Greetings, Book Readers! Several really good books have just been published, and I’d like to share micro-reviews of them with you. All are highly recommended!
Fiction:
Twenty-One Truths About Love, Matthew Dicks. Oh my goodness this was a fun book, written entirely in lists. A bookstore owner worries over his wife’s love and pregnancy and plots to rob a bingo parlor in New Jersey. Brilliant.
It Would Be Night in Caracas, Karina Sainz Borgo. This jarring book about what life is really like in urban Latin America knocked my socks off. A young woman goes home to find her apartment taken over by a gang of gangster women. An eye-opener for those of us in the safety of North America.
A View Across the Rooftops, Suzanne Kelman. Set in Amsterdam during World War II, this book of life under the Nazis is vivid and touching. A professor hides a young Jewish man, grieves the loss of his neighbor, and falls in love with a woman he thinks is unavailable.
The First Lady and the Rebel, Susan Higginbottom. This book chronicles the double stories of Mary Lincoln’s courtship with her husband, along with the story of her sister, the wife of a Confederate officer. It’s complicated. Lots of Tennessee history set in rebel-held Nashville and Chattanooga.
Non-Fiction:
Keep it Moving: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life, Twyla Tharp. A terrific self-help book for those of us aging and needing to re-figure and revamp what we’ve done in the past. Excellent for middle aged dancers.
Happy Reading! Cindy
Cynthia Coe is the author of The Prayer Shawl Chronicles: Stories of Unlikely Connections & Unexpected Gifts, along with several other fiction and non-fiction books.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for complimentary copies of all these books. In the interest of full disclosure, if you buy something through these links, I’ll get a couple of pennies from Amazon – which partially funds this blog.
