I pulled a pile of books off the floor to write about on the Boswell and Books blog, and Amie immediately looked at Far, Far Away (Knopf) from Tom McNeal and said to me, "Oh that's a great book!" The protagonist is Jeremy Johnson Johnson, living in a town called Never Better where nothing ever happens. But then lots of things start happening--like her mother takes a bite out of a special cake and runs off with another man, and his dad won't come out of his room. It really is a fairy tale of sorts, only not the one you'd expect. Here's the trailer.
Amie's also picked out Pi in the Sky(Little, Brown), by Wendy Mass. In this one, per the publisher, Joss is hte seventh son of hte Supreme Overlord of the Universe. His older brother helps his dad rule the cosmos, but all Joss gets to do is deliver pies, albeit pies that hold the secrets of the universe. Kirkus calls it The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for kids.
That's two books in a row with a speculative edge, but I've heard realistic stories are getting hotter, what with John Green and all that. Mark Goldblatt's new Twerp (Random House) follows a kid named Julian Twerski who returns from suspension to be told by his teacher that he can get out of a Shakespeare project if he keeps a journal explaining what got him into trouble in the first place.
The book is said to be based on Goldblatt's own childhood growing up in Queens in the 1960s. Hey, that's where and when I grew up. Lots and lots of blog reviews on this one. I have started noticing that it is considered good form to say that you received an ARC (or a digital ARC) from the publisher. It's also interesting that most of them post the publisher copy and then follow up with their thoughts.
I am assuming here that you know that I didn't just purchase all these books, though it can be said that since I own the store, I did in fact purchase them. Oh, the philosophical conundrums!
One last book on the Boswell's Best I want to metion. Yes, all these books are 20% off at Boswell through at least next Monday. I'm pretty sure I haven't yet said anything about Paul Rudnick's Gorgeous(Scholastic Press). I've been a Rudnick fan from way back, still proudly displaying my hardcover copy of I'll Take It on my fiction bookcase and If You Ask Me (written under the pseudonym Libby Gelman Waxner) with my pop culture books upstairs. Who of you is not cheering that Entertainment Weekly is now printing new Waxner columns?
Gorgeous revolves around Becky Randle, a teenage girl who finds her own fairy godmother, a fashion designer who offers to create three dresses that will transform her into the "Most Beautiful Woman Who Ever Lived." It's a hard title to live up to, alas, and with the troubles come laughs, including guffaws from Meg Cabot ("when I wasn't laughing out loud, which was often, I was wiping away a tiny tear") and David Sedaris ("Rudnick is a champion of truth and love and great wicked humor, which we ignore at our peril")
Not on the Boswell's Best, but a kids' book I actually read is Openly Straight(Arthur A. Levine), by Bill Konigsberg. The book was originally recommended to me by Lisa McMann, and I was pretty taken with the premise. Here's my full rec--an abridged version made it onto the summer kids' Indie Next Picks list.
"When Seamus Rafael Goldberg comes out at his Boulder high school, he does so in a big way. Not only does his mom become president of PFLAG, but Rafe becomes a public speaker for the cause. It turns out that being labeled in such a complete way can be not only disappointing but limiting. Rafe asks to switch to a private school in Massachusetts, effectively re-entering the closet, and finds himself one of the jocks. Rafe wants to be true to himself, but the withheld truths pile up, particularly when he finds himself in a bromance with a fellow soccer player. Konigsberg tells the backstory through a series of essays Goldberg writes for his English teacher, Mr. Scarborough. I thought his teacher was a bit intrusive, but Rafe didn’t seem to mind, so perhaps it’s just me. Openly Straight is a true-to-yourself story with a twist, a contemporary coming-out tale with a universal message, and it’s pretty romantic too."
I would have liked to have read this book as a teenager, but come to think of it, I was happy reading it now. Better late than never, if you ask me.
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference, by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor
The Mighty Red, a novel by Louise Erdrich
Lost in Austin: The Evolution of an American City by Alex Hannaford
Abyss, a novel by Pilar Quintana
The Beet Queen, a novel by Loiuse Erdrich
It's Elementary, a mystery by Elise Bryant
Welcome to Pawnee, by Jim O'Heir
Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody, a novel for young readers by Patrick Ness
Long Island Compromise, a novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
A Season of Perfect Happiness, a novel by Maribeth Fischer
Western Lane, a novel by Chetna Maroo
The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore, by Evan Friss
A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall, a novel for young readers by Jasmine Warga
Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, by Anne Applebaum
Goodnight Tokyo, a novel by Atushiro Yoshida, translated by Haydn Trowell
Memorial Days, a memoir by Geraldine Brooks
Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering, by Malcolm Gladwell
Hampton Heights, a novel by Dan Kois
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall, by Alexandra Lange
A Forty-Year Kiss, a novel by Nickolas Butler
Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire, by Ashley Spencer
Fire Exit, a novel by Morgan Talty
Three Days in June, a novel by Anne Tyler
Kairos, a novel by Jenny Erpenbeck
James, a novel by Percival Everett
The Snowbirds, a novel by Christina Clancy
33 Place Brugmann, a novel by Alice Austen
People of Means, a novel by Nancy Johnson
The Sentence, a novel by Louise Erdrich
The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car, by Witold Rybczynski
The Business Trip, a novel by Jessie Garcia
Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy inteh Quest to Cure Alzheimers, by Charles Piller
Austerlitz, a novel by W.G. Sebald
Thank You for Your Servitude, by Mark Leibovich
The Case of the Missing Maid, a mystery by Rob Osler
The Paris Express, a novel by Emma Donoghue
Directed by James Burrows: Five Decades of Stories from the Legendary Director of Taxi, Cheers, Frasier, Friends, Will & Grace, and More, by James Burrows
Never Thirteen: The Evers V2, a novel for young readers by Stacy McAnuulty
Every Tom, Dick & Harry, a novel by Elinor Lipman
The Wren, The Wren, a novel by Anne Enright
The Incorruptibles: A True Story of Kingpins, Crime Busters, and the Birth of the American Underworld, by Dan Slater
Homicide in the Indian Hills and Murder Under the Mistletoe, by Erica Ruth Neubauer
Tell Me Everything, a novel by Elizabeth Strout
A History of Sound: Stories, by Ben Shattuck
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a novel by Mark Twain
A Pair of Wings, a novel by Carole Hopson
Hello Beautiful, a novel by Ann Napolitano
The House of Doors, a novel by Tan Twan Eng
Dream State, a novel by Eric Puchner
Thinking with Your Hands: The Surprising Science Behind How Gestures Shape Our Thoughts, by Susan Goldin-Meadow
Hot Air, a novel by Marcy Dermansky
The Satisfaction Cafe, a novel by Kathy Wang
60 Songs That Explain the 90s, by Rob Harvilla
Pure Innocent Fun: Essays, by Ira Madison III
The Listeners, a novel by Maggie Stiefvater
Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life , by Shigehiro Oishi
Let's Call Her Barbie, a novel by Renée Rosen
Big Chief, a novel by Jon Hickey
The Berry Pickers, a novel by Amanda Peters
Bug Hollow, a novel by Michelle Huneven
Old School, a novel for young readers by Gordon Korman
Beast of the North Woods, a mystery by Annelise Ryan
So Far Gone, a novel by Jess Walter
The Westing Game, a novel for young readers by Ellen Raskin
The Bee Sting, a novel by Paul Murray
Run for the Hills, a novel by Kevin Wilson
Max in the Land of Lies, a novel for young readers by Adam Gidwitz
Who I Always Was, a memoir by Theresa Okokon
The Let Them Theory, by Mel Robbins
Losing Big: America's Reckless Bet on Sports Gambling, by Jonathan D Cohen
Shopgirls, a novel by Jessica Anya Blau
Meet Me at the Crossroads, a novel by Megan Giddings
The Secret War of Julia Child, a novel by Diana R Chambers
Martyr!, a novel by Kaveh Akbar
Dinner with King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Recreating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations, by Sam Kean
The Sequel, a novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz
The Husbands, a novel by Holly Gramazio
When You Reach Me, a novel for young readers by Rebecca Stead
In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir, by Molly Jong-Fast
Murder in the Dollhouse: The Jennifer Dulos Story, by Rich Cohen
I'll Come to You, a novel by Rebecca Kauffman
What They Always Tell Us, a novel for young readers by Martin Wilson
Destroy This House: A Memoir, by Amanda Uhle
If You Love It, Let It Kill You, a novel by Hannah Pittard
The Vegetarian, a novel by Han Kang
Food Person, a novel by Adam Roberts
I Don't Know How to Tell You This, a novel by Marian Thurm
It's (Almost) Always Sunny in Philadelphia, by Kimberly Potts
Raising Hare, a memoir by Chloe Dalton
King of Ashes, a novel by S.A. Cosby
Hazel Says No, a novel by Jessica Berger Gross
Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession, edited by Sarah Weinman
Pentagons and Pentagrams: An Illustrated History, by Eli Maor, illustrated by Eugen Jost
Orbital, a novel by Samantha Harvey
When the Cranes Fly South, a novel by Lisa Ridzén, translated by Alice Menzies
Go As a River, a novel by Shelley Read
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor, by Christine Kuehn
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