Elizabeth McCracken's Bowlaway: Love, Geneaology, and Candlepin Bowling

The following excerpts are taken from a long-form review of Bowlaway and interview with Elizabeth McCracken, both of which ran in the October 24th, 2018 issue of Shelf Awareness' Maximum Shelf. Bowlaway is on sale now wherever books are sold (and was one of the best books I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing in 2018). Excerpts reprinted here with permission.

It can be hard, in a world with so very many books, to find something truly unique to write about. But Elizabeth McCracken (Thunderstruck, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination) has done just that in Bowlaway, a sweeping family saga centered on a bowling alley. And not just any old bowling alley, but a candlepin bowling alley, and not just any old story, but a love story. "Our subject is love," writes McCracken early in the novel, "because our subject is bowling. Candlepin bowling. This is New England, and even the violence is cunning and subtle."

This sets the tone for the rest of the tale, which is itself cunning and subtle, a carefully woven and darkly humorous account of one woman, Bertha Truitt, and the strange and lasting legacy of her fascinating and too-short life.

Review: Let Me Be Like Water, by S.K. Perry

I've been remiss in writing here, or sharing reviews, or doing much of anything. I suspect I'll pick this little blog up again eventually--I always do--but in the meantime, I'm hoping to at least share reviews I've written for other sites for the books I'm really loving lately. Here's the first of what I hope will be many more. Reprinted from Shelf Awareness with permission.

Let Me Be Like Water is a beautiful and heartbreaking story of young love and young loss. A meditation on grief and what could have been, S.K. Perry's debut offers glimpses of the sometimes magical ways the world works when life is shattered and we're left with nothing but the pieces.

Book Review: The Followers, by Rebecca Wait

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers. Reprinted here with permission.

The Followers starts in the "after": Judith is entering a prison to visit her mother, Stephanie, imprisoned for as-yet unknown reasons. Rebecca Wait (The View on the Way Down) then moves skillfully through time to reveal their life "before." The mother works as a waitress to support herself and her young daughter; Stephanie meets Nathaniel, a charming man who takes an interest in her difficulties. Mother and daughter move in with Nathaniel and his "followers" in order to pursue a new life with a new sense of purpose.

Book Review: Careers for Women, by Joanna Scott

This review modified from a review written for Shelf Awareness for Readers.

Careers for Women is a novel ambitious in scope: Spanning the late 1950s to the present day, Joanna Scott (De Potter's Grand Tour) uses the building of the World Trade Center as a lens through which to examine power, feminism, modernity, progress and the power of dreams to shape a life--or many.

Mansion and Mystery in Scotland's Outer Hebrides: Sarah Maine's Debut, The House Between Tides

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers. Reprinted here with permission.

Debut novelist Sarah Maine delivers a well-plotted mystery that blends the past with the present of an old mansion in Scotland's Outer Hebrides.

Week in Reading: August 29th (A Day Late...)

Like so many things in my life right now, this post is going up a day late. I'm stretched a bit too thin and fell further behind this weekend when a nasty cold took me down for two days; after a very, very terrible eight-mile run on Saturday morning, I basically did nothing but sleep and whine all weekend.

Unfortunately, all of this is seeping over into my reading life, as I've barely picked up a book at all in the last week. Though I'd hoped to start some new shiny fiction to jump-start my fall reading plans, I didn't pick up a single one of these pretty titles. So consider my reading wishlist unchanged from last Monday:

Week in Reading: August 22nd

This week I'm reading... not much. Last week was no different. (I did finish Give Smart for work, which was insightful if not exactly riveting beach reading, and Trainwreck for review, about which I could say pretty much the same.) Since this I-don't-feel-like-reading mood keeps taking me, I've been trying to go with the flow and read as I feel like it; unfortunately, that desire to leave things be is in direct conflict with my desire to read all the books. So this week, I'm hopeful one of these new novels will pull me out of my pseudo-slump:

Under the Harrow: Flynn Berry's Debut Offers Psychological Suspense

Originally published in Shelf Awareness for Readers. Reprinted here with permission.

Debut novelist Flynn Berry delivers a tightly paced and impressive story of psychological suspense.

Under the Harrow begins as a straightforward murder mystery: in the English countryside, Nora enters her sister Rachel's house for a Friday night dinner and finds both Rachel and her dog brutally murdered. But as the search for the killer unfolds, Under the Harrow becomes spectacularly complex. Flynn Berry carefully builds the story around Rachel's and Nora's lives with intricate details that connect perfectly, and often in surprising ways. Nora and Rachel are puzzle pieces that don't fit together: Rachel was brutally assaulted as a teenager and has been obsessed with finding her as-yet unidentified attacker; Nora leads a purposeless, meandering life tainted by guilt over her role in her sister's attack all those years ago.

Chronicle of a Last Summer: Coming of Age in Political Riptides

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers. Reprinted here with permission.

A nuanced story of one girl's coming of age set against decades of political ferment in Cairo, Egypt.

Chronicle of a Last Summer is a nuanced coming-of-age story set in politically charged Cairo. Opening in 1984, Yasmine El Rashidi's novel focuses on a young girl whose father has just left. Her Baba's disappearance sparks the first of her many questions: Why did he leave, where did he go, will he come back?

Here Comes the Sun: Nicole Dennis-Benn's Stunning Debut

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers. Reprinted here with permission.

In her debut novel, Here Comes the Sun, Nicole Dennis-Benn captures the lushness and devastation of Jamaica and its changing landscape. She brings both island and people to life with grace and beauty, complete with strong dichotomies: the verdant landscape and the rough edges of its poorest towns; its idyllic seas and dangerous tides; its thriving tourism and the ways that industry threatens the island way of life.

Looking Ahead: Books to Look for in July

I never got my act together for a "Books to Look for in June" post, so July will just have to suffice. Unfortunately, high summer temps tend to bring about a slowdown in books published, so this month and next are a wee bit light--but that just gives us all the time to catch up on reading before the fall books are upon us in September and October.

Here's what I'm most excited for this month (titles below all link to Indiebound.org):

Week in Reading: June 20th

It's the summer solstice! Officially the longest day of the year... and it's a gorgeous one here. Unfortunately I'm stuck inside work work working in preparation for vacation (it's a good problem to have), but I was able to get out and enjoy the outdoors this weekend with a Summer Solstice 8K on Saturday night and a trail run in gorgeous mild temps on Sunday morning (see also: why I haven't been reading much lately).

Book Expo America: New Books from Old Authors

Last week, I wrote about the buzziest books at Book Expo America. Some of those overlap with this collection of new books from old (as in "previously published") authors I can't wait to get to.

There were only a few books I had on my absolutely-must-pick-up-at-Book-Expo list (I wasn't flying straight from Chicago home, so I limited the number of books I picked up to an extreme few and focused instead on discovering new titles to request later on down the road). One of these was the new Maria Semple book, Today Will Be Different (Little, Brown, October 2016); I was a huge fan of Where'd You Go Bernadette, so will naturally leap at the opportunity to read more of Semple's dry humor. I also adored Amor Towle's debut, Rules of Civility, so have been over here petting his new novel, A Gentleman in Moscow (Viking, September 2016); when I got my copy of this one signed by Towles, he told me he thinks this second novel is better than his first. Yes, please.

Tons of reviewers I know and trust lined up for the new George Saunders novel, Lincoln in the Bardo (Random House, January 2017). I'm only just getting to my first of Saunders' work (The Tenth of December), but based on what I've read so far, I know I'm going to want to read this new novel too. Jennifer Close also has a new novel out (The Hopefuls, Knopf, July 2016), as does Jonathan Safran Foer (Here I Am, FSG, September 2016). This marks his first novel since 2005, and first new book since 2010. I'm also squealing with delight for Colson Whitehead's newest book, The Underground Railroad (Doubleday, September 2016)--not least of which because Liberty says it's "omgsogood". So there's that.

I've loved everything Mary Roach has ever written (and yes, I've read all her books), so I nearly jumped for joy when I had the chance to catch up with the lovely Norton folks about Roach's newest scientific study, Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (Norton, June 2016). I'm told this is much more about how to keep humans alive and intact during war (versus all of the research that goes into how best to kill), which is just the kind of military science I'd like to know exists. Continuing the non-fiction bent, Rebecca Solnit is releasing a follow-up to her feminist work, Men Explain Things to Me, next year: Silence Is Broken (Haymarket, March 2017).

Oh hey, and ya'll knew there was a new Tearling novel out in November, right?? (The Fate of the Tearling, Harper, November 2016).

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What much-loved authors are you most excited to see new books from this year?

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Two more BEA round-ups to follow this week and next: a spotlight on indie & university presses, and a round-up of the incredibly varied and fascinating non-fiction on the floor. Say hello to some new reading options, Social Justice Book Club.

Book Review: Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe

Dear Fang, With Love, is, in some ways, a novel about the Holocaust: Lucas and his seventeen-year-old daughter, Vera, are spending the summer in Lithuania to trace Lucas' family's Jewish heritage leading up to and through World War II.

It is also, in many ways, a novel about fathers and daughters: Vera was born when Lucas was only 17 years old, and Lucas has been removed from her life until recently.

Book Expo: The Big Round-Up of Books that Buzz

Happy Friday, kittens! Book Expo America (BEA) was a week ago, and it's time to look at some of the books of the show. First up: the buzziest of the buzz books, collected from the show floor, editors' buzz panels, and the chit-chat around which signings had the longest lines.

Week in Reading: May 16th

Greetings from the lovely Minnesota, all! I'm writing this curled up on the couch in a log cabin in the woods somewhere outside of Minneapolis after a weekend of wedding celebrations and family and new friends. This trip was preceded by a whirlwind expedition to Book Expo America in Chicago--which was incredible--and my head and heart are full of books and travel and wonderful people.

I'll have several posts in the next few weeks coming up about Book Expo and the books discovered there. In the meantime, to clear up space for all the shiny new galleys on my radar following the show, I'm working on catching up on deadlines and book club books and other assignments:

Looking Ahead: May Books

It's May! It's May! The lovely month of May! (Even though it is 50 degrees out and raining as I type this, and feels more like March than May...)

May brings Book Expo American (BEA) and the true start of the summer publishing season, which means there's no shortage of awesome books coming our way. Here are some on my radar:

Looking Back: The Best of April

It's hard to believe that April has come and gone, but it has. Perhaps most exciting to me this month was the start of the hopefully-continual Social Justice Book Club, in which a group of us read Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson. (I still haven't finished it, but the book is freaking excellent. Heartbreaking at times, but excellent.)

April wasn't a huge reading month for me--I'm behind in my reading goal for the first time in years--but I'm ok with that. Between lots of travel and lots of running, I probably had too-high expectations for myself anyway. Luckily, those books I did pick up (and finish) were quite good:

Looking Ahead: April Books I Can't Wait to Read

Spring publishing season is sneaking up on me more quickly than I like to admit... and though the influx of shiny new titles will be even larger next month, as everyone gears up for the infamous Summer Reading Season, there's no shortage of books calling my name this month:

Looking Back: March Books

April kind of snuck up on me (what else is new), so this post is a little bit later than intended. But c'est la vie and all that. March felt like a jumble, but in reflecting on it, it was a decent month for reading--especially as it came to Reading My Own Damn Books: