Archives of "The BookBrowse Review": Reviews, previews, back-stories, news

Dear BookBrowsers,

In this issue, we detour into the past. Instead of our usual new hardcovers, you'll find pre-2000 gems handpicked by our reviewers.

It's striking how relevant some of these books are to our current moment, and how applicable they could be to our future. Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac (1949) is a seminal work of environmental writing that foresaw climate disaster. The Breakthrough (1966), a science fiction story by Daphne du Maurier (of Rebecca fame), raises points about the devaluation of human lives pertinent to today's disability justice movement.

In James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room (1956), an early work of queer fiction, an overseas American's destructive resistance to love is arguably not so different from the oblivious and extractive culture that Leopold and du Maurier's works address. Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt, or Carol (1952), by contrast, is known as one of the first lesbian love stories with a "happy" ending.

Toni Morrison's debut The Bluest Eye (1970) examines racialized beauty standards through Pecola Breedlove, a Black girl who desperately wants blue eyes. It remains one of the most banned books at a time when titles about Black experiences continue to be disproportionately challenged. As we approach Black History Month, this serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving the past to inform the present.

We also review Fyodor Dostoevsky's White Nights (1848), a tale of unrequited love that's made waves on the video platform TikTok, and Agatha Christie's mega-bestseller And Then There Were None (1939). Plus, we bring you coverage of other classics and new paperbacks, February Books We're Excited About, a giveaway of Adelle Waldman's Help Wanted, and much more.

This issue causes us to reflect on many things we shouldn't take for granted, including your support — thank you so much for being a BookBrowse member!

— The BookBrowse Team

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Dear BookBrowsers,

Happy 2025! In this issue, we kick off the year's reading with standout novels featuring richly imagined versions of our world. In Nnedi Okorafor's Death of the Author, a struggling writer finds success in penning a sci-fi story about a post-apocalyptic Earth — our accompanying Beyond the Book article explores other fascinating examples of "novels within novels." The Capital of Dreams by Heather O'Neill tells the tale of a teenage girl swept up in an attack on the fictional country of Elysia, where modern sensibilities meet a fairytale past.

Samantha Harvey's Orbital, recipient of the 2024 Booker Prize, is a vivid fictionalized depiction of the International Space Station crew going about their day as they contemplate our planet from afar. Jason De León's National Book Award winner Soldiers and Kings tracks the lives and quotidian concerns of human smugglers moving migrants to the US border.

We generally only feature books we can enthusiastically recommend with a 4 or 5-star rating, but sometimes we run a 3-star review to add to the conversation around a title. Here, we include coverage of Adam Ross's Playworld, which trails a young actor who is also a high school wrestler, excelling at moments when it reads like a sports novel. Juhea Kim's City of Night Birds is another foray into extreme athleticism, following a ballerina's dramatic return to the stage.

Looking for something a bit lighter? Asia Mackay's A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage relates the humorous story of a relationship between murderers gone stagnant.

Plus, check out other reviews and articles, previews of upcoming releases, our giveaway of John Dufresne's My Darling Boy, new First Impressions books, and much more. And if you haven't already, enjoy our literary quiz recapping last year's Top 20.

Thanks for being a BookBrowse member!

Nick
BookBrowse Publisher

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Dear BookBrowsers,

As we near the end of 2024, we feature the Top 20 Books of the Year chosen by our subscribers, and announce our Award Winners. Plus, our reviewers cover four books voted in by write-in nomination especially for this issue. We're grateful to everyone who participated for contributing to a fantastic annual roundup.

The winner of our Top Debut award is Eve J. Chung's sweeping Daughters of Shandong, which follows a mother and her daughters escaping from China to Taiwan during the Communist revolution. This book is on our list of favorite First Impressions reads of the year, also in this issue.

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, an intriguing fictionalized drama of the real-life midwife Martha Ballard, takes the Top Fiction prize.

The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson's absorbing exploration of pre-Civil War tensions, comes out ahead of the pack for our Top Nonfiction distinction.

And this year's Top YA ranking goes to one of our write-in nominees, Everything We Never Had, Randy Ribay's compact but moving tale of the complicated and shifting relationships between four generations of Filipino men.

Besides Ribay's novel, the newly reviewed books in this issue are Hisham Matar's Booker-longlisted and National Book Award finalist My Friends, the expansive but quietly reflective story of a Libyan exile living in London; Marjan Kamali's compelling The Lion Women of Tehran, centered on the friendship of two girls coming of age during a tumultuous period of contemporary Iranian history; and Lynda Cohen Loigman's The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern, a cozy literary romance that may just offer the perfect winter escape. Other Top 20 books include Percival Everett's James, winner of this year's National Book Award for Fiction; Elizabeth Strout's latest character-driven marvel Tell Me Everything; and The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich, a finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction.

Big Holiday Wordplay fans, you'll be pleased to know that this year's mammoth conundrum is bigger and better than ever. Solve as many of our whopping 15 (yes, 15) clues as you can and enter for a chance to win a free one-year membership.

Thank you again to everyone who voted, and thank you for subscribing to BookBrowse — we couldn't do this without your support!

Davina & Nick
Founder & Publisher

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Dear BookBrowsers,

In our second-to-last issue of the year, we feature recent books from acclaimed authors that paint vivid pictures of lives in retrospect. Alan Hollinghurst's Our Evenings spans a British actor's memories from the 1960s to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and André Aciman's Roman Year recounts a period spent in Rome as a young adult after his Jewish family was exiled from Egypt. Weike Wang's upcoming Rental House also travels through time, examining American society through a couple's fraught vacations five years apart.

In addition to new or soon-to-be-released books, we cover a sprinkling of lesser-known gems from earlier in 2024, including Maureen Sun's The Sisters K, a modern gender-flipped retelling of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and Jessica Zhan Mei Yu's But the Girl, which follows an Australian PhD student on an artist residency in the UK as she ponders creativity, her Malaysian heritage, and her complicated academic relationship with Sylvia Plath. Alongside these two classic-inflected contemporary debuts, we bring you a Beyond the Book article on the unique publisher they share, Unnamed Press, as well as one on beloved poet Plath's only novel, The Bell Jar.

Another glowing debut, Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian, tells the complex and hopeful tale of a village in 1970s Nigeria under the influence of American missionaries.

And Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's powerful posthumous memoir Patriot lays out a vision for the "normal country" he imagined his homeland could become.

You can also enjoy other reviews and articles, recommendations for book clubs, author interviews, a roundup of Our Most Anticipated Books for 2025, a new Wordplay, and more.

Thanks for subscribing to BookBrowse!

Davina & Nick
Founder & Publisher

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Dear BookBrowsers,

In this issue, we bring you the latest from acclaimed author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Message reflects on historical narratives and their meaning as the reader travels alongside Coates through Senegal, South Carolina, and the Middle East. Our accompanying Beyond the Book article presents works of art and writing that tell stories of ordinary Palestinian life.

Other excellent new nonfiction includes My Good Bright Wolf, a poetic memoir in which award-winning novelist Sarah Moss explores her struggles with anorexia, and Linguiphile, where Julie Sedivy examines the complex and beautiful connection between human life and language.

We also cover a couple of much-anticipated fiction follow-ups. Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Sequel centers Anna Williams-Bonner, wife of the writer Jacob Finch Bonner from The Plot, as she basks in the celebrity that has come with her husband's death. Jeff VanderMeer is back with Absolution, the fourth book in his Southern Reach series, which returns to the mysterious Area X in a roller coaster ride of a prequel.

For those looking to dive into something new and delightful, Kate Greathead's The Book of George offers a darkly humorous story of male millennial angst. Our related article explores the picaresque genre and its lovable rogues over the centuries.

You can read these reviews and articles along with many others, our selection of The Best Books for Book Clubs in 2025, author interviews, upcoming releases, and more.

Thank you for subscribing to BookBrowse!

Davina & Nick
Founder & Publisher

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Dear BookBrowsers,

In this issue, we catch up with the latest in the universe of Elizabeth Strout. Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, the town of Crosby, Maine, and some minor characters from previous books all have parts to play in the beautifully orchestrated Tell Me Everything.

Another new contemporary work of fiction by an old hand is Charles Baxter's Blood Test, a delightful satirical take on modern for-profit healthcare in which a mild-mannered Midwestern dad is informed by a genetic test that he will, in all likelihood, kill someone. Meanwhile, Daniel Lavery's debut Women's Hotel is a pitch-perfect ode to the days of women-only residential spaces in New York City. Danielle Trussoni's The Puzzle Box, sequel to The Puzzle Master, flits between past and present as Mike Brink attempts to solve a mystery from Meiji-era Japan.

In nonfiction, Wright Thompson's sobering and resonant The Barn unearths little-known details about Emmett Till's murder, dispels common misperceptions, and contextualizes the incident in the culture and history of Mississippi. Our Beyond the Book article outlines the experiences of Willie Reed, the witness who was driven into hiding after identifying Till's killers.

You can read many other reviews and articles, check out our blog post on Examples of Good Book Reviews, enjoy previews of upcoming books, peruse the latest book news items (including Han Kang's recent Nobel win), and more.

Thank you for being a BookBrowse subscriber!

Davina & Nick
Founder & Publisher

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Dear BookBrowsers,

As we move into October and the cooler breeze carries the promise of darker days ahead, we bring you some spine-chilling reading for the scariest month of the year. Olga Tokarczuk's The Empusium, a "health resort horror story," follows a young guest "taking the waters" in a European mountain spa town during the days before World War I, as rumors of unsettling happenings flow. Rivers Solomon's Model Home is a modern haunted house tale about a Black American family who weathers disturbing occurrences while living in a white gated community. Charles Burns' graphic novel Final Cut pays tribute to classic horror films and examines the dangers of idealized unrequited love.

But these books are only part of the veritable cornucopia of fantastic fiction coming out this fall. In this issue, we review the stunning latest from Louise Erdrich, The Mighty Red, in which the personal devastations of a North Dakota community are reflected in the dying surrounding landscape. Richard Powers' multilayered Playground develops plotlines linked to the world's oceans, the board game Go, and other topics. Yuri Herrera's richly rendered Season of the Swamp follows eventual Mexican president Benito Juárez during his exile in 19th century New Orleans. Sally Rooney's vivid Intermezzo, her fourth and longest novel yet, centers two brothers and their strained relationship after the death of their father. Our related article reports on a recent appearance Rooney made in Dublin.

We also bring you our list of 9 New Books to Read This Fall, which includes both recent and upcoming reads, along with additional reviews and articles, a giveaway of Jesmyn Ward's novel Let Us Descend, previews of soon-to-be-released books, and much more.

As always, thank you for subscribing to BookBrowse!

Davina & Nick
Founder & Publisher

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