Staff Recommendations, Week of July 9, 2024

 

Lots of books with lots of recommendations. That's what we've got this week - multiple books with multiple reads from Boswellians, including a few event books.

Our first recommendation of the week is The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş, and it gets raves from Daniel, Chris, and Alex. First, from Alex Jackson: "Small slices of life unfold like stories told by a close friend. The characters are at the age of freedom, the rest of their lives rapidly approaching. Reading closer to a book of poetry, Savaş's The Anthropologists collects vignettes of Asya and Manu as they search for friends, apartments, and the 'why' of life. I found this book extremely affecting, considering the complex beauty of us in both familiar and foreign habitats. This is one I'm certain I'll be thinking about for a long while."

From Daniel Goldin: "Asya and her husband Manu live in an unnamed city, both foreigners from another unnamed country. They hang out with friends, witnessing one’s love triangle and another’s struggle with dementia, get occasional visits from family, and gather stories about visitors to a local park. Their direct goal is simple – to find a better apartment. But to do this, they need to understand who they are as people individually and as a couple together. Despite the lack of specificity, there’s a spirit of the flaneur that runs through the pages. And for a book so spare, Savaş writes with beauty and insight."

And Chris Lee gets the final word on this one: "The Anthropologists is an airy yet thoughtful novel about a married couple living the rotting years of their youth as immigrants in an unnamed European city (that I’m like 97% sure is Paris). While her husband, Manu, and their friend Ravi strive to keep the drinking spirit alive through the nights, filmmaker Aysa records interviews by day in their neighborhood park. She’s trying to triangulate their lives; among cafes, apartments, and alleyways, among neighbors, friends, and strangers, she’s collecting and sifting for a list of sturdy moments upon which they might build. One foot in front of the other, forward motion, one day to the next, will they learn to sink into the aimlessness of ‘real life’? Will they get belligerent? Savaş’s latest is nice – a sort of dreamy, earthy story of a couple searching for their spot."

Next, it's The Heart in Winter, the latest from Irish novelist and short story writer Kevin Barry. This book also gets recs from Daniel and Chris. First, here's Daniel: "When the often-soused Tom Rourke lays eyes on the bewitching Polly Gillespie, you know that nothing good can come of it, especially when she is the new bride of a disturbingly reverent mining captain. But off they go, into the Montana wilderness with a price on their heads, following a storied history of doomed lovers in the Old West. This may be Kevin Barry’s first novel set in the United States, but it’s as if they jumped out of one of Barry’s other books and said, let’s cross the Atlantic on a lark and see what trouble we can get into. The result? Bawdy, debauched, and pure poetry."

Chris again with the last word on a book: "Tom and Polly are just a couple of folks living in the ass end of the world (Butte, Montana, 1891); each sees no better prospect than the other, and both have little enough to lose that a shot at adventure seems like reason enough. Or, hell, could it even be love? It’s America at the end of the Wild West era; the immigrant melting pot boiled over and spilled across wide open, desolate spaces. It’s drunk and doped, profane and perverse, a roughhewn love fable of two who awoke in the gutter and saw nothing but stars. What do they want? What does anyone? To turn their lives into stories. And so desperate, too, for those stories to be good ones, big and wild, with endings to snatch your – their – breath away."

Kevin Barry visits Boswell this week! He'll be here all the way from County Sligo in Ireland for a chat about this very book on Friday, July 12, at 6:30 pm. Find out more and register for this event at kevinbarrymke.eventbrite.com.

We're so excited about Barry's visit that we couldn't wait until Friday to chat with him. Click the video image below for our short event-preview interview in which Chris asks Barry a few questions about the novel.

Our next book also comes with two recommendations. It's the latest novel from Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M, entitled All This & More. From Jason Kennedy first: "Marsh's life is not where she thought it would end up. Her marriage has completely collapsed after years and years of erosion, and her career as a lawyer never actually got off the ground. Thankfully, there is a show, All This and More, which takes the latest in quantum theory to let contestants sample many realities and pick the best one. A real-life makeover! Marsh is surprised that she is selected to be a third season contestant. She has the chance to improve her life and have all her dreams become reality. Can and will she find her perfect life? Well, you the reader have a bit to say. Peng Shepherd designs her book so the reader can choose which direction Marsh takes at key moments in the story. It's fun and enlightening to see the different ways that Peng Shepherd saw the book progressing. I loved it and ran through every possibility I could!"

And from Daniel: "Marsh has just been chosen to be the contestant on the third season of All This and More, a game show where you can actually change your life by redoing decisions in your past. Imagine a makeover show powered by the multiverse. What could possibly go wrong? The story is structured as a choose your own adventure, so for folks who are of the age to remember these, there’s an extra kick. For the rest of us, All This & More is an entertaining, fantasy-adjacent, romance-adjacent adventure thriller."

Peng Shepherd will also be at Boswell this week! On Thursday, July 11, 6:30 pm she visits for a conversation about her new book. Click here and register and find more info at pengshepherdmke.eventbrite.com.

Daniel also recommends Summers End, the latest Shady Hollow mystery from writing team Juneau Black. Daniel says: "When Vera Vixen the fox reporter and Lenore Lee the raven bookseller offer to chaperone a high school group on a trip to see Summers End, a sacred, Stonehenge-like burial ground, they hardly think they will be drawn into investigating a murder. But when the body of one of the academics is found, not only is the field trip thrown into turmoil, but it looks like Lenore’s sister Ligeia is the prime suspect! It’s going to take a village to solve this one, and that’s a good thing, as Summers End is packed with fascinating characters of the fur and feather variety. It may be a cozy, but Juneau Black’s latest is positively pulse pounding, though not so much so that one can’t chuckle too. And I did!"

Tim McCarthy is also a fan. He writes: "The fifth entry in the world of Shady Hollow, a place where the animal community operates in its own perfectly mysterious ways, begins with foxy reporter Vera Vixen being coaxed by her raven bookseller friend Lenore into chaperoning a group of high school creatures on a weeklong trip. It's the lure of their destination that draws Vera into the drama, an ancient archaeological monument called Summers End, where the precise final moment of summer is illuminated on a monument stone. It’s also an important burial site where professors study the ways their unique woodland culture has advanced. It doesn't take long for the trip to go awry. The professors are at odds, and students will be students, after all. Since mystery books always involve the tragic end of more than summers, death is at the monument's door. Happily, Vera's taste for intrigue seems everlasting, and her tenacious sleuthing skills remain undefeated. A few close friends, an energetic intern reporter vole named Thena, and a somewhat shady raccoon cohort named Lefty will uncover more than murder at Summers End!"

We had such a great event last night for this book! Here's a photo of what you may have missed - but be sure to snag a copy of Summers End so you don't miss reading it.

Greta's from last week to drop into this week! A late addition but no less great! Pink Slime by Fernanda Trias gets this rec from Greta: "In this newly translated Uruguayan horror story, the author verbalizes people's fears about the future of the world. A plague has struck, leaving people awaiting death in hospital beds. Meat is no longer a readily available resource. Instead, people have to stomach a highly processed meat substitute. This draws comparison to a material currently sold at a prolific fast-food chain. It follows the main character as she maintains relationships with people who are dependent on her during this turbulent time. There is so much complexity within the world and the relationships between the characters. The relations are almost parasitic in nature but contain an element of tenderness. Trias writes a flawed protagonist who is compassionate to a fault. It begs the question what will be your priority when things fall apart. The prose is titillating and immersive, describing an apocalyptic hellscape that hopefully will never come into being. This book will leave an unsavory taste in your mouth in the best way imaginable."

Speaking of late additions, here's a book from June that Daniel just read and likes, too! Catland: Louis Wain and the Great Cat Mania by Kathryn Hughes is the book, and the recommendation is this: "Louis Wain’s paintings of cats are very recognizable – anthropomorphic, playful, and apparently, weirdly conservative. Hughes chronicles his life, from a troubled home life to an ill-conceived and short-lived early marriage to a peaceful end in an asylum. And yet, despite the success of his artwork, his financial situation was almost always precarious due to bad financial deals and a lot of, dare I say it? Copycatting. Hughes does a great job of connecting Wain’s work to the public’s changing attitude towards domestic felines, detouring to developments like cat breeding and shows. Black-and-white illustrations and color plates bring the tale (tail?) to life, and the book’s extra touches, like printed endpapers, are a treat."

And now for a couple of paperback picks.

Chris Lee recommends The Vegan, the sophomore outing by Andrew Lipstein. Chris says: "I love, love, loved Lipstein’s debut (Last Resort), and all the hallmarks that make his writing as mesmerizing as train wreck videos are back. Hypnotic sentences? Check. The moneyed, millennial milieu of Brooklyn? Check. And a man of his time unravelling in warped, manic behavior impelled by a moral quandary of guilt and deceit? Check, check, and check. The book’s allusions to Dostoyevsky have been noted, though I’d venture that there are glimmers of Poe in there, too; in the sweeping passages of emotional torment and the body-horror, churning-guts depictions of what it is to consume another living creature’s flesh. Can a hedge fund manager really discover moral clarity in the melancholy eyes of his neighbor’s beagle? I have my doubts. But I’m sure of this: The Vegan has secured Andrew Lipstein a spot on my absolute must-read authors list."

And we wrap up with a rec from Jason Kennedy for The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet by Jeff Goodall: "Looking at Texas at this point, I think we can all agree that heat is going to be a real problem for the rest of our lives. Jeff Goodell does a good job of weaving personal stories with digestible explanations of complex systems and topics. This is a warning call for us to prepare now, as the temperature isn’t going down anytime soon. There are ways for us to mitigate dying from the heat without contributing to overall carbon output. I’m naturally pessimistic, and I hate the heat, so this book completely depressed me on the outlook of this world. Goodell highlights the fact that heat will not affect us all equally – it’s the poor, impoverished countries will suffer the most. A sobering, necessary read."

And those are the recs! Until next time, read on.