reading list, april - june 2022

 Martha Wells, Artificial Condition. NY: TOR, 2018.

Murderbot is free now, and wants to know about the incident that got it wiped, supposedly for killing fifty-seven human clients at the Ganaka Pit mining facility. To learn what happened there, Murderbot takes a security contract on that moon. It doesn’t go well.


Anne Hillerman, Spider Woman’s Daughter. NY: HarperCollins, 2013.

Talk about making a series one’s own: in the first installment since inheriting Leaphorn and Chee from her father, Anne shoots the Lieutenant in the face -- and follows Bernadette, Chee’s Navaho wife and partner on the force, as she searches for the shooter.


Kwana Jackson, Real Men Knit. NY: Jove, 2020.

Mama Joy Strong’s Harlem knitting shop is a neighborhood institution, but her heart attack puts it at risk. Unless her adopted sons can keep it going. Maybe, with Kerry’s help, they can.


Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents. NY: Open Road, 2012.

This is the flip-side of Parable of the Sower, in which Olamina’s journals record her founding Earthseed as a response to contemporary slow-motion apocalypse. The Talents, on the other hand, is not autobiography but history, as Olamina’s daughter tries to piece together her famous mother’s life from documents and interviews. By the end, you may also understand and accept Olamina’s truth. Oh, and I despise the tale of capitalistic abuses from which the book takes its name.


Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry. NH:Doubleday, 2022.

I love Elizabeth Zott, the host of Supper at Six, and you will too.


Catie Disabato, Ghost Network. NY: Melville House, 2015.

Is it too much to call out Nabokov? He like convoluted mysteries, too, but it’s Pnin that Diabato’s ‘editing someone else’s manuscript” approach echoes. The mystery? How a pop star gone missing is related to a group of Avant-guard Parisians, via Chicago’s unbuilt train lines.


Ahmir Khalib Thomspson/ Questlove with Ben Greenman, Music Is History. NY: Abrams, 2021.

This book is about history, particularly the past fifty years or so -- Questlove’s lifetime -- as seen through the lens of popular (Black) music. The questions are about what makes history -- what is it, how does it come about, who is it about, who records or validates it, how we relate to it as individuals. The stories are personal, but the events are substantial and the conversation is good and the music is great. Music Is History is the 2022 national library Big Read, a book chosen to provide a common experience for readers across the country, and by asking us to think about how e think about history, may help develop a common understanding. Or at least an appreciation of some tunes we didn’t know.


Jennifer Saint, Ariadne. NY: Flatiron, 2021.

May have said this already, but I am thrilled by the sudden deluge of books foregrounding the women of Greek myth: none of it happened without them, but aside from Helen and Cassandra, how many of them do we know? Minos’s daughter, princess of Crete, Theseus’s lover and aid in killing the Minotaur, Dionysus’s wife and priestess of Naxos... the depths this book reveal more clearly to non-classicists, relationships between the gods and Greeks that are otherwise confused by time and unfamiliarity, and the emotional currents connecting them, show why these stories remain vital even now.


Amal el-Mohtar & Max Gladstone, This Is How You Lose the Time War. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2019.

This epistolary Romeo and Juliet tale features time-traveling agents working to build a future either mechanistic or vegetative by changing various strands of the multiverse. But really - how does one lose any war, except by fighting? To make war is to lose.


Natalie Hays, A Thousand Ships. NY: HarperCollins, 2021.

This is the women’s war. The women of Greece and Troy have waited long enough for their turn, says the muse Calliope, as she give their stories to the complaining poet, who will tell their tale or none at all.


Haruki Murakami, Strange Library. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.

A dreamlike noir novella, in which all the narrator knows for sure is that he lost his shoes and his pet starling; he did not have his brain sucked out by a librarian.


Peter Schilling, Jr., The End of Baseball. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2008.

No, not an expose of MLB’s manipulation of ball composition, but a fiction based on Bill Veeck’s stated desire to buy a team and immediately hire Negros to play. It’s set just a few years before Veeck bought the Cleveland club and did just that by helping Larry Doby integrate the American League.


Melissa Ferguson, Meet Me in the Margins. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2022.

It’s romantic fiction about writing romantic fiction: romantic, and fiction.


Luke Epplin, Our Team. NY: Flatiron, 2021.

A look at the 1948 Cleveland Baseball Club, first integrated team in the American League and last World Series champions in that city, by examining four main contributors to their success: Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, Satchel Paige, and Larry Doby.


Paul Dickson, Bill Veeck. NY: Bloomsbury, 2012.

Shark week concludes with this deft, detailed biography of a man whose father ran the Cubs, who later bought the Browns, Indians, White Sox, and White Sox again: a lifer. Dickson handles his controversial subject evenly and in relation to his times. He also all but verifies Veeck’s intention to pull the plan fictionalized in The End of Baseball (above), which would have seen the Phillies field an entire team of Negros in 1942, five years before Jackie Robinson debuted with the Dodgers.


Jasmine Guillory, While We Were Dating. NY: Berkley, 2021.

Anna is an actor and Ben is an ad exec. While they were dating they had lots of great sex and fell in love. Hope I didn’t just give away the ending.


John Feinstein, Where Nobody Knows Your Name. NY: Doubleday, 2014.

This study examine the line between Major and minor league life through discussions wiht players, managers, and umpires, many of whom are trying to return to the Bigs, during the 2012 International League season.


Vanessa Riley, A Duke, a Lady, and a Baby. NY: Zebra, 2020.
    An Earl, a Girl, and a Toddler. NY: Zebra, 2021.
    A Duke, the Spy, an Artist, and a Lie. NY: Zebra, 2022.

A fairly new series of Regency romances featuring members of Widow’s Grace, a group that helps abused widows retain their property -- and children -- from scheming in-laws. As a bonus, they also address racial conditions in nineteenth-century London that are often overlooked in fiction.


John Bellairs, Eyes of the Killer Robot. NY: Puffin, 1998.

In this Johnny Dixon mystery, a ball-playing robot from fifty years ago turns out to be a golum powered by they eyes of a (formerly) living person. Johnny’s eyes would be perfect for the new model.


Mary Kay Andrews, Homewreckers. NY: St. Martins, 2022.

Genre fiction: it’s a mystery, about a disappearing young teacher. It’s industry expose, a behind-the-scenes look at reality TV production. It’s romance, as the local star fields attention from both co-star and producer. Oh, and it’s kinda fun, so there’s that.


Edward Achor, Summer of Beer and Whisky. NY: Public Affairs, 2013.

The title refers to a nickname for the American Association of Base Ball Clubs, the 1880s “Beer & Whisky League” founded as an alternative to the stodgy National League, which didn’t allow alcohol or Sunday ballgames. Achorn focuses on the pennant race between St. Louis and Philadelphia to frame discussion of the characters and circumstances that lead to founding, and the consequences that we still see in the game today.


Jasmine Guillory, Royal Holiday. NY: Berkley, 2019.

Vivian accompanies her daughter on a business trip to England, but Vivian’s the one who ends up getting the business from Her Majesty’s private secretary. And it’s delightful seeing someone over fifty fall in love again.


Amy Stewart, Girl Waits with Gun. NY: Mariner, 2016.

In the aptly-named Constance Kopp, Stewart has found a amazing character for the first in a series of mysteries. Set in early 20th-century New Jersey, she fictionalizes the actual adventures of a pioneering woman in law enforcement.


Ibi Zoboi, Pride. NY: Balzer + Bray, 2018.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen inspires retelling. I think that this version, set in Brooklyn, is my favorite.


Mia Manansala, Arsenic and Adobe. NY: Berkley Prime Crime, 2021.

First in a new series of culinary cozies, featuring a family of Filipino restaurateurs and including recipes, finds an unpopular food blogger face down in his dessert.


Kerry Winfrey, Very Sincerely Yours. NY: Jove, 2021.

When Teddy gets dumped, she emails a local children's’ television host for advice. He suggests trying something new, something that scares her, every day. And what’s scarier than asking out that host, her celebrity crush?


Lauren Kate, By Any Other Name. NY: Putnam, 2022.

After her promotion to editor, Lanie meets her star author (whose next book is four months overdue) for the first time after six years of email. It doesn’t go as expected, but Lanie still needs to produce a manuscript to keep her new job.


Gregory McDonald, Fletch. NY: Vintage Crime, 2002.

Fletch is a newspaper reporter with great bone structure following a story about the local drug scene when he’s hired to ‘murder’ a local businessman, with equally great bone structure, by the intended victim.


Emily Henry, Book Lovers. NY: Berkley 2022.

This story, about an agent, an editor, a small town, and the author who brings them all together, is delightful -- in many ways wonderful -- and, ironically, given it is about editing a book, goes on too long.


Liz Bowery, Love, Hate, and Clickbait. Toronto: Mira, 2022.

The author says she writes love stories about terrible people, and her political consultant IS terrible, then falls in love. Truth in advertising is everything in politics, after all.


Jasmine Guillory, Wedding Date. NY: Jove, 2018.

Alexa and Drew hit it off while trapped in an elevator, so she agrees to be his plus-one or a wedding that weekend. But long-distance relationships are hard -- especially when they’re new.


Farrah Rochon, Dating Playbook. NY: Hachette, 2021.

Taylor is excited to have a new client, but the former pro footballer doesn’t want anyone to know he’s hire a trainer -- so they use a fake-dating cover story. ‘Cuz that always works.


Elizabeth Hubscher, If You Ask Me. NY: Jove, 2022.

Violet is an advice columnist, but when she walks in on her husband with a pretty neighbor, she’s all out of answers. And now, thanks to the cute firefighter responding to an autographed jersey fire in her driveway, she’s got many more questions.


John Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln. NY: Crown, 1997.

When in doubt, read history. This journalistic account of the 1864 Presidential election gives hope that, even in a bitterly divided country, the mechanisms of democracy hold and, as George Strong noted at the time, the American people can be trusted to take care of the national honor.


Avi, Perloo the Bold. NY: Scholastic, 1998.

Perloo is an historian, so he knows that the leader can nominate a non-hereditary successor. But why him? Still, to save his own life from the jealous jilted heir and his tribe from an unnecessary war, book-loving Perloo does what he must, in his own way.


John Updike, Witches of Eastwick. NY: Knopf, 1984.

Three young divorcees have determined that small-town dating is like Monopoly: eventually one lands on all of the squares. So when a dark stranger from New York moves into an abandoned mansion, each harbors secret hopes. Yet when he does choose a bride, they turn on one of their own. An utterly, predictably depressing book, saved only by the luminous prose lovingly lathered on these despicable people.


Julie Murphy, If the Shoe Fits. NY: Disney, 2021.

Did you notice the publisher? The title? Is it a spoiler to scream, “Cinderella”, set in a reality dating show? Part of the Meant to Be series, which seems an obvious, even overdue, extension of their Princess brand.


Jason Mott, Hell of a Book. NY: Dutton, 2021.

I keep checking my bank account for royalties, because this feels like a book I’d write while unconscious -- which is only to say that I relate strongly to one of the character’s fractured relationship with reality and wish I wrote so well. Plus a Nic Cage cameo.


KM Jackson, How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days. NY: Forever, 2021.

Nic Cage offering advice on a plane? Pshah. In this, Keanu is not only the object of an action-packed road trip but, at its eventual end, proves that he is The One.


Alexa Martin, Mom Jeans and Other Mistakes. NY: Berkley, 2021.

Jude and Laura have been best friends since third grade, so when their lives fall apart they move in together, creating a new family with Lauren’s little girl and starting a podcast. it should be perfect.


Ernessa Carter, 32 Candles. NY: HarperCollins, 2010.

Remember that scene in the John Hughes teen classic 16 Candles when Molly Ringwald sees Jake leaning against his Porsche waiting for her to come down the steps? Yeah, just like that, except sixteen years and half a continent away from high school.


Jasmine Guillory, By the Book.  NY: Hyperion, 2022.

Another “Meant to Be” title from Disney, this time derived from Beauty and the Beast: an ambitious editorial assistant is assigned to help a blocked author deliver his manuscript.