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The
BookBrowse Review

March 18, 2020

March 18, 2020

Dear BookBrowsers,

We hope very much that you're healthy and maintaining some semblance of calm throughout these trying times. No matter where you are in the world, we're all in this together. Perhaps we can interest you in the pleasant distraction of a good book? And if you do decide to buy one or more, please consider purchasing from your local bookstore. In most parts of the world, sales have fallen precipitously and they are in need of support more than ever, and many are offering to mail books to customers who are unable to come into the store.

We have exceptionally strong selections in this issue, including a couple of very highly-anticipated new releases. Critics and other advance readers have been buzzing about My Dark Vanessa, the debut novel by author Kate Russell about a teenager's relationship with her much older teacher and the fallout years later when he is accused of abuse by another woman. Also, a new book by Erik Larson is always a reason to celebrate and our First Impressions reviewers were thrilled with his latest, The Splendid and the Vile, in which the author provides a comprehensive and riveting account of a Blitz-besieged London with Winston Churchill at the helm as prime minister. Both of these books earned 5-star reviews, as did Paul Yoon's Run Me to Earth, a decades-spanning novel about three teenage orphans who endured the war in Laos only to face an uncertain future with complex moral quandaries. Our Beyond the Book article for this one looks at the legacy of peril war often leaves behind in the form of unexploded ordnance such as landmines and buried cluster bombs.

You'll definitely want to check out our previews for upcoming releases in this issue, as quite a substantial number of them have been very well-reviewed and many of those are debuts. Update your to-read lists accordingly!

During most of the year, we publish The BookBrowse Review twice a month, so usually there's two weeks between issues, but occasionally there are three weeks, which is the case between now and the next issue on April 8th.

Very best wishes,

Your editor,
Davina

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The
BookBrowse Review

March 04, 2020

March 04, 2020

Dear BookBrowsers,

As a BookBrowse member, you likely share our view that books aren't so much an end destination in themselves, as a jumping off point to new discoveries. This is why we accompany every review with a "beyond the book" article which explores an historical, cultural or contextual aspect of the book.

search barThis week I am very happy to announce that these articles are now easier to access and read than ever before! You can now explore them by visiting bookbrowse.com/articles, or by using the new "Article" option on the main BookBrowse search bar. Go ahead, give it a try – just check the article box, put in a topic you're interested in, and if we've covered it in any of the thousands of articles we've written to date, you'll get a result; and just maybe you'll discover an intriguing new book into the bargain!

On the topic of "beyond the book" articles, we cover a number of intriguing and enlightening topics in this issue, including an article on American Complicity in Chinese Authoritarianism accompanying the review of The Scientist and the Spy by Maria Hvistendahl. This review and article were written by an American professor with a unique insight into the link between China and American academia, and we think you'll find it as fascinating as we did. You'll also want to check out the article on Predictions and Paradoxes in technology running alongside our review of Marc-Uwe Kling's Qualityland for some scientific conjecture that has stood the test of time. And if it's literary lore you're after, look no further than the Beyond the Book for Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson, all about the Locked Room Mystery genre.

Of course, there's plenty more to explore in this issue, including a review for the much-anticipated Weather by Jenny Offill, plus the latest in paperbacks, book club recommendations and previews of upcoming releases.

Enjoy!

Your editor,
Davina

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The
BookBrowse Review

February 19, 2020

February 19, 2020

Dear BookBrowsers,

The literary world is awash in dialogue about immigration stories at the moment; maybe you're even taking part in our current Book Club discussion about American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. In this issue, we cover Children of the Land, a moving memoir about the undocumented experience by a gifted young Mexican-born poet, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, who came to the United States when he was five years old. In the accompanying Beyond the Book article, we take a look at the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which offers temporary citizenship to young people currently living in the United States, provided they meet certain requirements.

We also review the hilarious and slightly unhinged English language debut of Cuban author Marcial Gala, The Black Cathedral. This clever satire features a large cast of vastly different narrators, all trying to secure success (or survival) in the city of Cienfuegos on Cuba's south coast.

If you're up for some historical fiction, we've got a couple of winners with The Illness Lesson by Clare Beams and The Girls with No Names by Serena Burdick—two novels with very different tones but similar feminist themes.

As always, we also bring you reviews of the latest paperbacks and previews of upcoming releases (a lot of 5-star ratings in this batch!). Plus, the just published results from our January survey asking book clubbers to nominate their all-time favorite books, and their favorite book of 2019.

Enjoy!

Your editor,
Davina

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The
BookBrowse Review

February 05, 2020

February 05, 2020

Dear BookBrowsers,

Do you like a good mystery? You're not alone. True crime books have been all the rage in recent years, and one of the latest and most acclaimed releases in this genre is Emma Copley Eisenberg's contemplative exploration of a double murder in West Virginia, The Third Rainbow Girl.

Of course, not all mysteries involve crimes. In Meng Jin's debut novel Little Gods, a young woman travels to China, hoping to piece together a greater understanding of her deceased enigmatic mother's earlier life. In The Truants, Kate Weingberg's thrilling debut, a college student's world is turned upside down by secrets and lies centered around a professor who specializes in the work of author Agatha Christie. Our Beyond the Book for this one focuses on a real mystery from Christie's life that remains the subject of much conjecture.

The Volunteer, Jack Fairweather's harrowing biography of a Polish lieutenant who went undercover in Auschwitz to collect intelligence and organize resistance, won the Costa Book of the Year Award last week, so we're rerunning our First Impressions review for this one in case you missed it. The book is an astonishing firsthand account that draws heavily from the courageous soldier's journal.

We also have a wealth of intriguing beyond the book articles on a diverse range of topics including mythical healers, tree law, America's obsession with stuff, and the five Confucian virtues.

Additionally, we have an illuminating new Book Club Q&A in this issue with Adrienna Turner, librarian and book club facilitator at the Sacramento State Prison. Make sure to browse through the latest in paperback, and previews for upcoming releases as well!

Enjoy!

Your editor,
Davina

P.S. We have a new section under development to showcase our Beyond the Book articles. You can search for topics, or browse alphabetically or by publication date. Please do let me know what you think!

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The
BookBrowse Review

January 22, 2020

January 22, 2020

Dear BookBrowsers,

Books are fantastic tools for building empathy; they can take us to places we've never been before and show us the hearts and minds of people very different from ourselves, while also revealing commonalities. In Between Two Fires, journalist Joshua Yaffa explores the lives of everyday people in Russia as they attempt to carve out opportunities for themselves under an increasingly authoritarian regime. Coincidentally, this book was released the day before the entire Russian government resigned en masse. If you're wondering what this sudden shake-up means and what might happen next, we've broken it down for you in our accompanying Beyond the Book article.

Carmen Maria's Machado's In the Dream House takes readers on a tour through the abject horror of an abusive relationship — her own with a woman she met and fell in love with while attending graduate school. This haunting, genre-bending memoir offers insight into a rarely discussed phenomenon — abuse in queer relationships. We add our voices to the chorus of this book's critical acclaim.

On the other side of the memoir spectrum we also review a recently rediscovered account of a Jewish woman's harrowing escape from Nazi Germany, A Bookshop in Berlin. Our Beyond the Book article for this one covers Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass," the first major, widespread act of violence against Jews during the rise of the Nazis, an event that author Francoise Frenkel witnessed firsthand.

Also, you'll want to check out our review for American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, which received the only perfect score in the history of our First Impressions review program (more than 600 books reviewed to date!) with every single member-reviewer rating it 5 stars. Our online Book Club discussion for this one begins February 11th.

Don't forget to check out the latest paperback releases and previews for late January/early February releases as well.

Enjoy!

Your editor,
Davina

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The
BookBrowse Review

January 08, 2020

January 08, 2020

Dear BookBrowsers,

Happy New Year! Did you make a resolution to learn something new? To read more nonfiction? Or would you like to do so without the crushing weight of obligation a resolution brings with it? You're in luck! Journey to Mosul with our First Impressions reviewers, who were riveted by Louise Callaghan's Father of Lions, and check out the accompanying beyond the book article where we explore how the city was affected by ISIS occupation.

We also review Life Undercover, the memoir of former CIA operative Amaryllis Fox, who recounts the personal and professional challenges she faced while working as a spy. Fox infiltrated illegal arms trade networks while with the Agency, so our beyond the book article covers the development and disarmament of nuclear weapons from the 1950s to the present.

Have you heard of the sophomore slump? These authors haven't! In the fiction department, we cover two highly anticipated second novels. Margaret Wilkerson Sexton's A Kind of Freedom was longlisted for the National Book Award, and she returns with The Revisioners, a deeply affecting portrait of three generations of Louisiana women contending with racial prejudice. Erin Morgenstern's 2011 novel The Night Circus was a bestseller (she won BookBrowse's Best Debut Author Award that year), and she follows up with The Starless Sea, another charming, compulsively readable work of fantasy.

This are just a taste of the 18 books reviewed in this issue (including Bernardine Evaristo's Booker Prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other), and each is accompanied by a related "beyond the book" article, including a fun one on animal sounds in different languages.

Additionally, we have the usual lineup of previews, among which you'll find the next book everyone will be talking about: American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, which is the first to score a perfect 5-star rating from our First Impressions reviewers!

Enjoy!

Your editor,
Davina

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The
BookBrowse Review

December 04, 2019

December 04, 2019

Dear Bookbrowsers,

It's been a great year for books, and if you haven't had as much time to read as you might have liked, hopefully you can take the opportunity over the holidays to rest, read, and refuel. If you don't already have a stack of unread books on your nightstand waiting for your attention (or even if you do), you'll definitely want to pick up a few of the titles we're featuring in this, our Best of the Year issue, consisting of the 20 books that were rated highest by you, BookBrowse subscribers, in our annual Best of Year survey. The books are listed in ratings order.

The award for Best Nonfiction Book goes to Michelle Obama's Becoming. Becoming published last November and is included in our 2019 Awards because voting takes place in November and therefore books published in the last two months of 2018 are eligible.

You might be interested to know that even though Becoming was the bestselling book of 2018 with 3.4 million copies sold, it was not a shoo-in for BookBrowse's awards because what sets ours apart from other popular awards is that we don't simply count raw votes (which favors the most widely read books), instead we ask subscribers to rate each book they've read that is on the shortlist, and the winners are the books with the highest overall ratings. We also prevent vote stuffing by restricting voting only to you, our subscribers.

The Best Fiction Book Award goes to the ever-popular Elizabeth Strout for Olive, Again, her sequel to Olive Kitteridge published ten years after the original. Readers were thrilled to return to this beloved character's stubborn but poignant perspective, and Strout's exceptional writing skills all but guarantee every outing will be a success.

Thanhha Lai's Butterfly Yellow wins the Best Young Adult category. This moving novel about a teenage Vietnamese refugee's search for her brother through Texas in 1981 is Lai's second book, but her first for a YA audience. Her children's debut, Inside Out and Back Again, won the 2011 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the 2012 Newbery Medal.

Our Best Debut Author Award goes to Solitary by Albert Woodfox. In this remarkable memoir, the author writes of his four decades in solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit. It is a story of hope in the face of impossible circumstances and a call to action for prison reform. Solitary was also a finalist for the National Book Award.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Best of the Year survey. Over 8,000 votes were cast, and we value your opinions very highly!

If you'd like to comment on any of these books, or tell people about your favorite books of the year, you can do so in our blog

Also in this issue are our best of year interviews, our top recommendations for book clubs to read in early 2020, and previews of December and early January releases.

Enjoy!

Your editor,
Davina


About the BookBrowse Awards
BookBrowse's Best of the Year Awards are an excellent barometer of great reading. The awards are particularly noteworthy because voting is only open to BookBrowse subscribers - so no vote stuffing by rabid fan bases; and instead of just voting for a book (which favors the most widely read books) subscribers rate each book they've read that is on the shortlist, and the winners are the books with the highest overall rating. Such considered selection results in truly outstanding books being feted every year. 2019 is no different in that regard. Over 8,000 votes were cast this year. If you took part in the voting - thank you!

See 20 years of Best of Year Books, and Award Winners.



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BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.