Looking for something to read or gift this holiday season? Here are my book recommendations for the best of 2017. None of these titles are written by my clients. Each one of these books is something I’ve enjoyed as a reader during the last year and give you my best word-of-mouth recommendation. I read four or five books a month for pleasure and these are at the top of my list for 2017. Fiction The Twelve Mile Straight: A Novel by Eleanor Henderson It was her first novel, Ten Thousand Saints, which hooked me on Eleanor Henderson’s writing and I liked the book better than the movie. But this novel is exquisite. An American classic novel. Good to the last page. Set during the Depression in rural Georgia, this story of two young women, one white and one black, is captivating for the way it explores and exposes relationships between men and women, blacks and whites. The creative way she carries threads of the story through the entire manuscript is worth noting. For the central plotlines, they are mythic and epic. No spoilers here. Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig This debut novel stars a young female autistic protagonist for the reader to champion. Ginny Moon tells her own story in her own words. When Ginny was taken from her birth mother, she left baby doll behind and is desperate to get it back and make things right. The Moons adopted Ginny and she is in a much less dangerous…
With a beautiful blend of art and prose, graphic novels are one of the most accessible mediums out there. Even if you’re not a huge reader, a graphic novel is easy to pick up and digest. More than just superhero comics and manga, graphic novels contain stories from many different genres—mystery/thriller, romance, sci-fi/fantasy, and so much more. While comics and graphic novels are certainly not… [Read More]
Congratulations to Bett Fitzpatrick whose new book of narrative nonfiction history, Hard Aground, will be released in Spring 2022 by Boulder Books, an independent publishing company in Newfoundland and Labrador. In the pre-dawn hours of February 18, 1942, three American warships zigzagged in convoy along the south coast of Newfoundland, heading for one of the worst disasters in American naval history. The USS Pollux and… [Read More]
After an absence that followed the cancelation of their 2020 festival due to the pandemic, UntitledTown has partnered with the Friends of the Brown County Library and Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and is making a comeback with a one-day event of readings from your favorite Wisconsin and Midwestern authors. UntitledTown: the Comeback Event will take place on Saturday, August 21 from 10am to 4pm at the… [Read More]
The MIT Press releases Out of the Cave: A Natural History of Mind and Knowing by Mark Johnson and Don Tucker on August 17. What do we know, and how do we know it? I can’t think of any more essential question to the human experience. Or to the scientific method. Objectivity and subjectivity. Thoughts and emotions. Big ideas. Mark Johnson and Don Tucker responded to my… [Read More]
Though going to a brick-and-mortar bookstore has been something many of us missed dearly this past year, slowly they are reopening in most parts of the country. While it may be safe to head inside your local indie bookstore, heading to the romance section feels like an activity that needs to be done in a baseball hat, sunglasses, and perhaps a fake mustache. I won’t… [Read More]