Intimations

Vibrant. It’s time to treat your addled covid brain with six fresh and vibrant essays by Zadie Smith in a collection titled, Intimations. Artists of all sorts help us make sense of the world. In these finely written essays, Smith uses all her artistic writing skill to help us think about this unusual time. I felt communal empathy in her words, and kindness about our current predicament in respect to the pandemic, racism and immigration. We’ve all asked ourselves scores of questions in 2020, and in these essays, Smith reveals the questions she has asked herself and how she is thinking about contemporary life.

 

Rating: Five-star (I love it)

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You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

Lively. If reading about dead people from earlier centuries isn’t high on your list of priorities, try picking up a copy of Alexis Coe’s lively and funny book titled, You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, and learn that reading about dead people can be entertaining. With playful wit, Coe dispenses with the many myths about Washington, and presents a different view of the person behind the heroic marble façade. She carefully curates those aspects of his life that bring the man down to earth from a remote pedestal. This breezy and cheeky book entertained me thoroughly.

 

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

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The Order

Conspiracy. For the twentieth installment of his Gabriel Allon series, Daniel Silva sends the Israeli spy back to a place where Gabriel made close friends in high places in the past, Vatican City. In the novel titled, The Order, Gabriel is asked by the late pope’s private secretary to come to Rome to investigate a conspiracy involving the Holy See. A group called the Order of St. Helena with much support from the European right may be engaged in a conspiracy to rig the election of the next pope. Fans of this series are those readers most likely to enjoy this latest installment featuring a complex and interesting protagonist who always seems to choose whatever it takes to do the right thing.

 

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

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My Life as a Villainess

Verve. Just the word “villainess” in the title gives readers a taste of the verve with which Laura Lippman writes in her collection of essays titled, My Life as a Villainess. I’ve read her fiction for years, especially her Tess Monaghan crime series set in Baltimore. I thoroughly enjoyed the wit and enthusiasm of her non-fiction in these essays. Sometimes, she’s relating the experience of Everywoman in recent decades. Other times, she offers a glimpse into her own life in ways that will entertain most readers. We get to see among other topics, some of her childhood, life in school, finding work as a journalist, and her experience being an older mother. Readers who enjoy a wry take on our crazy world, good writing, and some real verve, should consider reading these essays.

 

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

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Hard Cash Valley

Loss. Brian Panowich returns to Bull Mountain and McFalls County for the third time in a novel titled, Hard Cash Valley. Squeamish readers should be cautious when approaching this thriller, since the violence includes both murder and torture. Protagonist Dane Kirby has suffered a lot of loss during his life in McFalls County. His boss has assigned him to work with the FBI on a brutal murder in another state, but the trail leads him back home to a world of chickens bred for fighting, criminal treachery and the hunt for a boy on the autism spectrum. The pace of the novel is rapid, and Panowich builds heavy layers of complexity onto each main character to intensify the stakes and accelerate the action. Fans of crime fiction with a stomach for gore are those readers most likely to enjoy this novel. Through all the loss, there is also love, and that helps point Kirby and other characters in the direction of redemption and recovery. Meanwhile, the bad guys face justice to the satisfaction of readers who have put up with a lot from these criminals.

 

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

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The Beauty in Breaking

Healing. I can think of no better time than now to read some life lessons from an emergency room physician. In her memoir titled, The Beauty in Breaking, Michele Harper blends patient and personal stories in ways that will engage and encourage most readers. Harper helps us pay attention to those places where each of us is broken in one way or another and offers us a path toward healing. We can learn about better ways to live in many ways, and this book will provide comfort to anyone engaged in a struggle and looking for a voice of experience to find a way to find healing.

 

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

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The Divided States of America: Why Federalism Doesn't Work

Inequality. Timing can be everything when it comes to non-fiction. The uneven responses among different cities and states to the novel coronavirus provide one more example of the main points Donald F. Kettl makes in his book titled, The Divided States of America: Why Federalism Doesn't Work. The sharing of power between the national government and individual states began as a creative compromise to create the United States of America. Kettl describes how that compromise built inequality into the balance, especially because of slavery. In this finely written book, Kettl argues that it is past time to reform our political system, and he offers some alternative solutions to what he sees as the problems of the current system. Where one lives makes the world of difference when it comes to education, health care, infrastructure and the risk of dying from a virus that some political leaders have not taken seriously. Any reader interested in public affairs should read this thoughtful book.

 

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

Click here to purchase The Divided States of America from amazon.com.