pearl is "America's librarian" and a regular NPR commentator. Her first novel is about relationships, and how we can become stuck by our decisions, by what we keep from our past and what we choose to let go. George and Lizzie are as different as they could possibly be. George is from a warm, close family, Lizzie an only child raised by two very emotionally distant psychologists. Their marriage reflects this--George is happy, Lizzie is chronically unfulfilled and full of secrets. When crisis looms, Lizzie must decide once and for all, does she move on at long last? Or does she stick with what she knows? Wryly funny, this story really grew on me, and upon reflection with a little distance, I find myself looking forward to rereading this in the future with the benefit of foresight. Also available in Large Print.
A Stash of One's Own, edited by Clara Parkes. This collection of essays by knitters, designers, writers, spinners, and shepherds, among others, focuses on the individuality and approach to the ubiquitous yarn stash. For some, more is (almost) always more. Others have developed a zen-like minimalist approach, a KonMari-esque method of keeping only that which inspires one to create. Still others only keep on hand that which is necessary to design, refusing to keep anything beyond. Knitters are each as unique as artists in any other medium, and these essays were quite eye-opening on how widely varied their approach to their stash can be.
When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. I've been reading ahead a bit for my book club--this is our selection for our June meeting. I was hesitant to read this, the memoir of a brilliant neurosurgeon turned patient with stage IV lung cancer, because I didn't want to read something sad. And yet, I read it early so that I might have some distance when we talked about it for book club. What I did not expect was to be completely overwhelmed by the wisdom, the deep thoughtfulness, that Kalanithi conveyed as his future disappeared and he was forced to stop planning and live in a perpetual present. Words like "beautiful" and "deeply moving" are inadequate to describe this slim volume teeming with meaning. Also available in Large Print and audio.
Spoonbenders, by Daryl Gregory. Teddy Telemachus is a con man with a talent for sleight of hand and some very unsavory associates who tricks his way into a classified government experiment concerning the use of telekinesis for intelligence-gathering. It's there that he meets the woman he's going to marry, Maureen McKinnon, a genuinely powerful psychic. Their Amazing Telemachus family becomes a show-biz act, each of the children with a gift of his or her own, until a television appearance that could have made them big-time goes horribly awry, and begins to tear the family apart from the inside. Two decades later, the family is growing steadily more dysfunctional, full of love-affairs, mob debts, and inexplicable behavior. The CIA is sniffing around again. And then things start to get weird... Laugh-out-loud funny and perfectly told, this is for the dreamers and believers in all of us.
Sourdough, by Robin Sloan. From the author of the extremely awesome Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore comes a new novel about food and technology. Lois Clary is a programmer working for a San Francisco company specializing in robotics tech. She enjoys her grueling work, but her joy comes from her regular takeout from a hole-in-the-wall eatery that brings her spicy soups and sandwiches each night. When the eatery suddenly closes, the owners gift Lois with their sourdough starter, and Lois suddenly finds herself baking bread. Then selling bread and gifting it. Then finds herself invited into a new breed of farmers' market seeking to fuse food and technology. But who are these people, really? Funny and insightful, Sloan's second novel delivers. I look forward to his next!
The Family Gathering, by Robyn Carr. Third in Carr's newest series, Sullivan's Crossing, The Family Gathering finds Dakota Jones freshly a civilian after a long career with the military. He decides to head to the Crossing, where both his older brother and youngest sister have settled down with their respective significant others. He's drawn to the place and its people, but also finds himself a magnet for trouble, especially that of the female variety. He's been trying to keep his options open, and trouble is something he'd like to avoid. He and his siblings gather for a family wedding, the first time all four have been together as adults, and it's here that he starts to understand their shared history a little better, and how he'd like to direct his life in the future. A sweet and easy read, if slightly overstuffed. Also available in Large Print and audio.
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