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Books in the National Media June 2019 Books People are Talking About! |
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Evvie Drake starts over : a novel by Linda Holmes"In a small town in Maine, recently widowed Eveleth "Evvie" Drake rarely leaves her house. Everyone in town, including her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside, and she doesn't correct them. In New York, Dean Tenney, former major-league pitcher and Andy's childhood friend, is struggling with a case of the "yips": he can't throw straight anymore, and he can't figure out why. An invitation from Andy to stay in Maine for a few months seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button. When Dean moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie's house, the two make a deal: Dean won't ask about Evvie's late husband, and Evvie won't ask about Dean's baseball career. Rules, though, have a funny way of being broken--and what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more. But before they can find out what might lie ahead, they'll have to wrestle a few demons: the bonds they've broken, the plans they've changed, and the secrets they've kept. They'll need a lot of help, but in life, as in baseball, there's always a chance--right up until the last out". Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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Fleishman is in trouble : a novel by Taffy Brodesser-AknerDivorcing his hostile wife when he concludes he could find genuine happiness elsewhere, a doctor is astonished when his ex abruptly disappears, making him unable to move on without acknowledging painful truths about his marriage. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7, NPR's Weekend Edition, June 15
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The brink by James S. MurrayWhen the bloodthirsty creatures that wreaked havoc underneath New York spread throughout the world, Tom Cafferty and his team battle a secret organization that is holding nations hostage using information about how to save humanity. Featured on Fox & Friends, June 17
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Khalid Mirza knows his mother will find him a wife more appropriate than outspoken Ayesha Shamsi; too bad he can't stop thinking about her. Ayesha sees how conservative Khalid disapproves of her family, her teaching job, and the poetry she performs at a local lounge, but she can't seem to stop running into him, first in their east Toronto neighborhood, then on the organizing committee for the Muslim Youth Conference at their mosque. This modern, Muslim update of Pride and Prejudice will have readers smiling as they recognize the clever ways debut novelist Jalaluddin incorporates Austen's words into her work. But even more powerful are the updated details: Khalid's traditional dress causes trouble with his racist manager (a plus-size lingerie company unexpectedly comes to the rescue); Ayesha's independence and feminism make her stand out when she wants to blend in. Mistaken identity, Tim Hortons, a wrestling life coach, a villain who puts Wickham to shame, and a spoiled cousin obsessed with marriage all add to the richness of this winning novel. Ayesha, especially, is Lizzie Bennet-level relatable: sometimes she says more than she should, but she is always true to herself, and it's pretty swoon-worthy to watch Khalid grow to deserve her. Reivew from Booklist Magazine. Featured on NPR Book Reviews, June 9
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The tenth muse by Catherine ChungDetermined to conquer the Riemann hypothesis in the face of cultural discrimination against women intellectuals, a genius mathematician uncovers a mysterious theorem's unexpected World War II link to her family. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, June 18
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Everything Inside : Stories by Edwidge DanticatA single-volume collection of short stories by the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Brother, I'm Dying is set in such locales as Miami, Port-au-Prince and the Caribbean and poignantly explores the forces that unite and divide. Featured in the Baltimore Sun, June 9
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Bowlaway : a novel by Elizabeth McCracken"A sweeping and enchanting new novel from the widely beloved, award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken about three generations of an unconventional New England family who own and operate a candlepin bowling alley". Featured in Entertainment Weekly, June 14/21 |
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The wedding party by Jasmine Guillory"The next charming romance by The New York Timesbestselling author of The Proposal. Maddie and Theo have two things in common: 1. Alexa is their best friend 2. They hate each other After an "oops, we made a mistake" night together, neither one can stop thinking about the other. With Alexa's wedding rapidly approaching, Maddie and Theo both share bridal party responsibilities that require more interaction with each other than they're comfortable with. Underneath the sharp barbs they toss at each other is a simmering attraction that won't fade. It builds until they find themselves sneaking off together to release some tension when Alexa isn't looking. But as with any engagement with a nemesis, there are unspoken rules that must be abided by. First andforemost, don't fall in love". \Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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In West Mills by De'Shawn Charles WinslowA woman in mid-20th-century rural North Carolina, determined to live on her own terms in spite of community gossip, finds unexpected support from a veteran fixer who struggles with an inability to correct his own troubled past. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7, Baltimore Sun, June 9 |
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Mostly dead things by Kristen N. ArnettTaking over her family's failing taxidermy shop in the wake of her father's suicide, a grief-stricken woman pursues less-than-legal ways of generating income while struggling to figure out her place among her eccentric loved ones. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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Magic for liars by Sarah GaileyIn a first novel by a Hugo Award-winning writer, a private investigator and talented liar embarks on a search for a killer at a California private academy for mages where her estranged, magically gifted twin hides in plain sight. Featured on NPR Book Reviews, June 8 |
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On earth we're briefly gorgeous : a novel by Ocean Vuong"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity" Featured on NPR Author Interviews, June 1, Entertainment Weekly, June 14/21, Baltimore Sun, June 9 |
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The tenth muse by Catherine ChungDetermined to conquer the Riemann hypothesis in the face of cultural discrimination against women intellectuals, a genius mathematician uncovers a mysterious theorem's unexpected World War II link to her family. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7
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The need : a novel by Helen PhillipsA woman grapples with the complex dualities of motherhood—joy and dread, tenderness and anxiety—after confronting a masked intruder in her home. By the author of The Beautiful Bureaucrat. Featured in the Baltimore Sun, June 9
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The history of living forever by Jake WolffDevastated when his teacher and crush bafflingly dies from an overdose, a senior-year chemistry student peruses his mentor's journals and uncovers a centuries-old quest for the Elixir of Life. A first novel. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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Call your daughter home by Deb SperaStruggling to recover after a natural pest invasion devastates the economy of 1924 South Carolina, three fierce Southern women unite against terrible injustices that have overshadowed their small-town community. A first novel. Featured on NPR Book Review, June 14
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Recursion by Blake CrouchAssigned to the case of a suicide victim who claimed her son's existence had been erased, investigator Barry Sutton follows leads to the outbreak of a memory-altering disease and the technological innovations of a controversial neuroscientist. Featured in The Baltimore Sun, June 9, NPR Book Review, June 13 |
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China dream by Jian MaA Chinese government bureaucrat tasked with overwriting people’s dreams with visions President Xi’s great China Dream is haunted by nightmares of the purges and murders of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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The spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer RyanA follow-up to The Chilbury Ladies' Choir finds scandalous divorcée Mrs. Braithwaite traveling to World War II London in search of her missing daughter, an effort that is complicated by a difficult secret. Featured on NPR Book Reviews, June 9 |
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Ask again, yes : a novel by Mary Beth KeaneWhen a violent event forcibly ends their romance, the son and daughter of two NYPD rookies reconnect years later and struggle to prevent the past from triggering another separation. By the author of Fever. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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Among the Lost by Emiliano MongeA devastating and surreal novel about the defining issue of the 21st century: illegal immigration. Featured on NPR Book Review, June 17 |
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FKA USA : a novel by Reed KingAn imaginative near-future dystopian tale follows the experiences of a young man who is picked out of obscurity by America's last president to lead a talking goat on a mission to save civilization. Featured in The Wall Street Journal, June 21, NPR Book Review, June 19 |
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Mrs. Everything : a novel by Jennifer Weiner"A smart, thoughtful, and timely exploration of two sisters' lives from the 1950s to the present as they struggle to find their places--and be true to themselves--in a rapidly evolving world. Mrs. Everything is an ambitious, richly textured journey through history--and herstory--as these two sisters navigate a changing America over the course of their lives". Featured in Entertainment Weekly, June 14/21 |
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Cari Mora by Thomas HarrisA ruthless man driven by unspeakable appetites to pursue a fortune in cartel gold finds his efforts challenged by a war survivor with unusual talents. By the award-winning author of Silence of the Lambs. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7
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Featured on NPR Book Review, June 12
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The snakes : a novel by Sadie JonesA family visit at a snake-infested hotel in Burgundy is complicated by a new husband's insecurities about his psychologist wife's wealthy parents, difficult personal secrets and a brutal tragedy. By the award-winning author of The Outcast. Featured on NPR's Author Interviews, June 23
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FKA USA : a novel by Reed KingAn imaginative near-future dystopian tale follows the experiences of a young man who is picked out of obscurity by America's last president to lead a talking goat on a mission to save civilization. Illustrations. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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The sentence is death by Anthony HorowitzDetective Daniel Hawthorne and his literary sidekick risk their lives to expose dangerous secrets while investigating the murder of a celebrity divorce lawyer and teetotaler who was bludgeoned to death with an expensive bottle of wine. Featured on NPR Book Reviews, June 8
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Fleishman is in trouble : a novel by Taffy Brodesser-AknerDivorcing his hostile wife when he concludes he could find genuine happiness elsewhere, a doctor is astonished when his ex abruptly disappears, making him unable to move on without acknowledging painful truths about his marriage. A first novel. Featured in the Baltimore Sun, June 9 |
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The Nickel Boys by Colson WhiteheadA follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning, The Underground Railroad, follows the harrowing experiences of two African-American teens at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7, The Baltimore Sun, June 9 |
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City of girls by Elizabeth GilbertThe best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love traces the experiences of a theater insider in 1940s New York who discovers that she does not have to be a "good girl" in order to be a good person. Featured on CBS This Morning, June 3, Entertainment Weekly, June 14/21 |
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The most fun we ever had : a novel by Claire LombardoThe four adult daughters of two Chicago parents who have been madly in love for decades recklessly ignite old rivalries, until a long-buried secret threatens to shatter the lives they built. Featured on NPR Book Reviews, June 25 |
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Bunny by Mona AwadInvited to join a popular clique at her university, a misfit artist with a dark imagination is drawn into ritualistic activities that transform her perspectives on reality. By the award-winning author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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Oval by Elvia Wilk"In the near future, Berlin's real estate is being flipped in the name of "sustainability," only to make the city even more unaffordable; artists are employed by corporations as consultants; and the weather is acting strange. In search of affordable housing, young couple Anja and Louis move into a community on an artificial mountain, The Berg--yet another "eco-friendly" initiative run by a corporation called Finster. They're offered a home rent-free in exchange for keeping quiet about the seriously malfunctioning infrastructure of the experimental house. But when Louis returns home from his mother's funeral in America, Anja is convinced he has changed. He seems to be in denial of his grief and newly idealistic, consumed by a secret project at the NGO where he works as an artist-consultant. Anja is horrified when she discovers what Louis has invented: a pill called Oval that temporarily rewires the user's brain to be more generous. Louis is convinced that if he can introduce the drug into the Berlin club scene, he can finally remedy the income disparity that has made Berlin so unlivable. Oval is a fascinating portrait of the unbalanced relationships that shape our world, as well as a prescient warning of what the future may hold". Featured on NPR Books, June 7 |
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This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-mohtarTwo time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters—and soon fall in love. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7
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Summer of '69 by Elin HilderbrandA pregnant eldest sibling, a middle-sister civil rights activist, an infantry soldier brother deployed to Vietnam and a lonely 13-year-old youngest child find their lives upended by troubling family secrets. (historical fiction). Featured on CBS This Morning, June 19
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Someone who will love you in all your damaged glory : Stories by Raphael Bob-WaksbergThe creator of BoJack Horseman presents a debut collection of offbeat love stories that includes the tales of a wedding that is disrupted by mandated goat sacrifices and an up-and-coming rock band that manifests superpowers while drunk. Featured on NPR Book Review, June 20 |
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The travelers : a novel by Regina PorterA first novel by an award-winning playwright follows the experiences of two American families, one black and one white, against a backdrop of historical events from the 1950s through the first year of Barack Obama's presidency. Illustrations. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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The lager queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan StradalA talented baker running a business out of her nursing home reconnects with her master brewer sister at the same time her pregnant granddaughter launches an IPA brewpub. By the award-winning author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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On earth we're briefly gorgeous : a novel by Ocean Vuong"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity". Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7
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Featured on Today Show, June 10, Late Show, June 11 |
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Naturally Tan by Tan FranceThe Queer Eye star and designer recounts his complicated early life as a closeted gay youth from a traditional South Asian family in Yorkshire, sharing insights into his coming of age, emergence as an artist and happy marriage. Featured on CBS This Morning, June 11
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Featured on NPR Author Interviews, June 7 |
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Trick mirror : reflections on self-delusion by Jia TolentinoA New Yorker writer presents nine original essays examining the fractures at the center of culture today, offering insights into the conflicts, contradictions, incentives and changes related to the rise of toxic social networking. \Featured in the Baltimore Sun, June 9 |
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Featured in The Baltimore Sun, June 9
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Play hungry : the making of a baseball player by Pete RoseA personal account by the iconic but controversial baseball athlete shares firsthand insights into the role of his father in his successes, the most memorable moments from his career and the scandal that resulted in his lifetime ban. Illustrations. Featured on Today Show, June 4 |
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Notes from a young Black chef : a memoir by Kwame OnwuachiThe Top Chef star and "30 Under 30" Forbes honoree traces his culinary coming-of-age in both the Bronx and Nigeria, discussing his eclectic training in acclaimed restaurants while sharing insights into the racial barriers that have challenged his career. Illustrations. Featured on Daily Show, June 11 |
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Dignity : seeking respect in back row America by Chris Arnade"Widely acclaimed photographer and writer Chris Arnade shines new light on America's poor, drug-addicted, and forgotten--both urban and rural, blue state and red state--and indicts the elitists who've left them behind. Like Jacob Riis in the 1890s, Walker Evans in the 1930s, or Michael Harrington in the 1960s, Chris Arnade bares the reality of our current class divide in stark pictures and unforgettable true stories. Arnade's raw, deeply reported accounts cut through today's clickbait media headlines and indict the elitists who misunderstood poverty and addiction in America for decades. After abandoning his Wall Street career, Arnade decided to document poverty and addiction in the Bronx. He began interviewing, photographing, and becoming close friendswith homeless addicts, and spent hours in drug dens and McDonald's. Then he started driving across America to see how the rest of the country compared. He found the same types of stories everywhere, across lines of race, ethnicity, religion, and geography. The people he got to know, from Alabama and California to Maine and Nevada, gave Arnade a new respect for the dignity and resilience of what he calls America's Back Row--those who lack the credentials and advantages of the so-called meritocratic upperclass. The strivers in the Front Row, with their advanced degrees and upward mobility, see the Back Row's values as worthless. They scorn anyone who stays in a dying town or city as foolish, and mock anyone who clings to religion or tradition as naïve. As Takeesha, a woman in the Bronx, told Arnade, she wants to be seen she sees herself: "a prostitute, a mother of six, and a child of God." This book is his attempt to help the rest of us truly see, hear, and respect millions of people who've been left behind". Featured in The Washington Times, June 18 |
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I like to watch : arguing my way through the TV revolution by Emily Nussbaum"From her creation of the first 'Approval Matrix' in New York magazine in 2004 to her Pulitzer Prize-winning columns for The New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum has known all along that what we watch is who we are. In this collection, including several substantive, never-before-published essays, Nussbaum writes about her passion for television beginning with Buffy--as she writes, a show that was so much more than its critical assessment--the evolution of female protagonists over the last decade, the complex role of sexual violence on TV, and what to do about art when the artist is revealed to be a monster. And, she also explores the links between the television antihero and the rise of Trump. The book is an argument, not a collection of reviews. Through it all, Nussbaum recounts her fervent search, over fifteen years, for a new kind of criticism that resists the false hierarchy that places one kind of culture over another. It traces her own development as she has struggled to punch through stifling notions of 'prestige television,' searching for a wilder and freer and more varied idea of artistic ambition--one that acknowledges many types of beauty and complexity, and that opens to more varied voices. It's a book that celebrates television as television, even as each year warps the definition of just what that might mean". Featured on NPR Book Reviews, June 25 |
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Is there still sex in the city? by Candace BushnellTwenty years after her sharp, seminal first book Sex and the City reshaped the landscape of pop culture and dating with its fly on the wall look at the mating rituals of the Manhattan elite, the trailblazing Candace Bushnell delivers a new book on the wilds and lows of sex and dating after fifty. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7 |
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Featured on Fox News Books, June 15
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How to be an antiracist by Ibram X KendiA best-selling author, National Book Award-winner and professor combines ethics, history, law and science with a personal narrative to describe how to move beyond the awareness of racism and contribute to making society just and equitable. Featured in the Baltimore Sun, June 9 |
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Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7
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Featured on Late Show, June 14
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Soulless : The Case Against R. Kelly by Jim DerogatisSoulless: The Case Against R. Kelly is DeRogatis's masterpiece, a work of tenacious journalism and powerful cultural criticism. It tells the story of Kelly's career, DeRogatis's investigations, and the world in which the two crossed paths, and brings the story up to the moment when things finally seem to have changed. Decades in the making, this is an outrageous, darkly riveting account of the life and actions of R. Kelly, and their horrible impact on dozens of girls, by the only person to tell it. Featured on NPR's Fresh Air, June 4 |
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Anthony Bourdain remembered by CNNA moving and insightful collection of quotes, memories and images celebrates the life of Anthony Bourdain. Featured in Entertainment Weekly, May 31/June 7
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A good American family : the Red Scare and my father by David MaranissA timely account of the mid-20th-century Red Scare and its impact on everyday families describes how the author's WWII veteran father was spied on by the FBI, accused of communist sympathies, fired from his job and blacklisted. Featured in The Wall Street Journal, June 19
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Featured in The Washington Times, June 17 |
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Coventry : essays by Rachel CuskThe author's first collection of essays about motherhood, marriage, feminism, and art both offers new insights on the themes at the heart of her fiction and forges a startling critical voice on some of our most urgent personal, social, and artistic questions. Featured in The Baltimore Sun, June 9 |
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Life will be the death of me : ...and you, too! by Chelsea HandlerThe comedian shares her year-long journey to escape her privilege bubble, a time of change that included therapy, self-reflection, and finding her voice as an advocate for change. Featured on Conan, June 4 |
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Featured in The Baltimore Sun, June 9
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Featured on NPR 's Fresh Air, June 17 |
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Featured on NPR's Here & Now, June 11, Jimmy Kimmel Live, June 21
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The Plaza : the secret life of America's most famous hotel by Julie SatowTHE PLAZA is the account of one vaunted New York City address that has become synonymous with wealth and scandal, opportunity and tragedy. With glamour on the surface and strife behind the scenes, it is the story of how one hotel became a mirror reflecting New York's place at the center of the country's cultural narrative for over a century. Featured on NPR Book Reviews, June 6 |
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Harford County Public Library
1221-A Brass Mill Rd Belcamp, Maryland 21017 410-273-5600
hcplonline.org
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