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Haunting Korean bestseller hits U.S. shores

BEVERLY JENKINS

A romance pioneer revives forgotten past

CAROLE BOSTON WEATHERFORD

Sunday’s high spirits

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contents

FEBRUARY 2016 B O O K PA G E . C O M

features 12

HAN KANG A haunting Korean novel

After struggling to get published, Beverly Jenkins proves that there is a place for black heroes and heroines in historical romance.

RELATIONSHIPS Advice on finding love and coping with heartbreak

Beverly Jenkins author photo by Greg Anthony

BRADY CARLSON SPOTLIGHT: SUSPENSE Secrets lead to thrills and chills

20 SHILPI SOMAYA GOWDA A pair of friends divided

CHRIS OFFUTT Sorting through a father’s past

SPOTLIGHT: BLACK HISTORY Chronicling the AfricanAmerican experience

28 CAROLE BOSTON WEATHERFORD A bittersweet look at an oasis of freedom

STEVE LIGHT

17 FICTION t o p p i c k : Ways to Disappear

by Idra Novey also reviewed:

Be Frank with Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth This Was Not the Plan by Cristina Alger Love in Lowercase by Francesc Miralles All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

columns

t o p p i c k : My Father, the Pornographer

by Chris Offutt On My Own by Diane Rehm Lit Up by David Denby While the City Slept by Eli Sanders

& dive into

a great

READ!

Don’t miss these new releases from USA Today bestselling authors, Colleen Coble & Julie Cantrell

Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder by Claudia Kalb In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri 1924 by Peter Ross Range Children of Paradise by Laura Secor Washington’s Monument by John Steele Gordon

26 TEEN

30 CHILDREN’S

t o p p i c k : Salt to the Sea

t o p p i c k : Little Cat’s Luck

by Ruta Sepetys

AUDIO WELL READ LIBRARY READS WHODUNIT BOOK CLUBS COOKING LIFESTYLES ROMANCE

Good on Paper by Rachel Cantor The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel Where My Heart Used to Beat by Sebastian Faulks Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase Black Deutschland by Darryl Pinckney The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin

the snow

22 NONFICTION also reviewed:

Meet the author-illustrator of Swap!

04 04 05 06 07 08 08 10

Cover image © Thinkstock: ARTQU

reviews

Meet the author of Dead Presidents

interview

escape

by Marion Dane Bauer

also reviewed:

The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork Burning Midnight by Will McIntosh Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson The Mystery of Hollow Places by Rebecca Podos

also reviewed:

Bloom by Doreen Cronin Surf ’s Up by Kwame Alexander Pax by Sara Pennypacker Audacity Jones to the Rescue by Kirby Larson Brambleheart by Henry Cole

“Deeply emotional, moving and full of amazing imagery, Cantrell’s latest is a triumph... this is a book to be savored and pondered.” —RT Book Reviews, 4 ½ starred review and Top Pick!

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

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ASSOCIATE EDITOR

CONTRIBUTOR

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“Coble provides plenty of excitement for readers who enjoy her unique combination of cozy setting and action-packed mystery.” —Publishers Weekly

columns A riveting rogue I used to listen to John Grisham novels for their totally engaging, thrilling plot lines, but lately, he’s added another dimension or, even better, a small, bully-pulpitish soap box from which he can take aim at very specific targets. So, it’s no surprise that Grisham sends us some strong messages in Rogue Lawyer (Random House Audio, $45, 11.5 hours, ISBN 9780553399820), his new roller-coaster ride of a legal

thriller, making the debut appearance of Sebastian Rudd, said rogue lawyer, all the more appealing. From the get-go, the rough, tough and impassioned Rudd lets us know that providing a first-class defense for anyone, guilty or not, is his consuming mission. He calls himself a “lone gunman, a rogue who fights the system and hates injustice.” He packs a gun and a courtroom wallop, uses a well-appointed, bulletproof black van as his mobile office and isn’t afraid to take on cops who abuse their authority, or anyone else in the hierarchy of power. Rudd handles six cases here, each given its own intriguingly shaped chapter, and Mark Deakins’ well-paced performance gives him the vibrant voice he so deserves.

LEARNING TO READ Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, teaches writing using a technique he calls X-ray reading. In his new book, The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing (Hachette Audio, $25.98, 8 hours, ISBN 9781478953289), Clark guides us through some of the greatest literary hits of all time, revealing the strategies, the invisible “machinery of making meaning,” these authors used and invites us to think about writing in a fresh

WELL READ

AUDIO

BY ROBERT WEIBEZAHL

BY SUKEY HOWARD

M.F.K. Fisher, uncooked way. He wants us to read deeply, to hear the echoes, intended and unintended, that influence the finest writing. In a manner that is truly accessible to mere mortals, wannabe writers and perpetrators of plodding prose, Clark begins with T.S. Eliot, moves through Fitzgerald, Flaubert, Chaucer, Nabokov, Joyce, Melville, Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, Steinbeck, Shakespeare, of course, and more. A lithe scholar with a sense of humor, Clark makes learning to really read fun.

TOP PICK IN AUDIO Quirke, the brooding, haunted, incurably curious pathologist who stars in Benjamin Black’s extraordinary, atmospheric series set in 1950s Dublin, returns in Even the Dead (Macmillan Audio, $39.99, 10 hours, ISBN 9781427262554). He’s taken himself out of the game to convalesce from a brain injury suffered years ago. But when his assistant needs his opinion on a car-crash death that turns out to be murder, he eagerly returns to the morgue and to a sinister world that turns a blind eye to moral scandal. Just a few days later, an acquaintance of Quirke’s daughter begs for help. Narrowly escaping the crash that claimed her boyfriend’s life, the young woman now fears for her own. This odd coincidence spurs Quirke to contact his “companion in arms,” Inspector Hackett, and, once more, to try to right wrongs. Black, the nom de crime of Booker Prize-winning author John Banville, writes beautifully textured prose, perfectly rendered here by John Keating in a flight of Irish accents. Nobody does it better—this is noir, Irish noir, contemporary noir at its best.

M.F.K. Fisher is a rara avis among great American writers, not only because she primarily wrote nonfiction, but because she all but invented the genre that she continues to dominate almost 25 years after her death. Choosing epicurean pursuits as her chief subject, she elevated this hitherto denigrated domestic realm to high art, using it as the source material for larger explorations of life itself. Her best-known writing is drawn from memoir, even though she remained publicly elusive about the details of her own colorful private life. Fisher did write fiction, though, including one novel, Not Now, but Now, and some atmospheric short stories that also borrow heavily from her life. Discovered among the papers of her late agent, The Theoretical Foot (Counterpoint, $25, 304 pages, ISBN 9781619026148) is a novel that she wrote early in her career but never published. Its storyline and characters are nakedly appropriated from Fisher’s own world, and yet its somewhat experimental literary style (the young writer is clearly influenced here by Virginia Woolf, among others of the era) define it as fiction. Set during a single day—August 31, 1938—at a Swiss country house like the one Fisher lived in at the time, the novel unfolds largely through the emotional responses of numerous house guests as they interact and shift in their loyalties and responses to each other. Sara, the character based on Fisher herself, remains a cipher, but the others—including Sara’s lover, Tim; Tim’s sister; and her own brother and sister—are barely disguised versions of their real-life counterparts. Indeed, one can speculate that Fisher never published the novel because its portraits, not always complimentary, hew very closely to the truth. For the most part, the novel is a breezy evocation of a time

and place just before the world tumbled into a devastating war. Its concerns are mostly romantic, and its then scandalous depiction of extramarital dalliances and implied homosexuality may be another reason Fisher abandoned hope of publication. But the book has a much darker overtone, set by six very short, dreamlike passages concerning the amputation of a foot (hence the title). These are drawn from the eventual fate of Fisher’s second husband, Dillwyn Parrish, who suffered from Buerger’s disease, and would endure such amputations before killing himself in 1941. Coincidentally, the triangulated relationship between Fisher, her first husband, Alfred Young Fisher, and Parrish is also the basis for The Arrangement (Viking, $26, 320 pages, ISBN 9780525429661), an appealing new novel by Ashley Warlick. Set between 1934 and 1939, it recounts some of the events leading up to those depicted in The Theoretical Foot, and offers a lovely, affectionate portrait of the complicated woman who would become M.F.K. Fisher. Curiously, Warlick, who was granted no access to Fisher’s personal papers and probably had no idea of the lost novel’s existence when writing her own, nonetheless conveys a similar narrative voice in her fictional rendition of real events. The Theoretical Foot is minor Fisher. Had it been published in her lifetime, it most certainly would have undergone some much-needed rewrites—the story starts strongly, wanes and then gains momentum at the end. Yet, taken together, these two works of fiction enrich our understanding of a much loved writer who somehow managed to live a life at once exposed and withheld.

Selected from nominations made by library staff across the country, here are the 10 books that librarians can’t wait to share with readers in February.

Beloved Writers

SALT TO THE SEA by Ruta Sepetys

Philomel, $18.99, ISBN 9780399160301

This epic third novel from the bestselling author of Between Shades of Gray reveals the story of a little-known World War II disaster.

Now in Paperback from

Read our review on page 26.

BLACK RABBIT HALL by Eve Chase

“Wondrous.... Mesmerizing....

Putnam, $27, ISBN 9780399174124 A gothic tale of family secrets unfolds on a decaying country estate in this twist-filled debut novel. Read our review on page 19.

Develops lives that are rich, mysterious and constantly changing.” —The Washington Post

“Superb.... A king-size American quilt of a novel.”

A GIRL’S GUIDE TO MOVING ON by Debbie Macomber

Ballantine, $26, ISBN 9780553391923 A woman and her daughter-in-law lean on each other after devastating breakups in this uplifting novel from popular author Macomber.

—The New Yorker

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres

Morrow, $25.99, ISBN 9780062413710 A young woman is thrust into the lives of a reclusive author and her eccentric 9-year-old son in this comic debut. Read our review on page 17.

FLIGHT OF DREAMS by Ariel Lawhon

Doubleday, $25.95, ISBN 9780385540025 Ride along on the doomed final voyage of the Hindenburg in this impeccably researched and suspensefully told second novel from the author of The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress.

13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A FAT GIRL by Mona Awad

Penguin, $16, ISBN 9780143128489 Awad charts a young girl’s coming of age with biting humor and raw honesty in this powerful collection of linked short stories.

FIGHTING DIRTY by Lori Foster

HQN, $7.99, ISBN 9780373789177 When a good girl is rescued from a robbery by a sexy mixedmartial-arts fighter, the two launch an explosive romance— and face danger.

BE FRANK WITH ME by Julia Claiborne Johnson

“Astonishing.... Feel the warmth of McCall Smith’s wit, deft characterization, and overarching theme of kindness.” —Booklist

A 44 Scotland Street novel from the author of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series

FIND HER by Lisa Gardner

Dutton, $27, ISBN 9780525954576 Seven years ago, Flora spent 472 days as the prisoner of a sadistic predator. Now, she’s missing again—can D.D. Warren find her before it’s too late?

“Breathtaking.”

THE OPPOSITE OF EVERYONE by Joshilyn Jackson

—The New York Times Book Review

Morrow, $26.99, ISBN 9780062105684 In Jackson’s latest novel, a hard-edged divorce attorney is forced to confront her painful past when her estranged mother re-enters her life.

“Sparkles with the magic of classic moviemaking.” —Sarah McCoy, author of The Baker’s Daughter

THE GIRL IN THE RED COAT by Kate Hamer

Melville House, $25.95, ISBN 9781612195001 When 8-year-old Carmel goes missing at a festival, her mother, Beth, refuses to give up on her. This is a character-driven story of motherly love, pain and loss. LibraryReads is a recommendation program that highlights librarians’ favorite books published this month. For more information, visit libraryreads.org.

From the bestselling author of The Dressmaker VINTAGE

Read excerpts, find reading group guides, and more at ReadingGroupCenter.com

ANCHOR

columns

WHODUNIT BY BRUCE TIERNEY

One last con, one final mark Nicholas Searle’s debut novel, The Good Liar (Harper, $27.99, 352 pages, ISBN 9780062407498), is a convoluted tale of an octogenarian confidence man in search of one final score to see him through what he anticipates will be his last decade. He has it pretty well sussed out: He has charmed a younger widow, and soon they will comingle their bank accounts to allow for some complicated investment strategies that will enrich him and impoverish her. By the time his unsuspecting sweetheart notices anything amiss, he’ll be in the wind. There’s one small fly in the ointment, however: Her grandson doesn’t care for this new interloper

New York Times bestselling author of

“Raises the ante on the genre.” —LA Times

career. This is an excellent debut indeed.

in his grandmother’s life and seems determined to undermine the plan at every turn. Probably because I read about a million suspense novels a year, I twigged the signature plot twist a bit earlier than the author likely intended, but it

was a good twist nonetheless, with another, later surprise that I didn’t see coming. If you like Patricia Highsmith’s Mr. Ripley books, The Good Liar offers a suggestion of what a character of that ilk might look like in the twilight of his

“Masterful... Intelligent... Thoughtprovoking.” —Sandra Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author

MUSEUM MYSTERY Tim Flannery’s The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish (Minotaur, $24.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9781250079428) deftly channels humorous English writers of the early postwar era (think P.G. Wodehouse or Kingsley Amis) in a hilarious romp set in and around a natural history museum. In 1930s Sydney, researcher Archibald Meek has just come back from several years studying the natives of remote Venus Island, somewhere in the vast South Pacific. He has dutifully collected specimens of flora and fauna, kept detailed journals about daily life and customs and has even gotten a rudimentary tattoo in a rite of passage into the tribe. Now that he’s back, he has made a rather disturbing discovery: The Venus Island skull fetish in the museum collection appears to have had some skulls recently replaced, and the new skulls appear to belong to missing museum curators. There is murder afoot in the halls of history, and it’s up to Archie and his onetime love, Beatrice, to bring the miscreant(s) to justice. But Archie is no Sam Spade, and Beatrice is certainly no Miss Marple, so mishaps abound, often with mirth-filled results.

HIDE AND SEEK

Available now! www.bookclubbish.com/suspense

6 15_586_BookPage_Pretty_Missing.indd 1

You’d think that a tiny village north of the Arctic Circle would be a good place to lay low if you were on the lam. A gunman coming to get you would stand in stark relief against the snowy fields surrounding your small cottage, where the sun never sets for six months of the year—which, incidentally, provides the title for Jo Nesbø’s latest thriller, Midnight Sun (Knopf, $23.95, 288 pages, ISBN 9780385354202). And you’d be wrong—as is Ulf, who got crosswise with his boss, the shadowy underworld figure known only as the Fisherman. When Ulf shows up in said small village, 2015-12-21 10:07 AM

ostensibly to do some hunting but without a gun and before hunting season opens, it’s bound to raise some eyebrows—particularly in a town populated by adherents of an especially fundamentalist brand of Christianity, one in which lying is a grievous sin. Ulf is a blue-collar sort of fellow, and his first-person narration is a distinctly different voice from that of Harry Hole, Nesbø’s best-known character. It’s but one measure of Nesbø’s talent that he can jump seamlessly from persona to persona and, in every case, craft a first-rate thriller.

TOP PICK IN MYSTERY In Ausma Zehanat Khan’s The Language of Secrets (Minotaur, $25.99, 336 pages, ISBN 9781250055125), a mosque in suburban Toronto is said to host a zealot, a handsome and charismatic man with dreams of jihad. And there’s a training camp in the deep forest outside Toronto, suspected to be a jihadi training camp, although there’s insufficient evidence to warrant a search. But now that news is spreading of a murder nearby, tensions are rising. Answers won’t come easy, because unbeknownst to anyone outside a small circle, Mohsin Dar, the dead man, was living a dual life as a jihadi and as an undercover agent for INSET, Canada’s version of the Department of Homeland Security. If this detail leaks, months of investigative work will go down the tubes. Enter Esa Khattak, police investigator and erstwhile friend of the deceased. Khattak heads up the Community Policing Section, a cross-agency unit charged with the coordination of investigations of culturally sensitive crimes. And the killing of Mohsin has all the earmarks of a culturally sensitive crime, whether personal, political or in the name of religion. If you haven’t read Khan’s excellent debut, The Unquiet Dead, the second in the series will place this powerful new storyteller on your radar.

BOOK CLUBS BY JULIE HALE

A tender homecoming In his poignant, often funny memoir, Bettyville (Penguin, $17, 288 pages, ISBN 9780143107880), George Hodgman, a gay writer and editor who once worked at Vanity Fair, tells the story of returning to his Midwestern hometown to live with his obstinate, elderly mother. Unemployed and tired

of his solitary existence in New York City, Hodgman goes back to tiny Paris, Missouri (population 1,246), and takes up duties as caregiver to 90-year-old Betty, who can’t be persuaded to move to an assisted-living facility. As he watches his mother decline, Hodgman takes stock of the past. His parents could never stomach his sexuality, and he grew up with feelings of inadequacy. Driven to compensate, he attained high-profile positions in the publishing world, but he also abused drugs and partied hard. For Hodgman, the return home represents a chance to make peace with the past. His portrait of Betty and his depictions of their life together are rendered with humor and tenderness. This is a beautifully written, timely memoir that will resonate with a wide range of readers.

FANTASTICAL WORLDS It’s been 10 years since Kelly Link released a collection of stories aimed at an adult audience. With Get in Trouble (Random House, $16, 368 pages, ISBN 9780812986495), she returns at the top of her form, offering nine transportive pieces of fiction that display her prodigious imaginative gifts. “The Summer People” is a haunting, atmospheric tale of a girl in small-town North Carolina who takes care of vacation homes, including a strange residence with

otherworldly occupants. In “The New Boyfriend,” a pampered teen’s slumber party gets thrown off course when she receives an odd birthday gift: a very lifelike Ghost Boyfriend. “I Can See Right Through You” features a hasbeen actor who visits his former lover in the swamps of Florida, where she’s filming a reality TV show about ghosts. Inspired by fairy tales and comic books, classic and contemporary myths, Link blends the surreal and the real to create narratives that are unforgettable—and unsettling. This is a rewarding book from one of the finest short-story writers working today.

New Book Club Reads for the New Year

Be Frank with Me by Julia Clairborne Johnson

“The curious incident of where’d you go, Salinger.” —Kirkus Reviews

What the Waves Know

by Tamara Valentine

“What the Waves Know is a beautiful, elegant book that dives deep into the heart of childhood, memory and voice. Izabella, our silent protagonist, will surely stay with you for a very long time.” —Jessica Anya Blau, national bestselling author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties

TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS A finalist for the National Book Award in fiction, Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel, A Little Life (Anchor, $17, 832 pages, ISBN 9780804172707), is a masterfully crafted epic about the nature of ambition and the quest for contentment in modern-day America. At the story’s center are four buddies who move to New York City after college to kick off their careers. There’s Willem, an up-andcoming actor, good-hearted and good-looking; J.B., an enterprising painter from Brooklyn; Malcolm, a restless architect; and Jude, an introverted lawyer whose nightmarish past is key to the narrative. Yanagihara traces the men’s lives over the course of three decades, dramatizing the twists and turns of their careers, their personal histories and complex relationships with compassion and a remarkable sense of intimacy. The four friends and their richly detailed experiences stay with the reader long after the novel’s stirring finish.

The Golden Son

by Shilpi Somaya Gowda The New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of Secret Daughter returns with an unforgettable story of family, responsibility, love, honor, tradition, and identity.

The Big Rewind

by Libby Cudmore

Like Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity for women…The Big Rewind is smart, poignant, and addicting. Libby Cudmore is a writer to watch. —Kristi Belcamino, Anthony and Macavity-award nominated author of Blessed are the Dead

@Morrow_PB

@bookclubgirl

William Morrow

Book Club Girl

columns

LIFESTYLES

COOKING

B Y S U S A N N A H F E LT S

BY SYBIL PRATT

Wintry comfort foods

Walk on the wilder side

Savory soups and stews made with Saveur savvy may be the best way to fight the February food blahs. In their scrumptiously illustrated new celebration of international comfort foods, Saveur: Soups & Stews (Weldon Owen, $35, 224 pages, ISBN 9781616289652), the editors of Saveur magazine have collected more than 100 recipes for a fabulous variety of big-pot pleasers. All are made with what they call the “easy economical alchemy” of transforming meat, poultry, beans, seafood and cut-up vegetables into nourishing, inviting dishes

boundless, as is his hands-on advice. There’s a whole chapter on What It Takes to Make a Perfect Dinner Pie, followed by carefully detailed recipes for pie dough, pastry dough and biscuit crusts, which starts with his super-versatile, got-your-back Go-To Pie Dough (you may not ever need another recipe). If you suffer from fear of pie dough, Haedrich is your man. He’s never met a dough phobia he can’t fix, and he’s done his best here to anticipate your questions, adding time-tested tips to help— it’s really as easy as pie!

There’s something irresistible about a seasonal grouping of things, cyclical yet always promising something new. That’s part of the magic of former ad-exec turned nature crusader Celestine Maddy’s A Wilder Life (Artisan, $29.95, 272 pages, ISBN 9781579655938), an exquisitely designed primer on infusing one’s everyday life with the gifts, utilities and sensualities of the natural world. Maddy instructs us in how to make elderflower champagne in spring, our own leather sandals in summer, dry shampoo in fall and kimchi in winter. Readers can also reclaim

Sisters, but she also provides plenty of practical advice and inspiration for a fast-growing clan of new female farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs. In the spirit of nurturing community, she shares stories and bits of wisdom from a diverse mix of women with farming acumen while breaking down the basics, from funding to trends (specialty foods and agritourism, anyone?), livestock to licensing. Brief, useful resource lists and illuminating case studies pepper the main text, making Kivirist’s manual a thorough and fertile resource.

that work on an ordinary weekday night as well as they do for a Saturday night dinner party. The very first recipe, Beet Stew with Lamb Meatballs, a Jewish-Iraqi entrée served on golden basmati rice, is a great example of the kind of “alchemy” you’ll find here. Go on to a hearty Finnan Haddie Chowder, salty-sweet Cuban-Style Chicken Stew or healthy one-pot Quinoa & Sweet Potato Soup. They’re all fabulous, all inspirational.

TOP PICK IN COOKBOOKS

bygone skills and learn to read the stars, identify insects and foliage or build an outdoor shelter in a pinch. More of a pretty-picture gazer than a doer? This book can function well as an attractive and intriguing conversation piece with tidbits on healing stones, bioluminescence and common birds of the United States. But don’t be surprised if you’re seduced right into the kitchen to sauté scapes or whip up a Calendula Salve, or into the forests and meadows to hunt for butterflies and edible mushrooms.

TOP PICK IN LIFESTYLES

EASY AS PIE Ken Haedrich willingly admits that he’s a dinner pie fanatic with an incurable “lust for crust.” With Dinner Pies (Harvard Common, $24.95, 272 pages, ISBN 9781558328518), his newest paean to pies, this wonderful world of one-dish delights is not a pie in the sky—it’s doable and delicious. There’s something enticingly cozy about hand-crafted “crusted cuisine,” whether it’s an elegant Quiche Scampi, a beautiful Tomato Tarte Tatin, flaky Kale Spanakopita or kid-friendly Chicken, Broccoli & Cheddar Turnovers. Haedrich’s savory-pie imagination seems

There’s a lot more to Korean cuisine than kimchi. The flavors are intense, bold, tangy and spicy, with a little bit of fabulous funk. More and more Americans are learning about its complex wonders, but Koreatown (Clarkson Potter, $30, 272 pages, ISBN 9780804186131) by Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard is the first cookbook I’ve come across that offers immersion into the Korean kitchen and the intricacies of the dishes served in Koreatown restaurants across the U.S., along with their truly accessible recipes— techniques included—for making them at home. There’s only one problem—once you get hooked on these unique flavors, you might find most everything else you cook just a bit bland. Believe me, I got hooked years ago, and it’s a worthy addiction. The recipes range from the sensational small plates that accompany entrées, to warming soups, stews, to-die-for barbecue, Bibimbap and much more. Great header notes, interviews with wellknown Korean food fans and super photos add to the fun.

FEMME TO FARM For those seeking to connect with nature on a professional level, Lisa Kivirist’s Soil Sisters: A Toolkit for Women Farmers (New Society, $24.95, 256 pages, ISBN 9780865718050) takes some guesswork out of forging a life from the land. Though women have had their hands in the dirt for eons, their contributions to and unique challenges on this difficult but rewarding path have remained relatively obscure. Kivirist, who runs her own farm in Wisconsin, offers a welcome corrective history in Soil

It’s safe to say we all want to be more creative, or to better harness the creativity we’ve got. No wonder, then, that creativity guides have crowded bestseller lists of late. But I’ve never seen anything quite like Jessa Crispin’s The Creative Tarot: A Modern Guide to an Inspired Life (Touchstone, $22, 352 pages, ISBN 9781501120237), which helps newbies and seasoned tarot users alike employ the cards to meet creative goals, whether that means starting a project anew, clearing obstacles or breaking free from routine thought. An esteemed critic and founder of the literary blog Bookslut, Crispin might seem an unlikely choice to take on mystical subject matter, but don’t underestimate her range. She brings to the task not only a deep grasp of the history of tarot, but also prodigious cultural knowledge and a sharp, witty tone. Her explanations of the cards are rich with references to literature, history and art, making this book equal parts smorgasbord of intellectual delights and tool for better creative ventures.

FOUR STUDENTS. FIFTY-FOUR MINUTES. ONE BOY WITH A GUN. “Simultaneously heart pounding and heart wrenching.” —Julie Murphy, author of DUMPLIN’

“As long as there are Newtowns and Columbines, there will be a desperate need for gripping, wellwritten, and poignant novels like this one.” —Todd Strasser, author of GIVE A BOY A GUN and FALLOUT

“A book everyone should read.” —Robin Talley, author of LIES WE TELL OURSELVES

AVAILABLE NOW

“Entirely gripping and fast paced.” —Lucy Christopher, author of STOLEN

978-1-4926-2246-8 • $17.99 • HC • Ages 14+

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ROMANCE B Y C H R I S T I E R I D G WAY

characters and multiple mysteries make this action-packed story an engaging page-turner.

SHOT IN THE DARK

Heroes of the heart

hether you’re spending your Valentine’s Day with your significant other or a glass of wine, sometimes you just need a fictional hero to fall in love with. These five new romance novels are here to fulfill that need, just in time for you to find a one-of-a-kind Valentine. The mating game is a romantic’s delight in My American Duchess (Avon, $7.99, 432 pages, ISBN 9780062389435) by Eloisa James. After two failed engagements, Boston heiress Merry Pelford heads to London with her chaperones to find a titled British bridegroom. She thinks she’s found the perfect match in Lord Cedric Allardyce and agrees to become his wife—only to meet Cedric’s very attractive twin, the Duke of Trent, minutes later. In an instant, sparks fly between the two, but there’s no future for the newly acquainted pair. Merry’s betrothal to Trent’s brother is the most obvious hurdle, but breaking off yet another engagement will also ruin Merry in the eyes of society—and put a marriage to a nobleman out of reach. Still, passion escalates each time they’re together, even though both agree that love is an undesirable, fickle state—and unnecessary in a marriage. However, Merry and the duke are beginning to wonder if these convictions are true. Filled with winning characters and witty repartee, this Georgian historical is a treat.

LOVE ON THE RANGE It’s love, Western style, in Rustler’s Moon (HQN, $7.99, 368 pages, ISBN 9780373788620), the second in Jodi Thomas’ Ransom

Canyon series. When museum curator Angela Harold’s father unexpectedly dies, she heeds the warning he left behind and departs Florida without informing family and friends. She heads for the small town of Crossroads, Texas, and gets a job running the Ransom Canyon Museum. Not long after,

she meets Wilkes Wagner of Devil’s Fork Ranch and immediately decides that the tall, handsome man is out of her league. Yet in this insulated community, she keeps encountering the rancher—and trouble. She suspects that someone connected to her nefarious uncle in Florida is out to do her harm, though she has no idea why. Wilkes wants to protect the quiet, pretty newcomer and acknowledges the pull he feels toward her, but after having his heart broken once before, he’s reluctant to give it away again. Still, trust between the two grows, as does something deeper. To build a life for two, however, they must neutralize the danger stalking them. A large cast of

Childhood buddies reconnect to investigate a murder in the Christian romantic suspense novel Cold Shot (Bethany House, $14.99, 336 pages, ISBN 9780764211973), the first book in Dani Pettrey’s Chesapeake Valor series. When bones are discovered in a Pennsylvania park, Ranger Griffin McCray teams up with old friends—a federal agent and a crime scene investigator—along with a lovely forensic anthropologist, Dr. Finley Scott, to identify the victim and find the killer. As their investigation draws danger their way, both Griffin and Finley struggle with past experiences and doubts, looking to their faith to find the strength to continue as well as to heal old wounds. As they move closer to the truth, they learn to trust each other with their fears and feelings, realizing that they might have found true

love—if they can avoid a sniper’s bullet. An intricate plot, a reunion of friends and an appealing lead couple make this a standout.

HEARTS AT RISK A Regency miss takes on an earl with a reputation in The Art of Taming a Rake (Ballantine, $7.99, 416 pages, ISBN 9780553392555), the fourth in Nicole Jordan’s Legendary Lovers series. Venetia Stratham, who caused a scandal when she left her philandering fiance at the altar, returns from Parisian exile to confront Quinn Wilde, the Earl of Traherne, at a notorious London sin club. Seeing him surrounded by adoring females confirms her fears—the man is not

deserving of Venetia’s beloved younger sister. But when Venetia confronts him, Quinn claims he’s not interested in making her sister his bride, and he has another purpose altogether for being at the bordello. Which is true: Quinn is seeking information about a family heirloom thought to have been lost in a shipwreck when he was a child, and it’s this quest that puts both of them in jeopardy. As they seek out answers, they put their lives at stake—and their hearts. Venetia and Quinn are reluctant lovers, and there’s fun in watching their inevitable fall into love. Both sensuous and emotional, this story is a true pleasure.

TOP PICK IN ROMANCE The romance feels real in Virginia Kantra’s fifth Dare Island novel, Carolina Dreaming (Berkley, $7.99, 304 pages, ISBN 9780425269701). Bakeshop owner and single mother Jane Clark is not looking for a man— her last relationship was disastrous and dangerous. But then sexy former Marine Gabe Murphy shows up on Dare Island. He comes into her bakery for coffee and sweets and catches Jane’s eye, but she tells herself he’ll never capture her heart. Gabe knows a distrusting woman when he sees one, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to win her over. Although Gabe is at a low point in his life, Jane and her young son inspire him to build a brighter future. Their painful pasts and present fears are obstacles to a Jane-and-Gabe forever, but these two tackle their concerns with good sense and big hearts. Readers will root for the couple and be charmed by their tender and sexy story. This is a top-notch contemporary romance that epitomizes the appeal of the genre.

interviews

BEVERLY JENKINS BY STEPHENIE HARRISON

A pioneer in the romance genre

omance readers know that when the sun goes down and the lights dim, that’s when things really get interesting. It would seem that Beverly Jenkins, a veteran of the genre and a self-professed night owl, is inclined to agree.

During an early morning phone interview with BookPage from her home just outside Detroit, Jenkins apologizes for her husky voice, confessing that she’s still waking up. “I work at night because when I started writing, I had a husband, two growing kids and a job,” she reveals. “The only time I had free was at night, so that’s when I worked. Now I do my best work between 10 p.m. and 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning.” Jenkins is now in her 60s, but old habits die hard. Reflecting on her schedule, she muses that “it started out of necessity, but now it’s just what I do.” In some ways, that statement also encapsulates Jenkins’ writing career. Since the 1994 publication of her first book, Night Song, which featured two African-American lovers in the 1800s, Jenkins has essentially single-handedly pioneered the African-American historical romance subgenre. Jenkins claims she did not begin writing romance with the goal of revolutionizing the industry, but

FORBIDDEN

By Beverly Jenkins

Avon, $7.99, 384 pages ISBN 9780062389008, audio, eBook available

ROMANCE

she admits that the predominantly white romance genre she discovered as a girl in the 1960s never sat entirely right with her. “There were never any characters that looked like me or my sisters or my girlfriends,” she recalls. “Our stories needed to be told.” When asked why it’s so important for people of color to be represented in fiction, particularly historical romance, Jenkins doesn’t pull any punches. “If you look at the demographics of this country, it’s getting browner and browner! To satisfy that market, you have to give people stories that represent them,” she states. “Our country has never been just black or white—it has always been a mixture of cultures. We have managed to whitewash history and cut out all the pieces of the quilt that belong to people of color, when they were the threads holding the quilt together.” For 30 years, Jenkins waited for someone to address this oversight. No one did. Finally, she realized, “If I’m not going to write these stories, then who is?” So she wrote her first love story, although she never intended to publish it. “There was very little, if any, African-American commercial fiction back then,” she says. “The general feeling was that we didn’t have the history or scope, and [black] writers didn’t have the skill to do it.” For a while, Jenkins herself bought into the prevailing dogma, but, at the urging of a friend, she eventually reached out to Vivian Stephens, an African-American romance editor who went on to co-found the Romance Writers of America association. Together, they worked to get Jenkins’ book published. It was not a battle easily won. “We kept getting told, ‘Great story! Great writing! But . . .’ Nobody

wanted to step up and publish it. They kept saying there was no market, that black women don’t read— which is bullshit.” As Jenkins reminisces about the prevailing sentiment at the time, there is no bitterness in her voice, only incredulity and a hint of knowing satisfaction that publishers could be so wrong. In the years since Avon took a chance on her, Jenkins has published over 30 novels, and her books have garnered her a legion of deeply devoted fans. “If I’m not Forbidden going to write is the first installment of these stories, then who is?” a new trilogy and features a fair-skinned freedman named Rhine. He’s passing for white and running a saloon after the Civil War when he encounters the beautiful and fiercewilled Eddy, who owns nothing but a cookstove and dreams of opening a restaurant. Those familiar with Jenkins may remember that Rhine first appeared nearly two decades ago in the novel Through the Storm. Jenkins had never intended for Rhine’s story to lapse for so long, but she says she simply “didn’t know where he was these last 17 years.” It was only recently that she saw reports of an archeological dig uncovering an African-American saloon in Nevada. That’s when she realized where Rhine had been hiding, and his story fell into place. For her fans, the romance may be the beating heart of her stories, but for Jenkins, it’s all about the history itself. “The story for me

has always been paramount, and the sex has been the icing on the cake—your reward for reading the history,” she says. “I want my readers to be learning something, even if they don’t realize it until after they’ve closed the book! Little by little, I’m trying to stitch all of those [forgotten] pieces back into the history quilt.” It’s a job Jenkins feels privileged to perform, but she confesses she would welcome some company. “I have this huge market of ladies— of all races—who are waiting to read more historicals. Hopefully someone else will come and take the genre forward,” she says. However, Jenkins isn’t resting on her laurels. In 2016 alone, she is aiming to release three books. It’s an immense amount of work, but she has no plans to slow down any time soon. “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I have got maybe another 20 years in me,” she chuckles. Looking back at what she has accomplished in the last two decades, one can only imagine what new triumphs the next pair will hold. What is clear, however, is that in her pursuit to write about African-American history and piece together the quilt, Jenkins has woven herself into its very fabric.

interviews

HAN KANG

The holiness and horror of humanity

everal years ago Han Kang, the South Korean author of the beautiful and disquieting new novel The Vegetarian, gave up driving and sold her car. Why?

“To be honest,” she writes drolly during an email discussion about her life and her novel, “when I used to drive, it was sometimes dangerous because I had too many thoughts in my head.” Now, Han says, she walks a lot and commutes from her home in the “quiet city” of Gwacheon, South Korea, to the Seoul Institute of the Arts, where she teaches creative writing. On the bus or the train, she says, she can read or look out the window and let her thoughts go where they will. Those wide-ranging thoughts end up coalescing into Han’s psychologically compelling fiction, including her first work to be published in English, The Vegetarian. The novel is concise and swift, its language often almost poetic. This is not so surprising, since Han worked as a poet before turning to fiction. She has earned several prestigious Korean prizes for her novels, including the Manhae Prize for Literature and the Yi Sang Literary Prize, and The Vegetarian was a bestseller—and adapted for film—in Korea. It also made waves

THE VEGETARIAN

By Han Kang

Hogarth, $21, 192 pages, ISBN 9780553448184 Audio, eBook available

WORLD FICTION

when it was published in the U.K. last year. The novel sprang from an earlier short story, “The Fruit of My Woman.” Han describes this work as a story “about a woman who turns into a plant. The man who has been living with her places her in a pot in their apartment. During their time living together, he had trouble understanding her.” The man takes good care of the woman-plant, but at the end of the season she A simple choice “produces a few tough launches a fruits and series of surreal shrivels up,” and shocking says Han. “[T]he man events in a at the Korean writer’s looks fruits in his U.S. debut. palm and wonders whether the woman will bloom again the following spring.” Immediately after publishing the story, Han says, “I had the inexplicable feeling that the story wasn’t over.” But when she started working on The Vegetarian, she realized the novel was becoming something “quite different . . . something much fiercer, more painful.” At the center of Han’s novel is Yeong-hye, a woman who first gives up eating meat and then gives up eating altogether, taking a personally destructive path to avoid harming others. Her actions are shocking and intriguing to those around her and ripple outward to others. Han says the question that haunted her while writing The Vegetarian was about the nature of human beings, about human innocence and human violence. “Humans are creatures who sacrifice their lives without a moment’s hesitation to save a child who has fallen onto the subway track; they are also the creatures

who did such things at Auschwitz,” she says. “The Vegetarian was sparked by my uncertainty about the spectrum of humanity—a spectrum that stretches from holiness to horror.” Though she is the novel’s central character, Yeong-hye remains in many ways a mystery. She never tells her own story. Rather, we come to understand the outlines of her story from the people around her—her oafish husband, her artistic brother-in-law and her sister. “I thought that the only way to represent the life of this curiously determined woman was to have readers discover her for themselves, at a certain point between three mutually contrary gazes,” Han explains. In Korea, the three sections were originally published as novellas, before being collated into a novel. “Each one took about a couple of months. I didn’t want to hurry to go on with the next part directly, so it took almost three years to finish the book,” says Han. The section told by Yeong-hye’s artist brother-in-law is especially challenging, full of vivid and sometimes sexually charged descriptions. “I think the book’s second act more or less has the structure of a traditional tragedy,” Han explains. “I wanted to deal with the process by which a human being crumbles and crashes due to the fissure which arises within himself. I thought that that internal process needed to be described with the maximum of detail. That suffering was the core of this character.” Han says the third section,

BY ALDEN MUDGE

narrated by Yeong-hye’s older sister In-hye, was the most difficult to compose. “Of the three narrators, In-hye is the character who approaches Yeong-hye’s suffering the closest. In a certain sense, you can say that this novel is a story of sisters. I wrote it in the present tense to separate it from the two preceding sections, and tried to get closer to In-hye’s suffering. But I absolutely didn’t want to exaggerate that suffering; on the contrary, I wanted to constantly moderate it. Maintaining that disparity wasn’t easy to do.” Han attended a three-month program at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and her English is very good. Yet in emailing responses to BookPage’s questions, she turned several times to the novel’s translator, Deborah Smith, for help with her more nuanced answers. “More than anything else,” Han explains, “I like the tone of the sentences which Deborah writes. The sense of moderation, of strong feelings perseveringly controlled, corresponds with the sentences I write in Korean. I think I am lucky to have encountered a translator who can render subtle emotions.” Strong emotions perseveringly controlled is a most apt description of the experience of reading Han Kang’s haunting novel.

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YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN’T WRITE THAT By Lisa Hoehn

Running Press $9.95, 144 pages ISBN 9780762458868

Booking for love

alentine’s Day plans (or lack thereof) got you down? Whether you’re in the mood for love or would prefer to take comfort in the lovelorn misery of others, we’ve got the perfect read to snuggle up with.

IT ENDED BADLY By Jennifer Wright Holt $21, 256 pages ISBN 9781627792868

The perfect Valentine’s Day read for: Anyone who’s still daydreaming about setting their ex’s car on fire. Between the covers: Maybe the lovey-dovey mush of Valentine’s Day isn’t your bag. Maybe you’re a heartbroken mess. For you, there’s Jennifer Wright’s hilarious survey of 13 of the worst breakups in history. From Nero and Poppaea in Rome to Eddie Fisher and Debbie Rey nolds, these are some truly horrible splits, but Wright’s commentary will have you crying from laughter. Best advice for the lovelorn: Even if you’ve gone a little insane after a breakup, it’s OK, because you’ve (hopefully) never done anything as bad as the people in this book, and “heartbreak is almost never the defining moment of one’s life.” Strangest tidbit: Russian empress Anna Ivanovna forced a prince to marry one of her maids and then locked them in an ice palace for their wedding night. His offense? Falling in love with the wrong woman. Choice quote: “TV is great. Don’t let anyone tell you different. It is the only thing stopping wealthy, idle people from forcing underlings to dress up as chickens and pretend to lay eggs in their foyers— another real thing that happened.”

LOVE: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTRACTION By Leslie BeckerPhelps Ph.D. DK $19.95, 224 pages, ISBN 9781465429896

The perfect Valentine’s Day read for: The shy or self-doubting dater who needs a confidence boost and practical strategies for finding the right companion. Between the covers: For those who need a remedial course, this textbook-style guide has plenty of bright graphics and informative charts to make the lessons more palatable. Readers will learn how to think positively about their attributes and ditch bad habits. Once you’ve entered the dating phase, you’ll find out how to look your best, keep your cool and communicate successfully. Best advice for the lovelorn: Being introverted shouldn’t prevent anyone from finding love. By learning to manage your shyness and feelings of inadequacy, you can become more comfortable dating. Strangest tidbit: “Mental illness is usually not something to bring up in early dates.” Choice quote: “Is blushing bad? Not at all. ‘Blushes are very useful for conveying apologies,’ says UK psychologist Ray Crozier. If your face is burning, try not to worry: it may actually defuse the situation by showing you didn’t mean any harm.”

The perfect Valentine’s Day read for: Singles who filled out their online dating profile with generic descriptors like “fun-loving” and can’t seem to find their match. Between the covers: The founder of ProfilePolish.com, an online dating profile makeover service, provides step-by-step instructions and strategies for presenting your best self online, from picking a username to writing a profile that sums up who you really are. Best advice for the lovelorn: No more sweating the dreaded first impression, as online dating provides an opportunity to take control. Strangest tidbit: A profile that mentions the zombie apocalypse is a deal-breaker. “Because it ain’t gonna happen.” Choice quote: “[P]iss-poor profiles point to one thing: you’re copping out. You may say that you’re looking for a real relationship, but your refusal to put the necessary effort into crafting your profile shows a potential match exactly the opposite.”

CRUSH

By Cathy Alter and Dave Singleton Morrow $19.99, 272 pages ISBN 9780062399557

The perfect Valentine’s Day read for: Anyone looking to reassemble that shrine to Jared Leto that used to occupy your sixth-grade locker. Between the covers: It’s hard to forget, or really get over, your first celebrity crush. In this hilarious and poignant essay collection, popular writers such as Jodi Picoult recount their first taste of infatuation and dish about the obsessive and embarrassing ways they expressed their love. Best advice for the lovelorn: “We

worship perfection because we can’t have it,” wrote Fernando Pessoa. “If we had it, we would reject it.” Strangest tidbit: Even a few video game characters (Laura Croft from “Tomb Raider” being one) make the list for first-crush material. Sample quote: “It doesn’t matter that he’s a character in an epic film played by a famous movie star. Or that I’m a gawky thirteen-year-old with giant buckteeth and wads of scratchy toilet paper stuffed in my training bra. I believe that when we meet. . . my tiny breasts and big choppers will be of little consequence.”

121 FIRST DATES By Wendy Newman Beyond Words $16, 320 pages ISBN 9781582705729

The perfect Valentine’s Day read for: Anyone discouraged after spending too much time in the dismal depths of the dating world. Between the covers: Bay Area author Wendy Newman, a “relationship expert” who went on the titular 121 first dates before meeting her partner, encourages the downtrodden to stay in the dating game. She offers (sometimes cringeworthy) personal anecdotes alongside practical advice and tips to help readers date efficiently and avoid the worst dating mistakes— and promises that it is possible to have an amazing first date with anyone. Best advice for the lovelorn: “No matter how steamy he is, if he doesn’t think I’m hot, he’s no longer hot to me.” Strangest tidbit: “Don’t go hiking on a first meet-and-greet date. He could be a recovering drug addict and felon who has been known to carry a hammer in his back pocket.” Choice quote: “My way (or couple of ways) may not be The One True Way, if there is such a thing. If the shoe doesn’t fit for you, it ain’t your shoe. Don’t cram it on; this could be a long hike.”

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spotlight

the title of your new book? Q: What’s

meet BRADY CARLSON

Q: Describe the book in one sentence.

are Americans obsessed with their presidents? Q: Why

Q: What’s the strangest way a president has been memorialized?

Q: Of all the presidential sites you visited, which did you like best?

book includes some sad (and grisly) presidential death Q: Your scenes. Whose passing seemed the most tragic to you?

f you could meet one president (dead or alive) and ask him Q: Ione question, what would it be?

DEAD PRESIDENTS A reporter and on-air host for New Hampshire Public Radio, Brady Carlson has been fascinated with U.S. presidents since he was in elementary school. His first book, Dead Presidents (Norton, $26.95, 336 pages, ISBN 9780393243932), is an entertaining and informative look at the “afterlives” of our national leaders, from Abraham Lincoln’s casket to the Millard Fill-Me-More sandwich. Carlson lives in New Hampshire with his wife and two sons.

SUSPENSE BY SHEILA M. TRASK

Everyone lies, everyone has secrets

on’t look now—that’s the warning you’ll wish the heroines would heed in these two twisty thrillers, even as you’re urging them to uncover every clue to the sudden deaths of those closest to them. Secrets can only be avoided for so long.

In Heather Gudenkauf’s atmospheric Missing Pieces (Mira, $26.99, 288 pages, ISBN 9780778318651), Sarah Quinlan travels to her husband Jack’s rural hometown of Penny Gate, Iowa, only to find that it holds little of the quaint charm she had pictured. The reason for the visit is troubling—Jack’s beloved Aunt Julia has been badly hurt in a suspicious accident—but it’s nothing the long-married couple can’t handle together. Soon, though, Julia is dead, and smalltown gossip tips Sarah off to some secrets in Jack’s past that don’t mesh with the man she’s known for decades. Gudenkauf expertly develops the story from Sarah’s perspective, so readers ask questions, doubt answers and seek the truth right along with her. What if Jack isn’t who he says he is? How did his parents really die all those years ago? And who’s next? Gudenkauf’s cast of shady characters, from Jack’s mentally unstable sister to his grieving uncle, all have their mysterious moments, which sustains suspicion until the final pages. Gloomy, dark corners of barns and farmhouses, along with long, lonely stretches of back roads and cornfields, play equally large roles in keeping the tension rising. Sarah’s trail is a winding one, but one that we want to see through to the end. Far from tiny towns like Penny Gate, K.A. Tucker’s He Will Be My Ruin (Atria, $25, 352 pages, ISBN 9781501112072) takes readers to the crowded streets of New York City, though this heart-stopping

urban thriller asks a similar question: How well do we really know the ones we love? Where Gudenkauf sticks with one perspective, Tucker alternates between the voices of humanitarian heiress Maggie Sparkes and aspiring antiques dealer Celine Gonzalez. The two were best friends when growing up in the Sparkes home, where Celine’s mother served as Maggie’s nanny. As adults, they’ve lived on opposite ends of the globe, but now Maggie has been called home by the unthinkable: Celine is dead, an apparent suicide. Maggie doesn’t believe for a minute that Celine would do such a thing. When she finds the high-end wardrobe in thrifty Celine’s closet and the picture of the handsome—and very naked—man hidden in the modest woman’s treasure box, Maggie knows there’s more going on. Tucker gives us just enough of a glimpse into Celine’s life through diary entries to intrigue before returning to Maggie’s present-day perspective. As Maggie applies her considerable will and inexhaustible fortune to the case, she becomes entangled in Celine’s secret life. Soon, she’s seduced by the same men, has tea with the same nosy neighbor and doesn’t know whom to trust. Steamy sexual encounters may throw Maggie—and the reader—off the trail, but not for long. Tucker keeps Maggie moving forward at a relentless pace, and it seems she’ll meet the same fate as Celine, unless she can outsmart the true culprit at the very last minute.

reviews T PI OP CK

FICTION

WAYS TO DISAPPEAR

Mystery of a missing novelist REVIEW BY LAUREN BUFFERD

Poet and translator Idra Novey brings a considerable imagination to her first work of fiction, Ways to Disappear, in which the disappearance of a famous novelist upends the life of her American translator. The novel opens with a touch of magic realism: Legendary Brazilian writer Beatriz Yagoda lights a cigar, climbs into an almond tree with a suitcase and vanishes. Hundreds of miles away, her American translator, Emma Neufield, hears the news. Abruptly canceling her classes and leaving her stuffy boyfriend, Miles, behind, Emma flies from snowy Pittsburgh to sultry Rio to lead the search. By the time she arrives, the situation has grown complex: Yagoda’s children, the practical Raquel and the devastatingly sexy Marcus (neither of whom has ever completed reading one of their mother’s books), have discovered that By Idra Novey their mother owes thousands to an angry loan shark. The eccentric Little, Brown, $25, 272 pages cast of characters crisscrosses Brazil from Rio’s sordid back alleys to ISBN 9780316298490, audio, eBook available sunny beach towns and island resorts in pursuit of the missing writer. Stylish and funny, romantic and surreal, Ways to Disappear is a DEBUT FICTION quirky look at the intimate relationship between author and translator. Novey, who has translated several South American writers, including the great Clarice Lispector, has absorbed their experimental spirit, and the story is interspersed with Miles’ increasingly panicky emails and Emma’s translation notes. Though Ways to Disappear unfolds at the rapid pace of a screwball comedy, there is also something patient and artful Visit BookPage.com for a about the novel, making it a thoughtful treatise on writing and artmaking Q&A with Idra Novey. that is as profound as it is playful.

BE FRANK WITH ME By Julia Claiborne Johnson Morrow $25.99, 304 pages ISBN 9780062413710 Audio, eBook available DEBUT FICTION

Legendary writer M.M. “Mimi” Banning hid herself away after feeling suffocated by the fame that accompanied winning a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award at age 20. The only piece of work the reclusive author has managed to produce since then is her son, Frank, a brilliant fourth-grader who uses smart 1930s garb—like pocket squares and wingtips—and facts about the movie business as armor. But after losing her fortune, the tetchy literary talent must write

a new book ASAP. Enter Alice Whitley, an assistant deployed by Mimi’s editor to travel from New York City to L.A. to make sure Mimi is working. But Mimi doesn’t want Alice’s help, and Alice instead finds herself tasked with being Frank’s companion. Both taken with and frustrated by Frank’s eccentricites, Alice can’t help but be curious about the identity of the boy’s father—and how his handsome, flirty piano teacher fits into the cloistered family’s life. Meanwhile, Alice gently urges the frequently unpleasant Mimi to please, please finish her book. In her debut, Julia Claiborne Johnson ably conjures a quirky cast and a privileged California world. Be Frank with Me is about being an outsider and the ways in which differences help others see the world in a new way. Like Frank, this offbeat story has a big heart. —KATIE LEWIS

THE THINGS WE KEEP By Sally Hepworth St. Martin’s $25.99, 352 pages ISBN 9781250051905 Audio, eBook available POPULAR FICTION

Yes, the heroine of The Things We Keep, Anna, is a 38-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease who is confined to an assisted- living facility. But no, Australian writer Sally Hepworth’s second novel is not depressing, and while her narrative can be sad and even painful at times, it is never bleak. On the contrary, the story of Anna and her “boyfriend” at Rosalind House, fellow patient Luke, is tragic but also hopeful, positive and even romantic.

Anna and Luke’s relationship may be the heart of the novel, but its peripheral characters are equally compelling. First among these is Eve, a young mother who lost her identity after her husband’s precipitous fall from grace and reinvents herself as the cook at the assisted-living facility. Hepworth’s depiction of Eve’s spirited daughter, Clem, is also heartrending, as are her portrayals of the eclectic contingent of residents at Rosalind House. Hepworth’s debut, The Secrets of Midwives, was critically acclaimed, and it’s always a formidable task to impress readers with a second novel. But with The Things We Keep, Hepworth proves that literary lightning can indeed strike twice. —KAREN ANN CULLOTTA

THIS WAS NOT THE PLAN By Cristina Alger

Touchstone $26, 352 pages ISBN 9781501103759 Audio, eBook available POPULAR FICTION

When we meet Charlie Goldwyn, he is hurtling through life at breakneck speed. Recently widowed, Charlie is pouring all his energy into his high-pressure, high-stakes job at a prestigious corporate law firm and clearly not dealing with his grief over his wife’s death. Nearly ’round-the-clock workdays have put a serious dent in his relationship with his quirky 5-year-old son, Caleb, and are not winning Charlie any father of the year awards. Pile on a complicated relationship with his own father and you have a portrait of the workaholic, emotionally out-of-touch, modern male. Of course, readers know that this “life” Charlie has created is unsustainable. Cue office party and a booze-soaked moment of truth that leaves Charlie humiliated, unemployed and an instant YouTube sensation. Now jobless, Charlie is stuck at home with Caleb for the summer. What ensues is a hilarious, touching romp of a journey

reviews that finds Charlie learning what fatherhood truly means. Cristina Alger, author of The Darlings, has written a big, heartfelt book that reads like your favorite sitcom. Charlie’s evolution to a secure, confident stay-at-home dad is wonderfully satisfying, and he is as relatable as Will Freeman in Nick Hornby’s About a Boy. This Was Not the Plan is a familiar story of love, loss, parenthood, friendship—and of finally understanding what it means to create a life that is truly in balance. —J E S S I C A P E A R S O N

LOVE IN LOWERCASE By Francesc Miralles

Translated by Julie Wark Penguin $16, 240 pages ISBN 9780143128212 eBook available WORLD FICTION

In Love in Lowercase, Samuel lives a quiet life based on routine. He’s a loner in every sense of the word: His family interactions are perfunctory, not pleasant. A professor, he teaches about great stories and tortured characters, but his own life is quite shallow and plotless—until a cat wanders through the front door of his Barcelona apartment and changes his life, inviting in love, friendship and even a little bit of adventure. Inspired by his new cat, Samuel begins to reach beyond his comfort zone. He cultivates friendships with a vet, a neighbor and people he meets at a bar. Of course, a book with “love” in the title wouldn’t be complete without romance, and when Samuel meets a beautiful, mysterious woman named Gabriela, we get to see if his decision to re-engage with his life pays off romantically as well as platonically. Samuel attributes his new relationship success to following signs, to the butterfly effect, to magic and happenstance. But Spanish author Francesc Miralles seems to be showing us that Samuel’s decision to take the opportunities life’s been

FICTION handing him all along is what really creates his relationship changes. The title of Love in Lowercase refers to the power of small actions. Miralles has given us a lovely little book with nods to literature, philosophy and music that encourages us to wake up to our lives and to the people in them, and to let small coincidences lead us to love. —C A R R I E R O L LWA G E N

Edmund White Award. In All the Birds in the Sky, Anders adeptly twines magic, surrealism, technological innovation and machinery into a quirky story that, at its base, is about searching for common ground in a world of differences. —HALEY HERFURTH

GOOD ON PAPER By Rachel Cantor

ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY By Charlie Jane Anders

Tor $25.99, 320 pages ISBN 9780765379948 Audio, eBook available FANTASY

Outcasts alienated by their peers, Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead found each other in junior high, forming a tenuous friendship. Patricia was a budding witch and Laurence was a tech whiz, successfully developing a two-second time machine and a potentially sentient computer. But after a painful parting of ways, the two assumed they would never see each other again. Reunited unexpectedly as adults living in San Francisco, the pair discover they both now use their talents for the same cause: working to save the planet, each in their own way. Patricia attended a hidden academy for the world’s magically gifted and now works with a group of magicians to secretly fix the world’s problems, while Laurence is an engineering genius who works with a group trying to avert global catastrophe by technological intervention. Despite their separate paths, Patricia and Laurence keep being pushed together. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them is determined to force them to work together to save the world. Author Charlie Jane Anders, editor-in-chief of io9.com, seamlessly melds science fiction and fantasy in All the Birds in the Sky. Anders’ debut novel, Choir Boy, won the 2006 Lambda Literary Award and was shortlisted for the

Melville House $25.95, 320 pages ISBN 9781612194707 eBook available LITERARY FICTION

Good on Paper, Rachel Cantor’s ingenious follow-up to 2014’s A Highly Unlikely Scenario, is set in the final months of 1999. Single mother Shira Greene is 44 and works as a temp at a company that makes prosthetic legs. She hates the job, and why wouldn’t she? Her dream is to be a writer and translator, a vocation life has forced her to put aside. Employment notwithstanding, Shira has a comfortable life. She and her 7-year-old daughter, Andi, share a Manhattan apartment with Shira’s friend Ahmad, an economics professor whom Andi thinks of as her real father. Then Shira receives a telegram from Romei, a Nobel Prize-winning poet. Romei offers Shira the well-paying chance to translate his new work, a Dante-inspired piece dedicated to his wife. The job, however, isn’t as perfect as it seems. Romei’s work is all but untranslatable, with a storyline that bears a resemblance to one of Shira’s few published stories—a discovery that makes her question Romei’s true intent in hiring her. Part of the fun of Good on Paper is the slow revelation of the mystery behind Romei’s request— which involves not only Shira and her mother, who abandoned her family when Shira was Andi’s age, but also Shira’s friend Benny, a bookstore owner and part-time rabbi known to rollerblade around New York in a cherry-red bodysuit. Don’t be fooled by the breeziness

of the opening pages. Good on Paper is a challenging work, with translation serving as a metaphor for the search for another person’s intentions. Cantor’s witty novel is about the quest for the best path and the difficulty in finding it. —MICHAEL MAGRAS

THE HIGH MOUNTAINS OF PORTUGAL By Yann Martel

Spiegel & Grau $27, 352 pages ISBN 9780812997170 Audio, eBook available LITERARY FICTION

The latest novel from the bestselling author of Life of Pi, Yann Martel, is a story told in three parts, featuring three men, each dealing with the loss of a loved one. We start in the early 1900s in Lisbon, where Tomás grapples with the unexpected loss of his lover and their son by deciding to walk only backwards as a show of contempt for God. Stranger still is his mission to use his rich uncle’s automobile to find a treasure that he believes will forever shake faith in Christianity, furthering his defiance of heaven. These heavy themes of death and religion are lightened by humorous (sometimes laugh out loud) depictions of the results of Tomás’ backward motion, as well as his utter ineptitude with the car. In the second section, set 35 years later, we meet Dr. Eusebio Lozora, a pathologist. This fan of Agatha Christie murder mysteries finds himself performing an equally riveting medical autopsy that is somehow linked to Tomás’ tragedy. Grief is the main theme here, which Martel skillfully uses to challenge all of the doctor’s scientific knowledge. In the final section, another 50 years have passed. In Ontario, Canada, we meet Senator Peter Tovy, who is falling to pieces personally and professionally after the loss of his beloved wife. An unusual and unexpected course of action makes him the owner of a chimpanzee, Odo, with whom he decides to

FICTION live in his ancestral village in the high mountains of Portugal. There, history reveals itself with time, decisively connecting the three parts of the novel. After such a gripping and detailed narrative, the final conclusion seems a little too sudden and unanticipated. Even so, The High Mountains of Portugal doesn’t disappoint in its twists and turns, which leave the reader working like a detective to connect all the dots. Filled with humor, sadness, love and adventure, it’s a perfect balance for those who want a feelgood book that still provides an insight into the human psyche. —CHIKA GUJARATHI

WHERE MY HEART USED TO BEAT By Sebastian Faulks

Holt $27, 352 pages ISBN 9780805097320 Audio, eBook available HISTORICAL FICTION

The terrible waste of war—especially its unrelenting effect on those who somehow survive—lies at the center of Sebastian Faulks’ 13th novel. Where My Heart Used to Beat is a return to historical fiction, the genre Faulks is best known for thanks to bestsellers like Birdsong. London psychiatrist Robert Hendricks, now in his 60s, has tried to bury the memories of his service in World War II, but the losses he experienced still haunt him. Isolated and lonely, Robert is intrigued when he receives a letter from 93-year-old Alexander P ereira, a neurologist and World War I vet who claims to have served in the same infantry unit as the father Robert barely knew. Curious, Robert decides to accept Dr. Pereira’s offer to visit him at his home on a remote island off the southern coast of France. Over the next several months, Robert makes a series of visits to Pereira, immersing himself in the revelations about his father and his own cloudy wartime memories. Pereira gradually gets Robert

to open up about his war experiences—things he had not shared with anyone except the woman he loved and lost. Throughout Faulks the course of delves into these inthe subjects trospective episodes, of memory and loss with Robert and Pereira debate erudition and an array of perception. philosophical issues, including whether 20th-century “ills” like the Holocaust and apartheid were the fault of individuals or governments. Robert gradually concludes that his postwar work as a psychiatrist has been “little more than an attempt at rebuttal.” Faulks delves into the subjects of memory and loss with erudition and perception, engaging his readers in the task of grappling with their own memories of the past, and how those memories interject themselves into the present. His latest is a thoughtful and moving novel, beautifully told, about how humans can comprehend—or fail to comprehend—the atrocities that surround us every day. —DEBORAH DONOVAN

BLACK RABBIT HALL By Eve Chase

the watchful eye of their beloved mother, children Amber, Toby, Barney and Kitty would spend lazy summers and school holidays reveling in the pursuits of childhood. But in the present day, the house sits shuttered. To stave off financial ruin, its owner has agreed to rent out the property for weddings, which brings Lorna Smith and her fiance to its gates. Although Black Rabbit Hall is entirely unsuitable for entertaining, Lorna is immediately captivated by the place and can’t shake the feeling that she has visited it before. Curiosity turns into obsession, and Lorna soon finds herself desperate to uncover Black Rabbit Hall’s tragic history. Chase’s pacing and world-building are excellent, thoroughly setting the scene and bringing her characters to life. There is a dreamy quality to the writing that gives the novel the tenor of a Gothic fairy tale, and although there is a sense of malice and danger that thrums beneath

it all, Chase’s achingly beautiful investigation of her characters’ inner lives results in a story that is haunting rather than scary. For fans of Kate Morton and Daphne du Maurier, Black Rabbit Hall is an obvious must-read, but it is sure to please any reader who delights in devilishly thrilling dramas. —STEPHENIE HARRISON

BLACK DEUTSCHLAND By Darryl Pinckney FSG $26, 304 pages ISBN 9780374113810 eBook available

HISTORICAL FICTION

Novelist and essayist Darryl Pinckney draws on the legacy of Christopher Isherwood’s 1930s expat classic, The Berlin Stories, in his

What would you risk for love? New York Times bestselling author Jodi Thomas delivers a tale of haunting secrets and hidden desires in a small Texan town.

Putnam $27, 384 pages ISBN 9780399174124 Audio, eBook available DEBUT FICTION

Is there a better setting for a mystery with a whiff of the supernatural than an English country manor house? From Thornfield Hall to Manderley, literature is replete with spooky old homes: places that pulse with untold dangers, where secrets and horrors from the past whisper from the shadows. The eponymous estate in Eve Chase’s debut novel, Black Rabbit Hall, is one such place, though this wasn’t always the case. During the 1960s, it was the Cornish holiday home of the Alton family. Under

www.HQNBooks.com www.JodiThomas.com

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SHILPI SOMAYA GOWDA BY TRISHA PING

Between two worlds

n Shilpi Somaya Gowda’s compelling second novel, childhood best friends Anil and Leena choose very different life paths.

DAVID CARMACK ©©NICK RUSSELL

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Anil leaves India to become a doctor in America, while Leena marries a man in a neighboring village—but they are soon confronted with changes that make them wonder whether they’ve made the right choices. Gowda confronts the universal question of how much our lives are shaped by family and cultural expectations in The Golden Son (Morrow, $26.99, 408 pages, ISBN 9780062391452), a thoughtful family saga. You were born in Canada and live in California, but you describe life in India very evocatively. What is your relationship to India like? I come from a long line of immigrants. My grandfather left India to set up a trading business in East Africa. My parents left India and eventually settled in Canada. I came to the U.S. for university and have lived here ever since, and my children were born here. The idea of having multiple cultures is very much my own experience. I’ve visited India all through my life, and it does feel like “home” in some way. When I took my children to India for the first time, they too fell easily into the rhythms of family and culture, and I have to believe there’s some connection there on a deep level. The idea of arbitration as practiced in Anil’s home village is likely unfamiliar to many American readers. How did you come across it? I have long been intrigued by the Indian tradition of settling disputes within a community. I grew up hearing stories about lives that were changed: women granted divorces from abusive marriages, for example, before there were laws in place to protect them. Of course, not all disputes were settled happily, and afterward they had to go back to living together in the same community. It’s so different from the nearly anonymous, transactional way we administer justice. What do you wish more people understood about immigrants and their reasons for seeking a life in North America? I am drawn to stories of characters who have to navigate cross-cultural issues, because there are an infinite number of ways an individual can react to the particular opportunities and challenges of being an immigrant. At the same time, it’s also a universal theme: Almost everyone can point to a story in their family history that features a personal uprooting and resettling. Both Canada and America have been built on this tradition. It’s this diversity that makes Western society so strong, rich and innovative, and we would do well to remember that. There is a lot of information about the medical field in this novel— how did you research those aspects of the story? As someone who didn’t study science past high school and is squeamish about blood, it was not a likely (or wise) choice for me to write about a young doctor in his residency. But I thought Anil Patel belonged in the field of medicine, with its high stakes and prevalent moral questions. So, I dove into research. I read about the residency experience [and] interviewed many, many doctors. I’m very grateful to all the physicians who helped me learn how to tell this story. Fortunately, I never fainted on one of them.

reviews second novel, Black Deutschland. Pinckney’s young, African-American narrator, Jed Goodfinch, makes repeated visits to Berlin in the decade before the Berlin Wall falls in 1989. Unlike Isherwood’s characters, however, Jed can openly state that the city’s thriving gay community is a big part of its appeal. Jed has spent several summers in Berlin, drinking and Pinckney’s drugging at compelling the Chi Chi bar tale draws and sponging off his cousfrom classic in Cello, an expat fiction. imperious classical pianist who married into a wealthy German family. But his latest visit is different: Fresh out of rehab, Jed is working with a celebrated and controversial architect whose project to renovate whole sections of West Berlin mirror Jed’s hopes for his own reinvention. The novel shifts in time, much as Jed travels between Berlin and Chicago. Chicago represents the complexities of being a black man in the United States, not to mention Jed’s parents’ disappointment in him—though whether that is due to his addiction or his sexuality, he’s not sure. Berlin means AA meetings with black GIs, bohemian clubs, socialist co-ops—and lots of love, mostly unrequited but, in one magical instance, very requited indeed. Black Deutschland is an episodic mix of ideas, places, happenings and emotions. At its best, the novel plunges the reader directly into singular events— the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, or the somber days after the sudden death of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor. Though the shifts in time and place can be disorientingly swift, the through note is Jed’s wryly comic, witheringly honest voice. Pinckney’s belief in a ferocious intellect as a key component in the engaged life is deliciously present in this inviting and absorbing novel. —LAUREN BUFFERD

Visit BookPage.com for a Q&A with Darryl Pinckney.

FICTION THE FORGETTING TIME By Sharon Guskin Flatiron $25.99, 368 pages ISBN 9781250076427 Audio, eBook available DEBUT FICTION

Sharon Guskin’s debut novel is the tender story of a mother’s desperate struggle to heal her troubled child, artfully blended with an intriguing exploration of the world of the paranormal and the provocative question of whether consciousness can survive death. When conventional therapy fails to alter or explain the disturbing behavior of her 4-year-old son, Noah, single mother Janie Zimmerman turns in despair to the Internet. There she discovers psychiatrist Jerome Anderson, whose unconventional research into the recall of prior lives has cost him respectability in his profession. Soon, their lives are linked in an effort to resolve Noah’s debilitating condition, a quest that takes them deep inside another family’s tragedy. Though it’s wholly original, the tale of disappearance and death that lies at the core of The Forgetting Time summons the spirit of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. Guskin adroitly maintains the pace of her mystery plot while simultaneously revealing the deepening emotional bonds between Janie and Noah and Anderson in a way that contrasts effectively with the novel’s more fantastic elements. She brings that same sensitivity to her portrayal of the grieving mother whose loss draws the trio to the climax of their quest. Guskin acknowledges her debt to the work of a pair of real-life Jerome Andersons at the Division of Perceptual Studies of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, quoting striking case studies. Regardless of your skepticism or credulity about reincarnation, you’ll come away moved by this affecting tale of maternal love and the unbreakable cords of memory. —HARVEY FREEDENBERG

Perfect Reads to Keep You Up

All Night! is one of the best romantic « “This suspense novels I’ve read in a long time. Highly recommended!” —COLLEEN COBLE, author of The Inn at Ocean’s Edge

“I found it impossible to put down.” —LOIS DUNCAN, New York Times bestselling author, I Know What You Did Last Summer

“As the characters confront their pasts, their tracking of the killer leads them into a tangled web of historical violence, guaranteeing that readers will stay on the edge of their seats.”

“Hannon is a master at her craft, and her unique way of handling suspense makes her a cut above the other writers in the genre.” —RT BOOK REVIEWS

—BOOKLIST STARRED REVIEW

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Available wherever books and ebooks are sold.

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LIT UP By David Denby Holt

MY FATHER, THE PORNOGRAPHER

A father’s unsettling legacy

$30, 288 pages ISBN 9780805095852 Audio, eBook available EDUCATION

REVIEW BY CATHERINE HOLLIS

Chris Offutt has made a remarkable career for himself as an award-winning author and screenwriter (“True Blood,” “Weeds”). In his stunning new memoir, he turns to the complex legacy of his father, Andrew Offutt, a prolific writer of pulp science fiction and pornography. And by “prolific,” we’re talking more than 400 paperbacks of series fiction, with titles like Blunder Broads and The Girl in the Iron Mask. (The complete bibliography in the back of the book is worth a perusal for its less family-friendly titles.) After Andrew Offutt discovered his talent for churning out pulp fiction, he became a stay-at-home professional writer in the Appalachian hills of eastern Kentucky. While his wife catered to his every need, Chris—the oldest son—became the de facto caretaker of his By Chris Offutt three younger siblings. They all knew not to go into their father’s study, Atria, $26, 272 pages or walk too loudly or slam the door: The entire household revolved ISBN 9781501112461, eBook available around the “great” writer’s sensitivities. Small wonder each child escaped by age 17, but as a writer himself, Offutt felt the burden of his MEMOIR father’s influence. The questions Offutt asks himself in this thoughtful, elegant memoir emerge from the emotionally wrenching process of organizing and cataloging his father’s work (more than 1,800 pounds of it) after his death. Did Offutt become a writer despite, or because of, his father? How does one mourn a difficult parent? How are we shaped by our childhoods, and can we truly move on from them? These are questions we all might ask upon the death of parent, and they will open up this particular story to many different readers. While the beating heart of the book is its depiction of a complicated father-son relationship, it also provides a fascinating glimpse of the literary culture of 1970s science-fiction conventions and the last days of paperback porn before the advent of video and digital pornography. My Father, the Pornographer preserves a slice of forgotten literary life within its keenly felt, lyrical portrayal of a son wrestling with his father’s inheritance. 2012. By June 2014, his condition had deteriorated to the point that he elected to hasten his death by By Diane Rehm forgoing food, water and mediKnopf cations. The fact that he survived $23.95, 176 pages and suffered for another nine days ISBN 9781101875285 caused Rehm to “rage at a system Audio, eBook available that would not allow John to be helped toward his own death” and MEMOIR spurred her to commit herself to Compassion & Choices, an organization that advocates for the right to die with medical assistance. Prominent NPR talk show host Diane Rehm’s memoir, On My Own, But this memoir is much more is a plainspoken but passionate ac- than a polemic on aiding the count of the death from Parkinson’s terminally ill. Eschewing self-help disease of her husband of 54 years clichés, the deeply religious Rehm and of her journey through the first offers a meticulous narrative of her year of widowhood. personal struggle to come to terms Diagnosed in 2005, John Rehm, with a profound loss. Though the intensity of her love for John is a retired lawyer, finally entered an assisted living facility in November unmistakable, she takes pains not

ON MY OWN

to portray their marriage in idyllic terms. Instead, she describes that relationship as one “filled with both times of joy and years of hostility,” and her mixed feelings clearly affected a “complicated and long-lasting” grieving process she reveals with candor and insight. Anticipating her memoir’s publication, Rehm, who is 79, announced in December that she would leave broadcasting after 37 years, sometime after the 2016 election. Though she spends a considerable amount of time in the book musing about what it will take for her to feel useful in the years ahead, there is little doubt that this talented woman will find myriad ways to continue her valuable contributions to our world. —HARVEY FREEDENBERG

“Together and alone, we need literature as the California valleys need rain,” muses David Denby, author of Great Books (1996) and staff writer for The New Yorker. But, he wondered, in an age of texting and tweeting, are teens still reading complex literary works? And can an appetite for serious reading be developed in high school? To find out, Denby decided to return to school himself, exploring 10th-grade classrooms and the reading habits of 15-year-olds. Denby opted for a subjective, arbitrary approach, spending the 2011-2012 academic year observing teacher Sean Leon’s class at The Beacon School, an alternative high school in Manhattan; the following year he visited classes in two other public high schools. As Denby glances at a student’s essay draft at the beginning of the year in Leon’s class, he can’t help but think that Leon had “his work cut out for him. They all did, the English teachers of America.” Denby is an engaging writer and a keen spectator: The teachers and students he observes spring off the page as real people. He also explores the books along with the students themselves. (If you hated The Scarlet Letter in high school, here’s your chance to revisit it.) Like many of the teens around him, Denby himself isn’t always on the same page as the teacher who’s asking for total engagement with, say, Dostoevsky at 8:00 in the morning. “I couldn’t believe I was even there. At that moment, I couldn’t handle The Sound of Music.” Yet, he comes to realize, many of the students are juggling not only multiple classes but part-time jobs and challenging home situations. Denby gives us a dramatic, fascinating look at teachers and

NONFICTION students struggling, questioning and growing together. Lit Up is a testament to the power of extraordinary teachers and the willingness of young people to engage—not just with books, but with the serious business of becoming adults. —DEBORAH HOPKINSON

WHILE THE CITY SLEPT By Eli Sanders

Viking $28, 336 pages ISBN 9780670015719 eBook available CRIME

sion as she addresses Kalebu at his sentencing: “I do wish you peace, and I do not hate you, and I’m so sorry for whatever it is in your life that brought you to this.” As the narrative unfolds, Sanders also deftly explores the tangled roles played by the social services, mental health and prison systems, calculating that the public will end up paying over $3 million for Kalebu’s trial and continued incarceration. While the City Slept offers a comprehensive look at a tragedy that is sadly all too common. —ALICE CARY

ANDY WARHOL WAS A HOARDER By Claudia Kalb

On a hot summer night in 2009 in Seattle, a 23-year-old man crept through the bathroom window of the home of 39-year-old Teresa Butz and her partner, 36-year-old Jennifer Hopper. The pair awoke to find the stranger standing over their beds with a knife; he proceeded to rape and stab the women repeatedly. They eventually broke free, running into the street, screaming and bleeding, while their attacker fled. It was too late for Teresa Butz, who died from her horrific wounds. Hopper survived, suddenly finding herself planning a funeral instead of the wedding ceremony she and Butz had been looking forward to. Eli Sanders, an editor of Seattle’s weekly newspaper, The Stranger, received a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of the crime and its aftermath. His expanded book-length coverage, While the City Slept, is an absorbing and meticulous account of how these three lives tragically intersected on July 19, 2009. Sanders’ reporting makes for sad but riveting reading. The killer, Isaiah Kalebu, is the son of a Ugandan immigrant who routinely beat Kalebu’s mother. Mental illness ran in his mother’s family, and Kalebu was known to wander the streets spouting grandiose nonsense with his pit bull in tow. He had been diagnosed as bipolar in 2008 but refused treatment and medication. Sanders describes Hopper’s admirable courage and compas-

National Geographic $24, 320 pages ISBN 9781426214660 eBook available HISTORY

Historical figures tend to become one-dimensional in our minds over time. We remember Princess Diana’s beauty and generosity, Andy Warhol’s artistic genius and George Gershwin’s unmistakable melodies, but we don’t always acknowledge their personal struggles. Veteran journalist Claudia Kalb asks us to do just that in Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder, a collection of 12 seemingly disparate stories of luminaries in architecture, science, politics and more. While none of Kalb’s individual mini-biographies is startling on its own (we’re hardly surprised to learn that President Lincoln faced depression), when combined, they raise some interesting questions, among them whether mental illness and creative genius are intimate bedfellows. When we read about the endless collection of detritus left behind by Warhol, for instance, we may recognize a hoarding disorder, but also a man who saw objects in a different light and treated them with a reverence many of us do not. We wonder if Frank Lloyd Wright could have continued to create his unique architecture through years of

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CHRIS OFFUTT BY CATHERINE HOLLIS

Secret inheritance

n the beautifully written memoir My Father, the Pornographer, Chris Offutt tries to make sense of his father’s past as the “king of 20th century smut.”

There were many surprises in store when you inherited your father’s desk and 1,800 pounds of his writing. Of the more than 400 novels he wrote, most were pulp porn. When you were a child, what did you know about his writing career? Dad was a salesman who wrote at night and on weekends. He got a few stories in print, then, when I was 12, he published his first novel. My understanding was that he wrote only science fiction. He kept his porn activity very secret. This was mainly due to living in a very conservative area—the Bible Belt of Appalachia. By the time I was 16, I realized he wrote some porn. But I believed it was supplemental income, a little bit here and there to make ends meet. It wasn’t until his death that I fully understood the scope of his output, and the primary focus on porn. Apparently your mother typed your father’s manuscripts for him. Do you think she ever made any editorial changes while typing? Yes. She corrected any surface errors and deciphered his handwritten edits. Mom was a good typist, much better than Dad. He taught himself to type with three fingers and made many errors. Due to the sheer volume and the pace that he worked, Mom worked on some books in a more collaborative role. They worked together very fast: Dad wrote a first draft in longhand, then began typing. He’d get 30 or so pages and pass it on to Mom for the final draft. As a result, she made some changes—for clarity, structure and details. Sometimes she did the final typing while he was still finishing the book! What traits as a writer (if any) did you inherit from your father? It’s difficult to know what was inherited and what was modeled in terms of behavior. I certainly inherited his love of reading, which is crucial for a writer. I have his curiosity and energy. Perhaps most important, I learned the value of discipline—treating the act of writing like a job. Like Dad, I write every day. Unlike him, I revise very heavily. He was much more prolific. It’s hard to process the death of a difficult parent. You write of loving your father, but not liking him. Can you speak to the difference? My father could be very funny and extremely charismatic. He was extremely likable for short periods, but people had to interact with Dad on his terms or not at all. I loved him the way any boy loves his father. But Dad made himself very hard to like. He preferred not to be close with most people other than my mother. I believe it made him feel safe. It was emotionally wrenching for you to organize and catalog your father’s literary output. Are you glad you completed the task? Yes. I learned a lot about myself in the process of writing the book. I was also able to understand my father better. When I finished, I felt relieved. It was exhausting in every way—physically, mentally and emotionally. Writing this book had short-term effects, some of which weren’t good. I’m very interested in learning the long-term effects a few years from now. What benefits will arise from having devoted myself to this book? At this point, I believe I’m a better person for having done so.

reviews financial ruin if he hadn’t had some sort of narcissism driving his work. Kalb doesn’t just look at the possible positive effect of mental illness on creativity, though. She also examines the ways psychological disturbances can tragically cut short creative endeavors. From Marilyn Monroe to Howard Hughes, Kalb shows how early experiences may have set the stage for an ultimate breakdown. We don’t come away wishing mental illness on anyone, only discovering that it can, indeed, happen to even the most talented among us. — SHEILA M. TRASK

IN OTHER WORDS By Jhumpa Lahiri Translated by Ann Goldstein

Knopf $26.95, 256 pages ISBN 9781101875551 Audio, eBook available MEMOIR

In her deeply personal new book, In Other Words, acclaimed novelist Jhumpa Lahiri notes that “writing in another language represents an act of demolition, a new beginning.” It’s a neat summing-up of what takes place in this brief, meditative memoir—Lahiri’s first work of nonfiction—as she shares the story of her passion for Italian and how she set out to master it. Lahiri became enamored of Italian during her student days and studied the language somewhat

NONFICTION casually in the years that followed. But her interest deepened over time, and in 2012 she moved with her family to Rome. Lahiri, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Interpreter of Maladies (1999), was also seeking a “new approach” to her art, and over the course of the narrative, it becomes clear that by unlocking the Italian language she makes unexpected discoveries about herself as a writer. But the endeavor is a humbling one. Lahiri is candid about the difficulties she encounters in gaining command of a new language. When she attempts serious prose pieces in Italian, she finds that the process of composition as she has practiced it throughout her career no longer applies. “I’ve never tried to do anything this demanding as a writer,” she admits. “I’ve never felt so stupid.” Lahiri’s many fans will not be surprised to learn that she succeeds in her linguistic undertaking. She wrote In Other Words in Italian, and it’s presented here in a dual-language format. As the narrative unfolds and the new language forces her to relearn the rudiments of her craft, she achieves her usual artistry and delivers an impassioned valentine to the most lyrical of languages. —J U L I E H A L E

1924 By Peter Ross Range

Little, Brown $28, 336 pages ISBN 9780316384032 Audio, eBook available BIOGRAPHY

Only a society riven by fear and desperation would have incubated a figure as initially uncredentialed and unimpressive as Adolf Hitler. A school dropout and frequent vagrant, Hitler had no achievements to speak of until he served honorably in the German army during the Great War. He remained in the army after Germany’s defeat and discovered his gift as a public speaker when he was assigned

to a propaganda unit set up to encourage nationalism and root out Marxist inclinations among the troops. Eventually, he moved into a leadership position in the German Workers’ Party, a virulently anti-Semitic assemblage that tapped into the social discontent ravaging the fractious and debt-ridden country. By late 1923, Hitler and his adherents had gained enough critical mass to move against the political establishment, which it did in the infamous “beer hall putsch.” Hitler took command of the overflow crowd at a Munich beer hall and declared that both the Bavarian and national governments were being replaced by a provisional government. It was a heady effort, but the putsch failed. Hitler and his chief conspirators were soon arrested and lodged in Landsberg Prison. Hitler was tried for high treason by a sympathetic judge, convicted and given a five-year sentence. Providing superb detail and background, 1924: The Year That Made Hitler focuses on the few months he actually served at Landsberg, during which he was treated royally rather than punitively. Freed from the daily demands of party politics, Hitler was able to put his thoughts on nationalism and strong-man governance into a book that would become the first volume of Mein Kampf—and the grand rationale for the murderous Third Reich. —EDWARD MORRIS

CHILDREN OF PARADISE By Laura Secor

Riverhead $30, 528 pages ISBN 9781594487101 Audio, eBook available WORLD POLITICS

In 1979, Iran became a revolutionary theocracy. Since then, to the outside world, the country has been identified with repression, false confessions, brutality, torture and worse. But as journalist Laura Secor demonstrates in her compelling, enlightening and often dis-

turbing Children of Paradise: The Struggle for the Soul of Iran, there is another aspect of the country’s modern history, a “revolutionary impulse as complexly modern as the society that produced it.” These are the heroic efforts of ordinary citizens who exhibit extraordinary courage in endowing the Islamic Republic with their dreams, who embody “the soul of the matter, the experience of politics as it is lived.” They have not moved to overthrow the government but instead challenge injustice, encourage electoral participation and push the government to function in the best interests of the populace. Between 2004 and 2012, Secor made five trips to Iran, where she observed four elections. Her extensive research included interviews with over 150 people, both inside and outside the country, about conditions there. They ranged from journalists and bloggers to philosophers and political operatives, most of them activists and survivors of imprisonment and torture. Almost all of her interviewees have been forced to leave the country. The story of Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the republic that followed “is not only—perhaps not even primarily—a story about religion,” she writes. It is about politics and identity, about social division and cohesion, the convergence of many streams of thought and activism. Among the many examples of bravery and idealism profiled in the book is Abdolkarim Soroush, a lay theologian who argues that religious knowledge, like all human knowledge, is subjective and open to question. He believes the Islamic Republic made a fatal mistake in emphasizing Islamic jurisprudence over every other aspect of Islam. Soroush was seriously threatened because of his views. Anyone who wants to better understand the modern history of Iran as it has been lived by people there should not miss Children of Paradise. It is an insightful mix of first-rate reporting, eyewitness accounts and intellectual history, told in a style that holds us in its grip from page to page. —ROGER BISHOP

spotlight WASHINGTON’S MONUMENT By John Steele Gordon

Bloomsbury $27, 224 pages ISBN 9781620406502 eBook available HISTORY

Of all the weird twists in the 40year drama of building the Washington Monument, perhaps the oddest was in 1855, when a band of rebels staged a coup and seized the project, largely because the board overseeing the construction had accepted a commemorative stone from Pope Pius IX. The Know-Nothing Party faction didn’t give back the monument until 1858. Of course, the “monument” was then a 153-foot stump, decades from completion. As John Steele Gordon shows in his enjoyable Washington’s Monument, a history of the memorial specifically and obelisks more generally, dysfunction is not a modern phenomenon. Officials dithered over a suitable honor for George Washington from 1783, when Congress first passed a resolution, to 1888, when the obelisk-shaped tower, by then its full 555 feet, officially opened. The pattern: initial community enthusiasm, declining interest, failed fundraising, government bailout. Gordon calls it “obelisk-shaped” because a real obelisk is by definition a monolith, carved from a single piece of stone. Obelisks were first erected—probably—by the ancient Egyptians, to stand in pairs outside temple entrances. There are still plenty of them around, and Gordon interweaves their stories with that of our monument. The heroes of Gordon’s book are the engineers who figured out how to move the ancient obelisks and build the Washington Monument. Each project presented a huge logistical challenge, overcome by technical innovation. These were astounding feats, forever capturing the public imagination: Some 600,000 people visit the Washington Monument annually.

BLACK HISTORY B Y J O H N T. S L A N I A

Perspectives on the road to equality

acism. Oppression. Violence. Faith. Hopefulness. These themes have defined the black experience in America from the moment slaves touched shore. As African Americans continue their struggle, three new books cast fresh light on the journey from slavery to freedom.

Austin Reed’s birth certificate states that he was born a free man in New York, unique for a person of color in the 1820s. But Reed’s struggles in the pre-Civil War era made him far from free. Never before published, his remarkable 150-year-old autobiography, The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict (Random House, $30, 352 pages, ISBN 9780812997095), shows that even in the North, hatred and prejudice made life intolerable for African Americans. Reed’s handwritten account chronicles years spent as an indentured servant and petty thief whose crimes led to turns in a juvenile reformatory and later, prison. Following the death of his father, Reed was made an indentured servant to pay off his family’s debts. When he burned down his master’s house, he was sent to a reformatory, where he was subjected to hard labor. But he also learned to read and write, allowing him to create this fascinating account of his experiences. As an adult, crimes of theft and larceny would return him to prison, where he was beaten and left in solitary confinement. The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict is believed to be the earliest account of prison life written by an African American. Authenticated by a team of scholars, it helps broaden the historical context of the black experience in America.

BAD SEEDS Author Karen Branan is forced by two events to confront her prejudices: the present-day

birth of her granddaughter and a century-old lynching in a small Southern town. The birth involves a baby girl born to Branan’s white son and his African-American girlfriend. Brenan’s first instinct is to recoil, a reaction that can, in part, be traced to her upbringing in Georgia. It is there, in the town of Hamilton, that four African Americans were lynched in 1912 for their suspected role in the

murder of a white man. The sheriff at the time was Branan’s great-grandfather. Branan, a veteran journalist, decides to confront her family’s past, and her own beliefs, by researching the lynching. It forms the basis for her cathartic memoir, The Family Tree (Atria, $26, 304 pages, ISBN 9781476717180). The book reveals some dark truths. First, the murdered white man, Brenan’s distant cousin, had a history of assaulting black women. He was found shot dead after pursuing a 14-year-old black girl. As the case unfolded, Branan’s great-grandfather, the sheriff, arrested a woman and three men, all black. Then he offered no resistance when a white mob dragged the four suspects from jail and hanged them from a tree. Even more startling is that Branan discovers she is related to one of the lynching victims. The Family Tree is a fascinating account of a white author’s strug-

gle to examine lynching, racism and the violent crimes of her own family. She strives for healing the only way she can: by uncovering the truth.

AN INFLUENTIAL VOICE When African Americans began the Great Migration from the South to Northern cities, many found opportunities in Chicago: employment in factories, steel mills and stockyards, a chance to own a home and greater social acceptance. The city’s South Side became a black metropolis teeming with shops, restaurants, nightclubs and churches. Providing news to this emerging group was the newly created Chicago Defender, a black-owned newspaper. Ethan Michaeli traces the growth of this groundbreaking newspaper in The Defender (HMH, $32, 656 pages, ISBN 9780547560694), showing how the Chicago Defender grew to become a cultural and economic force in not only Chicago, but also the nation. Smuggled copies made their way to the Jim Crow South, providing blacks with much-needed news of the civil rights movement. A team of national correspondents from the Chicago Defender was there to cover the lynching of Emmett Till, the violence against the Freedom Riders and King’s crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And the newspaper played an important role in supporting and promoting the emerging black middle class. The Defender is a thorough and well-researched account of an important voice in black history.

—ANNE BARTLETT

reviews T PI OP CK

TEEN

SALT TO THE SEA

The buoyancy of hope amid war REVIEW BY DEBORAH HOPKINSON

On January 30, 1945, a Soviet submarine torpedoed the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff, killing more than 9,000 people. While designated as a military transport vessel, the Wilhelm Gustloff was severely overloaded with civilian evacuees from the Baltic region, including an estimated 5,000 children. The high death toll makes this sinking the greatest maritime tragedy in history. Today, the wreckage still lies off Poland’s coast and is often referred to as “the ghost ship.” Acclaimed author Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray) explores this little-known World War II tragedy in her intense and compelling third novel. Salt to the Sea focuses on the lives of four young people from different homelands, each separated from their families during wartime. The narrative shifts throughout as Joana, Emilia, Florian and Alfred chronicle the often terrifying events that bring them together. The first three are seeking escape on the crowded ship; Alfred is one of By Ruta Sepetys the Nazi soldiers stationed on it. Philomel, $18.99, 400 pages To tell this harrowing tale, Sepetys traveled to several countries to ISBN 9780399160301, audio, eBook available research the event, but she also has a family connection: Her father’s Ages 12 and up cousin fled Lithuania and had a pass for the ill-fated voyage, but she HISTORICAL FICTION ended up on another ship. In the author’s note, Sepetys writes: “As I wrote this novel I was haunted by the thoughts of the helpless children and teenagers—innocent victims of border shifts, ethnic cleansings, and vengeful regimes.” Teen readers will be drawn in by the short chapters, strong characters and heartbreaking story. In scenes reminscent of the sinking of the Titanic, matters of life and death are decided in a single moment.

THE MEMORY OF LIGHT By Francisco X. Stork

Arthur A. Levine $17.99, 336 pages ISBN 9780545474320 Audio, eBook available Ages 12 and up FICTION

After her suicide attempt, 16-year-old Vicky Cruz wakes up in the hospital with her stomach pumped. Given the choice to stay for two weeks or go home, she makes her first step toward recovery and tells her father that going home would be a mistake. In group therapy, she meets Mona, E.M. and Gabriel, each with a different mental illness and each possessing the ability to help each other in ways that doctors, family and friends cannot. They help Vicky realize she

has clinical depression—as well as the emotional strength to face the life that waits for her, if she wants to live. Straight-talking but not overbearing, honest but not overly dark, The Memory of Light offers an accurate depiction of depression. Witnessing Vicky’s breakthrough is a powerful experience for readers, and piecing together her progression to the suicide attempt and watching her grow as she begins to comprehend how her depression began is nothing less than a gift from author Francisco X. Stork, who drew from his own experience with depression to write this novel. Through the group members, Stork touches on other mental illnesses of psychosis, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. This is a well-rounded work of fiction, with the frank and helpful lesson that sometimes we need to pretend in order to survive. —HEATHER BRUSH

small-time flea-market sellers. Sully is one of the latter, trying to earn enough in his afterschool sales to help his mother pay the rent on their small apartment. When he meets Hunter, a teen girl in even worse economic straits, they team up to look for spheres, knowing that billionaire Alex Holliday will use any tactic to acquire the most valuable spheres . . . especially the match to the one and only Midnight Blue. The results of Sully and Hunter’s searches will change the world in ways that no one could predict. The high-action ending, while unexpected in some ways, is appropriately set up throughout the story, making for a surprising yet satisfying resolution. Hugo Award-winning author Will McIntosh ventures into YA lit for the first time with this combination of urban fantasy, magical realism, science fiction and adventure. In this world, the bizarre seems normal, the fantastical follows its own rules and within these rules, anything can happen. —J I L L R A T Z A N

ANNA AND THE SWALLOW MAN By Gavriel Savit

BURNING MIDNIGHT By Will McIntosh

Delacorte $17.99, 320 pages ISBN 9780553534108 Audio, eBook available Ages 12 and up ACTION/ADVENTURE

Knopf $17.99, 240 pages ISBN 9780553513349 Audio, eBook available Ages 12 and up HISTORICAL FICTION

At the beginning of the German invasion of Poland during World War II, a young girl matures and In a universe just slightly differcrafts a life out of the madness of ent from our own, small spheres war. in a rainbow of hues are hidden Seven-year-old Anna and her throughout the world, wherever father, a professor, maintain a people live. When matched with pleasant routine in the city of another sphere of the same color Kraków. One day, Anna’s father and “burned” by holding them to leaves her in the care of a friend one’s forehead, spheres increase while he attends a mandatory human abilities: A common pair of university meeting, but her father Army Green spheres promotes renever returns. When the friend sistance to the common cold, while subsequently abandons Anna, she rare Mustards grant high IQ. falls under the authoritative scrutiSphere hunting has become a ny of the Swallow Man, a tall, very global business, where multinathin, rather scary man who has the tional corporations coexist with ability to communicate with birds.

TEEN Anna decides to place her trust and her life in the Swallow Man’s hands. Her instincts serve her well, as he keeps Anna safe for several years, teaching her to survive in the wilderness. They walk endlessly through forests, avoiding towns and people, even at times removing items from dead soldiers in order to survive. Gavriel Savit’s debut novel doesn’t avoid the hard topics as it addresses the extermination of Jews and lays bare the devastating effects of war. However, all is not grim once the Swallow Man allows a cheerful young man to join them. This newcomer adds a semblance of normalcy to a world strafed by war, and the ending sees Anna heading toward a bright future. —LORI K. JOYCE

SYMPTOMS OF BEING HUMAN By Jeff Garvin

Balzer + Bray $17.99, 352 pages ISBN 9780062382863 Audio, eBook available Ages 14 and up FICTION

It seems so simple at birth: boy or girl. But genitalia don’t indicate whether the boy will fall in love with other boys, or whether the girl will grow to identify as a boy who loves girls. In Symptoms of Being Human, Riley’s biological gender is never revealed to the reader, even though Riley’s innermost feelings are revealed through Riley’s blog. Following a psychiatrist’s advice, Riley uses the blog and its growing popularity as an effective tool to help withstand the stress of a new school and Riley’s congressman father’s run for re-election. Through this online platform, Riley pours out reflections on gender fluidity (“It’s like a compass in my chest . . . the needle moves between masculine and feminine.”) and dreams of acceptance. In contrast to the positive reception that Riley finds online, school is torture, and Riley’s penchant for gender-neutral clothes attracts the worst bullies. Through the acceptance of a

LGBTQ support group and Riley’s blog, author Jeff Garvin’s groundbreaking novel packs in as much advice for genderqueer teens as possible. The most important message may be that it is acceptable to live outside the gender binary. In his author’s note, Garvin provides resources to help teens struggling with gender identity issues, as well as the often-attendant anxiety and depression.

ion, manners and social politics of the day. And though Lady Helen is a natural fit for this world, she’s a fully three-dimensional heroine. Her relationships with family and friends and her joys and frustrations with her place in 1812 society will feel immediate to readers in 2016. The fantastical element of Lady Helen’s story is just as vivid, with high stakes and a truly frightening darkness that will surely — D I A N E C O L S O N become more intense as the series progresses. The Dark Days Club is a mustTHE DARK DAYS CLUB read for fantasy fans and Regency By Alison Goodman fans alike and an exciting start to a series that will have followers Viking clamoring for more. $18.99, 496 pages ISBN 9780670785476 Audio, eBook available Ages 14 and up HISTORICAL FANTASY

At 18 years old, Lady Helen Wrexhall is poised and polished, if a bit too spirited. She’s ready to overcome her late mother’s traitorous legacy and make her debut presentation in the court of King George III. That is, until sinister Lord Carlston appears and introduces Helen to the darker side of Regency London and the demons that lurk in the shadows. Lady Helen discovers that she’s more Alison like her mother Goodman than she’s kicks off a new ever known, series with a and she must choose fun blend of romance and between the society life fantasy set she’s been prein Regency paring for and another, more London. dangerous role she was born into. By the bestselling author of the duology Eon and Eona, Alison Goodman’s The Dark Days Club kicks off a beautifully wrought new series whose lush setting, fiery heroine and gripping adventure are reminiscent of Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy. Goodman’s writing brings Regency London to life in a tangible way, immersing readers in rich details of the fash-

—SARAH WEBER

resilience in the face of tragedy. And it might be that, or it might be a meditation on the power of storytelling. Or an experiment in a blended style of realistic and fantastical fiction. Or all of these combined. Either way, it promises to be one of the most talked-about YA books of 2016. —J I L L R A T Z A N

THE MYSTERY OF HOLLOW PLACES By Rebecca Podos Balzer + Bray $17.99, 304 pages ISBN 9780062373342 Audio, eBook available Ages 14 and up MYSTERY

WE ARE THE ANTS By Shaun David Hutchinson

Simon Pulse $17.99, 464 pages ISBN 9781481449632 eBook available Ages 14 and up SCIENCE FICTION

If you could press a button to stop the upcoming destruction of the world, would you? Henry’s been abducted by aliens and offered this choice, and he has 144 days to decide. On one hand, the world as Henry sees it doesn’t particularly seem worth saving. He’s haunted by his boyfriend Jesse’s suicide and estranged from their mutual friend Audrey. A purely physical relationship with the class bully ultimately leaves him hollow. And at home, his mother has put her dreams on hold, his father hasn’t been in touch in years, his grandmother is slowly losing her mind to Alzheimer’s and his older brother’s girlfriend is pregnant. But then Henry meets Diego, a teen with secrets of his own. With Diego’s perspective and those of his teachers, family and friends, Henry starts to wonder if maybe he should press that button and save the world after all. At first, We Are the Ants seems to be magical realism with a slightly silly premise and a theme of

For all of Imogene Scott’s 17 years, her mother has been a mystery. She disappeared when Imogene was a baby, and all Imogene knows of her are the bits and pieces her father, a medical mystery author, is willing to reveal—and that isn’t much. Now Imogene’s father has gone missing, and Imogene is convinced he’s searching for her mother. When the police and Imogene’s stepmother provide few leads on his whereabouts, Imogene decides the only way to track down her father is to investigate what happened to her mother by taking a page out of one of her father’s mysteries. Although Imogene is prepared to do this alone, her flaky best friend proves to be both a surprising asset and comedic relief. For Imogene, locating her parents is not about restoring her family, but about finding herself. Narrated in Imogene’s sardonic and observant first-person point of view, The Mystery of Hollow Places explores themes of isolation, identity and familial ties. It’s not exactly a thriller, but it’s a page-turner nonetheless, with writing that’s crisp and efficient and characterization that’s strong and dynamic. This extraordinary debut novel from Rebecca Podos is an easy contender for a Morris or Edgar Award. — K I M B E R LY G I A R R A T A N O

children’s

CAROLE BOSTON WEATHERFORD INTERVIEW BY LINDA M. CASTELLITTO

Sunday’s respite is full of song

hether you’re in school or at work, “TGIF” is a familiar refrain. Carole Boston Weatherford’s evocative and moving new book, Freedom in Congo Square, is about people who work for the weekend, too—but in a context that’s far less lighthearted, set during a shameful and important period of American history.

Through finely crafted phrases and vivid, painterly illustrations, the book tells how slaves living in 1800s New Orleans worked toward a precious half day of temporary freedom, on Sundays at Congo Square: “It was a market and a gathering ground / where African music could resound. / Beneath the sun and open air, / the crowd abuzz with news to share.” In a call from her North Carolina home, Weatherford tells BookPage that, although the people in her book were looking forward to a time of fun and fellowship, “I wanted to share a realistic depiction of slavery, that showed clearly that slavery was an injustice. Yes, Congo Square was a great place, but it was all they had. Didn’t they deserve so much more, for toiling like that all week, than a half day off?” Freedom in Congo Square’s rhyming, rhythmic poetry builds as the pages turn, with couplets about the unending, wide-ranging work the slaves performed each day (“Tuesdays, there were cows

FREEDOM IN CONGO SQUARE

By Carole Boston Weatherford Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie

little bee books, $17.99, 40 pages ISBN 9781499801033, ages 4 to 8

PICTURE BOOK

to feed, / fields to plow, and rows to seed.”) and the cruelty of their masters (“The dreaded lash, too much to bear. / Four more days to Congo Square.”). Illustrator R. Gregory Christie’s paintings help readers feel the slaves’ suffering, exhaustion and determined hopefulness. At first, the pages’ backgrounds are brown and green, echoing the fields where the enslaved work. Then, more colors seep in: pink, blue, yellow, purple. When Sunday arrives, the words leap from their previous placement at the top or bottom of the page and swirl throughout, joining an array of blots and brushstrokes, a sea of masks, musical instruments and exuberant dancing figures. When she began writing Freedom in Congo Square, Weatherford says, “I challenged myself to mix picture-book tropes: the counting book and the day-of-theweek book. This gave the poem its structure and form, which the subject matter needed—particularly for kids, so they could digest it. I used that to propel the story. . . . It may be a pretty scene, but it shows you it’s not fair, tells you it’s not fair, then shows you how slaves had this release for half a day on Sunday.” During that half day, people met up with friends and family, traded goods and played music. In fact, Congo Square is considered the birthplace of jazz. “I love jazz,” Weatherford says. “That’s another reason I was drawn to the subject matter.” An appreciation for art in all forms was instilled in the author as a child. “My mother took me to the symphony, museums. . . . She really had an appreciation for art and for history.” Weatherford’s mother even asked her father, a highschool printing teacher, to print

Weatherford’s early poems. Those typeset quotes, Weatherford’s “little motivational or moralistic poems,” meant that, “at a very early age— and before desktop computers—I saw my work in print.” But she didn’t yet yearn to be a writer. “It never dawned on me that the people who were writing the books I was reading were making money, or even alive,” she says. “I never saw any of them, and authors weren’t celebrities then like they are now.” But after graduating from American University, Weatherford had a poem published in a city magazine. “When I saw that poem in print, I thought, that’s what I want to do! I came out of the closet as a poet, I always say.” The next phase of her writerly career began after she married, became a mother of two and pursued her MFA. “I was taking my own kids to the library, and there were so many more multicultural books for them than there had been for me as a child. I was still writing adult poetry, plus things on the side to entertain my kids. I thought, maybe I can try to write for children, and before I got out of my MFA program, I’d sold two manuscripts.” Her first children’s book, Juneteenth Jamboree, was published in 1995, and she’s written 46 more books since then. She’s also earned numerous awards, including a Caldecott Honor, Coretta Scott King Award Honor and the NAACP Image Award. And she’s a tenured professor at Fayetteville State University. “I work on multiple projects,

have multiple jobs and work on multiple manuscripts,” Weatherford says. “It is who I am, not what I do.” She adds, “When I teach, I learn things as well. When I’m being stimulated intellectually, there’s no telling where it’s going to go.” Certainly, in Freedom in Congo Square, poetry, art and history combine to create a jumping-off point for readers to learn and think about our country’s past and present. An introduction by a Congo Square expert, plus a glossary and author’s note at book’s end, provide food for further thought. “I do that in all my books,” Weatherford says. “I try to have that author’s note that says this is based on real-life events. I want kids to know, because they can’t fathom that these kinds of injustices existed in the USA. We have to continually tell them this happened in the past. It wasn’t a video game, a TV series, a movie with a prequel or sequel. It happened.” She adds, “It was important to me with this particular project that, in portraying the world of slavery, it was not romantic in any way. [The book] is for children, but it’s not candy-coated . . . and really, even sugar was a luxury for slaves. It’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart, and I hope that I did it justice.”

David Macaulay Presents

ZOO BREAK!

 Publishers Weekly  Kirkus  Booklist

“Expertly blending comedy with a substantive look at physics and mechanics.” —Publishers Weekly

A WORLD OF IDEAS: SEE ALL THERE IS TO KNOW

www.dk.com

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CHILDREN’S

LITTLE CAT’S LUCK

The whole world is at your paws REVIEW BY BILLIE B. LITTLE

Patches the calico cat is on a mission to find a special place of her own. A golden leaf pirouettes by the window, teasing her to follow. Filled with longing, she springs at the screen and chases the leaf into the wide, wide world. She’s never been on an adventure before, but one glance at the blue-and-gold sky tells her that thousands of special places must await her. When Patches encounters Gus—the meanest, fiercest dog in the neighborhood—she stands right up to him, admiring his water bowl and supply of kibble, before moving on. But she’s soon starving and alone, so she seeks shelter beneath a postbox and wakes to a mouse scurrying across her whiskers. Hungry as she is, she considers eating the mouseling but converses with him instead. When the mouse By Marion Dane Bauer politely asks Patches not to eat him, she honors his request and, with Illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell some help from a small red squirrel and the moon, decides that Gus’ Simon & Schuster, $16.99, 224 pages doghouse will be “her special place.” ISBN 9781481424882, eBook available In the night, a fierce stomachache has Patches crying out for help, Ages 8 to 12 and Gus answers the call. Patches learns why finding her special place was so important—and why making new friends is more important MIDDLE GRADE still. Young readers will treasure Little Cat’s Luck, a companion book to Little Dog, Lost by renowned Newbery Honor-winning author Marion Dane Bauer. Her engaging poetic style, paired with Jennifer Bell’s whimsical illustrations, makes for a poignant tale of a cat on the run.

BLOOM By Doreen Cronin Illustrated by David Small

Atheneum / Caitlyn Dlouhy $17.99, 40 pages ISBN 9781442406209 eBook available Ages 4 to 8 PICTURE BOOK

In this exuberant story from the award-winning duo of Doreen Cronin and David Small, a castle that resides in a fragile glass kingdom is maintained by a spirited fairy named Bloom, though she’s too rough around the edges for the royalty who live there. Her footsteps are heavy, she has dirt in her teeth, and she tracks mud everywhere. Everyone is relieved when Bloom leaves to settle in the forest—until the kingdom crumbles. No one, including the king and queen when

they go trotting into the forest to ask Bloom what can save the kingdom, will accept the fairy’s answer: “Mud.” What happens next is the most surprising and beautiful part of the story. Just when you assume that Bloom will somehow return and show everyone the error of their ways, instead the king and queen send to the forest an exceedingly timid girl with a tiny voice, told by everyone that she’s “ordinary.” She’s also confused by Bloom’s response, but instead of storming off in a huff, she stays. Bloom teaches her to get her hands dirty in more ways than one, and the girl finds her fortitude and voice along the way, even yelling in the end, “I can’t believe what we’ve done!” When the girl is unsure what to tell the kingdom upon her return, Bloom instructs her: “Tell them there is no such thing as an ordinary girl.” Small’s illustrations in this empowering story are sublime. His delicate yet energetic lines and

warm colors on cream-colored pages pull the reader into this carefully constructed world. Cronin’s lengthy text, peppered with playful font sizes and typography, is precise and evocative. Don’t miss this utterly radiant tale, one of 2016’s early charmers. —J U L I E D A N I E L S O N

SURF’S UP By Kwame Alexander

Illustrated by Daniel Miyares PICTURE BOOK

NorthSouth $17.95, 32 pages ISBN 9780735842205 Ages 4 to 8

It may be hard to imagine a high-energy book that features two brothers arguing about whether to read or surf, but Surf’s Up delivers in a cowabunga way. The brothers are two frogs named Bro and Dude, and illustrator Daniel

Miyares brings them wonderfully to life with vivid colors, froggy-eyed expressions and plenty of heart-stopping wave action. Newbery Medal winner Kwame Alexander’s text is short and ultra snappy. Dude wants to surf, but his brother prefers to finish his book “about a man looking for a whale.” Dude declares that books are “BOOOORING!” but he’s easily lured in as Bro describes his book with such excitement (“BOOYAH! They found the whale again.”). With both frogs immersed in the Moby-Dick saga, a bit of literary magic occurs, as readers and frogs alike get caught up in two concurrent dramas: Bro and Dude heading to the beach to surf, and Bro and Dude imagining themselves trying to catch the great white whale. This bit of metafiction works seamlessly, framed with lively dialogue that will ensure Surf’s Up’s popularity as a read-aloud. —ALICE CARY

PAX By Sara Pennypacker

Illustrated by Jon Klassen Balzer + Bray ISBN 9780062377012 Audio, eBook available Ages 8 to 12 MIDDLE GRADE

Sara Pennypacker, author of the light-hearted Clementine series, proves with her new novel that she’s capable of writing stories with more heft and just as much heart. Peter and his fox, Pax, have been close companions for five years. After his mother’s death, Peter adopted Pax as a kit, and caring for his fox has offered a kind of healing. As Peter’s father prepares to fight an unnamed war, Peter is sent to live with his grandfather, and Pax is forced to return to a wild he’s never really known. Pax has never slept outdoors nor eaten raw meat, so he must rely on new acquaintances, although the scent of human on his fur makes it hard for other foxes to trust him.

CHILDREN’S As for Peter, he almost immediately regrets leaving Pax and sets off on foot to find his friend. But when injuries waylay him and he’s taken in by an eccentric woman with her own battle scars, Peter begins to recognize that his relationships with his father and Pax might never be the same. As much a powerful tale of the costs of war as it is a story of boy and dog (or fox), Pax offers insights into the toll that violence takes on humans and animals alike. Told in well-paced short chapters alternating between Pax and Peter’s points of view, Pennypacker’s simply told but thematically rich story, punctuated with black-and-white drawings from Caldecott winner Jon Klassen, steadily builds toward a thoughtful conclusion.

itation to go there conceals the fact that it’s an enormous library with snacks and a fireplace—and not a bad punishment after all. With an afterword that breaks down the true and fictional aspects of the story, Audacity Jones to the Rescue is rich in history and vocabulary, but it’s also great fun.

—NORAH PIEHL

Henry Cole’s Brambleheart is an enchanting coming-of-age adventure with an unlikely hero: a chipmunk named Twig who just can’t seem to find his place in the world. Twig lives in the Hill—a towering heap of metal, glass and plastic bric-a-brac discarded by humans—and, like the other animals there, he’s expected to find a trade. At school, each of his fellow students seems to already have a niche: Lily the rabbit is a whiz at twisting grass into sturdy rope, and Basil the weasel is a pro at metal craft. When it’s Twig’s turn to weave or weld in front of the class, he never fails to get flustered. One day, Twig wanders beyond the Hill into unfamiliar territory, where he comes across a mysterious round object—an egg, as it happens, that cracks open to reveal a baby dragon. Hoping to keep this astonishing discovery to himself, Twig secretly brings the creature back to the Hill. But he knows that hiding the dragon isn’t right. With a little help from Lily, Twig makes some tough decisions and begins to grow up. Cole conjures a fully realized world in this beautifully rendered fable. His delicate yet expressive pencil drawings make the magical realm of the Hill seem concrete. Youngsters are sure to see a bit of themselves in Twig and will take heart from his example.

AUDACITY JONES TO THE RESCUE By Kirby Larson

Scholastic $16.99, 224 pages ISBN 9780545840569 Audio, eBook available Ages 8 to 12 MIDDLE GRADE

Miss Maisie’s School for Wayward Girls is a stable home for young orphan Audacity Jones. She has good friends and good times but wishes for something to shake up the routine. When the school’s wealthy benefactor asks for a volunteer to come on a top-secret mission, problem solved—or is it? Newbery Honor winner Kirby Larson plops Audie into an adventure that has real roots in history: a plot to kidnap President Taft’s niece. Audie still grieves for her lost parents but lives very much in the here and now, using intelligence and intuition to solve each new problem that comes along. She gets help not just from her chums back at school but from a paperboy, his stable-hand grandfather, some circus performers and a cat with a knack for detective work. Avid and reluctant readers alike will appreciate the Punishment Room at Miss Maisie’s. Audie’s hes-

meet STEVE LIGHT

the title of your Q: What’s new book?

would you describe Q: How the book?

—HEATHER SEGGEL

BRAMBLEHEART By Henry Cole

Katherine Tegen $16.99, 272 pages ISBN 9780062245465 eBook available Ages 8 to 12 MIDDLE GRADE

—J U L I E H A L E

has been the biggest influence on your work? Q: Who

was your favorite subject in school? Why? Q: What

Q: Who was your childhood hero?

books did you enjoy as a child? Q: What

one thing would you like to learn to do? Q: What

message would you like to send to young readers? Q: What

SWAP! In Swap! (Candlewick, $16.99, 40 pages, ISBN 9780763679903, ages 3 to 7), the new picture book from author-illustrator Steve Light, a peg-legged first mate helps his captain repair his old ship. First, they trade a button for two teacups, two teacups for three coils of rope, and so on, until they’re back on the high seas. Light lives in New York City.

WORDNOOK

BY THE EDITORS OF MERRIAM-WEBSTER

INVISIBLE FORCE

Dear Editor: How did X-rays get their name? W. E. Pocatello, Idaho On November 8, 1895, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was conducting an experimental investigation in Würzburg, Germany, on the properties of cathode rays. He noticed that a fluorescent surface in the neighborhood of a cathode-ray tube would become luminous even if shielded from the direct light of the tube. A thick metal object placed between the tube and the affected surface impaired the fluorescence and cast a dark shadow. An object made of a less dense substance, such as wood, cast only a weak shadow. Röntgen’s explanation for this phenomenon was that the tube produced some type of invisible radiation, which could pass through substances that blocked ordinary visible light. Be-

cause he did not know the nature of the radiation he had discovered, he named it X-Strahl, based on the mathematical use of the letter “x” to designate an unknown quantity. His German name was translated into English as X-ray.

LISTENING IN

Dear Editor: Can you tell me the history of the word eavesdropping? I imagine someone listening outside a window, so why isn’t it windowdrop? P. M. Lynnwood, Washington The verb eavesdrop first appeared in the 17th century and is probably a back-formation from eavesdropper, which is attested in Middle English as evesdropper and is apparently a derivative of an earlier noun evesdrop. Evesdrop, and a related Old English word yfesdrype, occur very rarely and then only in law texts that refer to

the ground below the eaves of a house on which rainwater drips. This use comes from an old sanction against building so close to the edge of one’s property that water from the eaves falls on a neighbor’s land. For a while the word eavesdropper too occurred mainly in legal contexts—persons snooping on others’ conversations seem to have been considered a sort of public nuisance, like Peeping Toms—but less literal uses of eavesdropper and the verb eavesdrop appear in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today applications of the words to secret observation by satellite or electronic device are far removed from eaves, rainwater or stealthy listening outside of someone’s house.

SAFE PASSAGE

Dear Editor: In the expression the coast is clear, what does coast refer to? A. W. Nutley, New Jersey

Originally, coast referred to the sea coast, and the phrase was used literally to indicate that the coast was free of enemies who might try to block passage. An early relative of the phrase is found in this quotation from 1530: “The kynge intendeth to go to Calays, but we muste first clere the costs.” The literal notion of a clear coast quickly gave rise to figurative uses suggesting the passing of danger. This quotation from 1602 shows a remarkably modern use: “No sooner cleered was the Coast, but that the bidden Guest Steales to her Chamber doore.” Though the phrase’s popularity was strengthened through its use by bootleggers during Prohibition, the coast is clear had a strong foothold in the language long before that time. Send correspondence regarding Word Nook to: Language Research Service P.O. Box 281 Springfield, MA 01102

Test Your Mental Mettle with Puzzles from 399 Games, Puzzles & Trivia Challenges Specially Designed to Keep Your Brain Young.

Finish the Jingle

rhyme❖ time❖ Each question in this game includes two definitions for two different words. The twist is, they will rhyme.

The most successful advertising jingles are the ones you can’t get out of your head. If these were successful, you should be able to finish the jingles given the first few words.

1. Not used; and the moisture that forms on plants at night.

1. “The incredible, edible

9. To break or divide into two or more parts; and to leave a job.

4. A gentle wind; and to store food below 32° Fahrenheit.

11. The cowardly color; and the wiggly dessert.

5. “My bologna has a first name,

12. You need this to play Double Dutch; and he entertained the troops for decades.

6. “N-E-S-T-L-E-S,

.” 12. “See the USA

.”

15. “Double your pleasure,

.”

16. “Rice-A-Roni,

.”

17. “Ace is the place

.”

7. “I’m a Pepper, he’s a Pepper, 8. “Two all-beef patties, special sauce, .” 9. “Call Roto-Rooter, that’s the name, .”

17. “. . . with the helpful hardware man.” (Ace Hardware)

11. “. . . State Farm is there.” (State Farm Insurance)

6. “. . . Nestlé’s makes the very best . . . chocolate.” (Nestlé)

16. “. . . the San Francisco treat.” (Rice-A-Roni) 15. “. . . double your fun with Doublemint, Doublemint, Doublemint gum.” (Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum)

10. “. . . like somethin’ from the oven, and Pillsbury says it best.” (Pillsbury)

5. “. . . it’s O-S-C-A-R.” (Oscar Mayer) 4. “. . . ’cause a Band-Aid’s stuck on me.” (Band-Aids)

9. “. . . and away go troubles down the drain.” (Roto-Rooter)

3. “. . . in perfect harmony.” (Coca-Cola)

14. “. . . like a cigarette should.” (Winston)

8. “. . . lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.” (McDonald’s)

2. “. . . is Folgers in your cup.” (Folgers Coffee) 1. “. . . egg.” (American Egg Board)

Finish the Jingle

7. “. . . she’s a Pepper, we’re a Pepper, wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too?” (Dr Pepper)

workman.com

.”

Rhyme Time

14. A dam-building mammal; and elevated body temperature.

.” 14. “Winston tastes good

.”

13. Courageous, heroic; and to remove a beard or mustache.

.”

13. “Plop plop, fizz fizz,

8. Crowd; and plowed 9. Split; and quit 10. Bank; and spank 11. Yellow; and Jell-O 12. Jump rope; and Bob Hope 13. Brave; and shave 14. Beaver; and fever

13. “. . . oh, what a relief it is.” (Alka-Seltzer) 12. “. . . in your Chevrolet.” (General Motors/Chevrolet)

ANSWERS

11. “Like a good neighbor,

.” 4. “I am stuck on a Band-Aid,

7. Watermelon shell; and sightless.

.” 3. “I’d like to teach the world to sing

10. Land alongside a river; and to give corporal punishment to a child.

6. To look for someone or something; and a place of worship.

10. “Nothin’ says lovin’ .”

3. An estimation or conjecture; and, to iron.

5. A percussion instrument; and how your jaw feels after Novocain.

.”

2. “The best part of waking up

1. New; and dew 2. Funny; and money 3. Guess; and press 4. Breeze; and freeze 5. Drum; and numb 6. Search; and church 7. Rind; and blind

2. Humorous; and cash.

8. Large gathering of people; and tilled the soil.

WORKMAN is a registered trademark of Workman Publishing Co., Inc.