BOOKS!

Whether you’re sitting cozily by the fireplace with a kitty on your lap, or slathered with SPF 30 while snug in a sand chair at a Florida beach, or sipping an apres-ski hot toddy, it’s the season for reading. So here are a few suggestions culled from THE NEW YORKER, THE NEW YORK TIMES, Amazon and the savviest bibliophile I know — Mary Lou Boucouvalas, Kennebunkport’s librarian par excellence. Plus a few of my own recommendations.

I asked Mary Lou to give me the Top Five books checked out in 2024 at Graves Library.  They are: THE WOMEN by Kristin Hannah, TOM LAKE by Ann Patchett, THE FROZEN RIVER: A NOVEL by Ariel Lawton, TABLE FOR TWO: STORIES by Amor Towles and JAMES: A NOVEL by Percival Everett. 

Then I asked her recommendations. She suggests HOW TO READ A BOOK by Monica Wood, LOVE BEGINS IN WINTER by Simon Van Booy, WHAT I ATE IN ONE YEAR by Stanley Tucci and GOD OF THE WOODS by Liz Moore. Thank you, Mary Lou!

I next combed a late December edition of THE NEW YORKER which included their “top reads of 2024.” Here area few from that extensive list:

THE ACHILLES TRAP, a nonfiction book by journalist Steve Coll that examines the CIA’s failures in Iraq in 2003.

ALL FOURS by Miranda July, a novel focusing on how middle age changes sex, marriage and ambition.

CHALLENGER by Adam Higginbotham, a comprehensive nonfictional account of the NASA’S Challenger Space Shuttle that exploded after takeoff in 1986.

THE EMPUSIUM by Olga Tokarczuk a novel set in turn-of-the-century Galicia where a child is forced to prove his manhood. 

EVERYONE WHO IS GONE IS HERE, a nonfiction account of the humanitarian crisis at the border by Jonathan Blitzer.

FOREST OF NOISE features poetry by Moses Abu Toha, “shadowed by the specter of Israeli warplanes, bombs, drones in the rubble of Gaza.”

THE FREAKS COME OUT TO WRITE is Tricia Romano’s nonfiction account of the VILLAGE VOICE (“the radical paper that changed American culture) since its inception in 1955.

KNIFE by Salman Rushdie reveals his memoir “of almost dying and the miracle of surviving.”

THE MIGHTY RED by Louise Erdrich is a fictional account of a sugar beet farming community in North Dakota’s Red River Valley — “tribal land, ownership and environmental degradation.”

PATRIOT, a book by the late Alexi Navalny, that brave opposition leader and anti-corruption crusader against Putin et al. It highlights Navalny’s arrest, imprisonment and death in 2024.

REAGAN: His Life and Times by Max Boot is considered “the definitive biography of Ronald Reagan.”

MOOD MACHINE: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of a Perfect Playlist is Liz Pelly’s nonfiction account of Spotify’s growth.

BLOOD TEST: A Comedy by Charles Baxter is a comic novel about a divorced Midwestern dad and Sunday school teacher who takes a cutting-edge medical test and learns that he has a predisposition to murder … so he abandons his normal behavior and embarks on a life of debauchery.

WOMEN’S HOTEL: A Novel  by Daniel M. Lavery is the tale of a fictional hotel in New York City, exclusively for women …  and the antics that happen.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES added these suggested reads:

ALL FOURS by Miranda July, fiction: a married mother and semi-famous artist stops her solo cross-country road trip from LA to NYC when she gets sidetracked and has an affair with a younger car-rental agent. 

GOOD MATERIALS by Dolly Alderton is a witty novel about the life and times of a 35-year-old comedian in London.

YOU DREAMED OF EMPIRE: A Novel by Alvara Enrique … ”A hallucinatory, revelatory colonial revenge story. One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the city of Tenochtitlan – today's Mexico City….”

A FEW BOOK KUDOS FROM AMAZON, the world’s biggest book store:

THE BOYS OF RIVERSIDE by Thomas Fuller is a novel about a deaf football team and their quest for glory.

THE HOUSEMAID by Freida McFadden, “a brilliantly crafted psychological thriller that keeps readers on the edge of their seats from start to finish.”

THE SECRET LIFE OF SUNFLOWERS by Marta Molnar, “describes the life and times of Vincent van Gogh's inspirational sister-in-law Johanna Bonger.”

AND A FEW RECOMMENDATIONS OF MY OWN:

MONDAY RENT BOY by Susan Doherty, “a bravely imagined, brilliantly written, deeply empathetic novel of two adolescent boys, bound by friendship and a terrible secret.” (Confession: Susan Doherty is a dear friend. And I read this book in one sitting — could NOT put it down.) 

TWO OLDIES BUT GOODIES (in case you haven’t read them yet):

Richard Russo’s STRAIGHT MAN had me giggling out loud: witty, wry, spot-on musings about the faculty at a less-than-stellar university. OMG, it’s so funny!

WEST WITH GIRAFFES by Lynda Rutledge (“two giraffes survive a survive a hurricane and embark on a road trip across the United States”) — if you haven’t read this yet, do!

TWO NEW NOVELS BY MAINE AUTHORS:

THE MOORINGS OF MACKEREL SKY by MZ (Emily Zack) is set in a lobstering village in Maine where an age-old mythical legend about mermaids ultimately comes to life — exquisitely written.

ONE STOP WEST OF HINSDALE by Valerie Kuhn Reid takes readers back to the 1960s, to her seemingly “Ozzie and Harriet” homelife in Clarendon Hills, an idyllic Chicago suburb one stop west of Hinsdale. Like many families in the turbulent ‘60s, this family fell apart due to adultery, rage, mental illness, alcoholism, divorce and anorexia. Val Reid tries to fathom why.