1. Intermezzo, by Sally Rooney
2. Absolution, by Jeff VanderMeer
3. Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout
4. The Mighty Red, by Louise Erdrich (UWM October 28 event)
5. Karla's Choice, by Nick Harkaway
6. James, by Percival Everett
7. We'll Prescribe You a Cat, by Syou Ishida
8. Familiaris, by David Wroblewski
9. The Empusium, by Olga Tokarczyuk
10. The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore
Absolution is a coda to the Southern Reach trilogy that has gotten six raves and two positive reviews on BookMarks. It's a little confusing to me, because I still associate the title with Alice McDermott's last novel, which comes out in paperback this Tuesday. Jess Keiser's review in The Washington Post puts the series in the context of Burke's Law of Horror Fiction: "Against all odds, Absolution is, in large part, just as good as the first three novels. It works for the same reason the others did. It manages, once again, to find that rare balance between revealing (the task of the novel) and revealing too much (the danger horror must avoid). Even when it threatens to settle down into the established pattern of its predecessors, it veers, in its final third, into something entirely more alien and alienating." I have no idea why this theory is so named, but it led me to read more about the old Gene Barry TV series.
1. An Unfinished Love Story, by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Today, at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center)
2. The Message, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
3. Band People, by Franz Nicolay
4. Frightful Folklore of North America, by Mike Bass
5. Why I Cook, by Tom Colicchio
6. Be Ready When Luck Happens, by Ina Garten
7. Well Plated Every Day, by Erin Clarke
8. One Life, by Barbara Winton
9. Patriot, by Alexei Navalny
10. Soups, Salads, and Sandwiches, by Matty Matheson
The late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's Patriot debuts to five raves and a positive on BookMarks. From Luke Harding in The Guardian: "This is a brave and brilliant book, a luminous account of Navalny’s life and dark times. It is a challenge from beyond the grave to Russia’s murder-addicted rulers. You can hear his voice in the deft translation by Arch Tait and Stephen Dalziel: sharp, playful and lacking in self-pity. Nothing crushes him. Up until the end – his final 'polar' entry is on 17 January 2024 – he radiates indomitable good humour."
1. The Crescent Moon Tearoom, by Stacy Sivinski (signed copies)
2. Big Girl, by Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (also)
3. Sorcery and Small Magics, by Maiga Doocy
4. After World, by Debbie Urbanski
5. Austerlitz, by WG Sebald
6. The Future, by Naomi Alderman
7. Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q Sutanto
8. The Marlow Murder Club V1, by Robert Thorogood
9. Fourth Wing V1, by Rebecca Yarros
10. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir
Four reads for Maiga Doocy's Sorcery and Small Magics, though one of our booksellers is now at an area library, where they are probably building up the customer holds. Booklist labels it "queer cozy fantasy," while Jenny Chou's rec explains the subcategorization as "not-so-dark Dark Academia." I am paraphrasing. And Publishers Weekly explains the plot set-up: "Doocy's enchanting debut brings readers into a world where magic is divided between those who can write spells and those who can cast them. The disreputable and chaos-prone Leovander Loveage falls into the former category. When he's paired with the grumpy, prim-and-proper spellcaster Sebastian Grimm in one of their classes at the Fount, a school for magic users, both men strain at the partnership. A collision on the way to class mixes Leo's spells with more advanced materials from the Fount library and results in Sebastian performing an unknown spell on Leo."
1. Being Henry, by Henry Winkler
2. The Flesh and the Fruit, by Vanya Leilani
3. The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel
4. The Dictionary People, by Sarah Ogilvie
5. How to Piss Off Men, by Kyle Prue
6. Paris Lost and Found, by Scott Dominic Carpenter (Boswell October 30 event)
7. Murdle V1, by GT Karber
8. Unruly, by David Mitchell
9. The Future Is Disabled, by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
10. Malört, by Josh Noel
First week out for The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary, which had nine raves and two positives on BookMarks. From Michael Dirda's Washington Post review: "Again and again, The Dictionary People emphatically demonstrates that even seemingly dry-as-dust scholars weren’t that at all. Joseph Wright started work as a donkey-boy in a quarry at age 6 and didn’t learn to read until he was 15. Yet he ended his life as professor of comparative philology at Oxford and author of a multivolume dictionary of English dialects."
1. Big, by Vashti Harrison
2. I Want to Read All the Books, by Debbie Ridpath Ohi
3. My First Book of Fancy Letters, by Jessica Hische (signed copies)
4. Brownie the War Dog, by Kelly Nelson, illustrated by Aaron Boyd
5. Sora's Seashells, by Helena Ku Rhee, illustrated by Stella Lim
6. The Paper Kingdom, by Helena Ku Rhee, illustrated by Pascal Campion
7. Hot Mess, by Jeff Kinney (Riverside event November 3)
8. Giving Good, by Aaron Boyd
9. The Wild Robot, by Peter Brown
10. Garbage Crew to the Rescue, by Sherri Duskey Rinker, illustrated by AG Ford
Both Vashti Harrison and Debbie Ridpath Ohi were in town this week for school visits. We've already written about Big, so let's take a moment for I Want to Read All the Books. From Children's Book Watch: “A charming celebration of the delight and value of reading, I Want To Read All The Books ...is an especially and unreservedly recommended pick for family, daycare center, preschool, elementary school, and community/public library picture book collections for children’s ages 4-8." Debbie Ridpath Ohi's illustrations have appeared in books by Judy Blume, Linda Sue Park, and Michael Ian Black (or as he is referred to on Another Period, Peepers).
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