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NonfictionMemoirFilm

Eight memoirists share which parts of their true stories will be hardest to believe

Feature by BookPage contributors

In celebration of Memoir March, we asked the authors of eight groundbreaking memoirs what readers will love about their life stories—and which parts are even stranger than fiction.

author photo of Dolly AldertonDolly Alderton, author of Everything I Know About Love

Dolly Alderton recounts her many mishaps—including a drunken evening when she thought she was in Oxford, not London—through essays, satirical emails and recipes. Alderton isn’t afraid to share unflattering moments or to laugh at herself, and readers may find solace in realizing they aren’t alone at the party. (read the full review)

What do you love most about your book?
I am happy about how truthful it is—which makes it uncomfortable for me to read back sometimes, but it’s a really honest account of an ebullient, rocky, unpredictable period of my youth that a lot of people go through, and I wrote it truthfully.

What kind of reader do you think will most enjoy your book? 
Someone who is after riot and revelation in equal measure from an imperfect antiheroine. 

What is one thing in your book that’s true that readers may think you made up?
That I took a taxi across 100 miles at 4 a.m. Both me and my student bank account overdraft wish that was a made-up anecdote.

 

Barry Sonnenfeld, author of Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother

In this funny, wry and thoroughly entertaining memoir, the legendary cinematographer and director does more than name-drop or recall Hollywood vignettes. Barry Sonnenfeld is, above all, a storyteller, and while his own journey from a skinny, French horn-playing kid to a successful director drives the breezy narrative, he takes time to bring supporting characters irreverently to life. (read the full review)

What do you love most about your book?
That people tell me they laughed out loud reading it.

What kind of reader do you think will most enjoy your book?
Readers looking for a surprisingly good time. Or a sad time. Anyone interested in films and how they ever get made.

What is one thing in your book that’s true that readers may think you made up?
There are so many unbelievable but true things: Being paged at Madison Square Garden during a Jimi Hendrix performance; surviving a plane crash; surviving my mother’s cooking; being bar mitzvah’d in a Catholic church; selling M.C. Hammer my ’62 Lincoln Continental; becoming a successful director.

 

Erin Khar, author of Strung Out

Any book about addiction is actually a book about feelings and the lengths that people who are suffering will go to avoid feeling them. Erin Khar’s memoir is a compassionate account of her illness and will surely be the gold standard for women writing about heroin addiction. (read the full review)

What do you love most about your book?
What I love most about my book is the way readers have told me they connect with the story. For people who’ve struggled with addiction, it helps them feel seen, feel less alone. For people who have not experienced addiction, it helps them understand addiction in a way they hadn’t before.

Readers have also told me how much they found they could relate to, and that surprised them. I love that! I wanted the narrative to reflect a human experience, to present addiction not as an aberration but as a human condition, one that 2 million Americans struggle with. Reframing how we view addiction will go a long way in helping people.

What kind of reader do you think will most enjoy your book?
Definitely memoir readers and fans of addiction and recovery narratives. But beyond that, anyone who is interested in understanding what is at the heart of the opioid crisis.

What is one thing in your book that’s true that readers may think you made up?
I think it’s hard for people to believe that I was able to hide my addiction for as long as I did, but the people who were closest to me were absolutely shocked when I went to rehab. In my teenage years, I didn’t display the “warning signs” of addiction. I got straight A’s in school, participated in lots of extracurricular activities and had plenty of friends. We have ideas about what a drug addict looks like or acts like, but the truth is addiction can happen to anyone, can look like anyone.

 

Alex Halberstadt, author of Young Heroes of the Soviet Union

Beginning with childhood memories of his parents’ troubled marriage and divorce, resentment toward his absent father and embarrassment over grandparents who made no effort to conceal their foreignness, Russian American author Alex Halberstadt slowly pulls away the curtain draped over his family’s unhappiness. What he finds is startling: a grandfather who served as a bodyguard to Stalin, and who became known to Halberstadt as a fragile man who still wrestles with the truth of the atrocities he at least witnessed, if not perpetrated. (read the full review)

What do you love most about your book?
One of the themes my book deals with is the relationship between personal lives and the larger currents of history, and what I love is the way my book braids together personal stories with episodes from Russian history while telescoping back and forth in time. For me, nonfiction is always most compelling when it’s grounded in the specifics of people’s stories.

What kind of reader do you think will most enjoy your book?
I think my book would particularly appeal to readers interested in family stories, 20th-century history, Russia, the Holocaust, immigration and intergenerational trauma.

What is one thing in your book that’s true that readers may think you made up?
My grandfather was very likely Stalin’s last living bodyguard and for years operated as a double agent, splitting his loyalties between Stalin and the head of the Soviet secret police, Lavrenty Beria. Some days it seems unbelievable to me, too.

 

Evan James, author of I’ve Been Wrong Before

The ragged ways we fall in and out of relationships are at the center of these dazzling autobiographical essays, as Evan James ponders the complexities of love, lust, sexuality and longing against the backdrop of his world travels. (read the full review)

What do you love most about your book?
I love that I set out to write a lighthearted book of comedic personal essays and that, over the course of years spent tinkering with them, I upended many of my own assumptions about myself and my loved ones in the process. As I say in one essay, “We settle for so little knowledge of each other.”

What kind of reader do you think will most enjoy your book?
A reader with an open mind and a sense of curiosity about life in all its absurdity. A reader who wants to have a laugh while reading about world travel, past lives, psychic mothers, drag queens, drugs, dating, ghosts, day jobs.

What is one thing in your book that’s true that readers may think you made up?
Readers might find it incredible that I’ve had so many fascinating love affairs—or that I was, apparently, Lord Byron in a past life.

 

Philip Kennicott, author of Counterpoint

Philip Kennicott’s engrossing memoir explores his impressions of his late mother. But even more than these grief-stricken reflections, it is Kennicott’s intimate insights into the way Bach’s music speaks to all our lives as they wind their way toward our inevitable deaths that makes this book an unforgettable triumph. (read the full review)

What do you love most about your book?
I thought I was going to write a book about Johann Sebastian Bach and his magnificent keyboard work “The Goldberg Variations,” but as I started writing, it became a book about my mother and the grief I felt when she died almost 10 years earlier. I wasn’t expecting that. I’m an art critic who writes for a daily newspaper, and I try not to use the first-person voice too often. But the process of writing this memoir kept drawing me ever deeper into memory and forced me to think about what had been a complicated and difficult relationship. I kept wondering, can anyone possibly be interested in this? When I was finished and showed the manuscript to a few people, they said it was the family part they enjoyed most. That was a relief, because I struggled to weave together anecdotes about my childhood and the original idea for the book, which was a memoir about learning how to play a complex piece of music. I suppose I shouldn’t have been so surprised. If we really dig into the emotions we feel in the present, we find that they have deep roots in our past. Writing about Bach, and my struggles with his demanding music, inevitably led me back to some of my earliest memories, to a time when my mother and I used to make music together. It refreshed things that had been buried for a long time, mostly in a good way.

What kind of reader do you think will most enjoy your book?
If you took music lessons as a child or are studying an instrument as an adult, I think you will love this book. And I hope readers who are interested in memoir and have a general curiosity about music will find something of interest here. I tried to write about music in ways that are specific but not technical, and to explain why Bach’s Goldberg Variations is one of the enduring masterpieces of Western music. But this is also a book about something we all know or will know in life: the pain of losing someone close to us. As I write in the last chapter, grief brings us meaning, it makes life more intense, and it makes us impatient with silly, trivial things. It binds us to other human beings. I hope those things are of universal interest to readers.

What is one thing in your book that’s true that readers may think you made up?
There’s a chapter in my book about a month I spent alone in an old house practicing the piano and reading. Except for a few trips to the grocery store, I saw no one during that period, and the isolation was seductive. I realized after a few weeks that I was thinking more about my mother than I had at any other point in my life, thinking about her more sympathetically and working harder to piece together who she had been and why she had been so unhappy. It was an emotionally volatile few weeks. And one day, as some of the darker clouds in my head were lifting, I went on a long walk and heard a strange flapping in the grass along the roadside. It was a bird caught up in some kind of netting or plastic. I managed to free it, and it flew away. I thought, what a cliché. And then I thought, well, it happened, and it is the sort of story my mother, who was a passionate bird-watcher, would have loved. So I included it in the book.

 

Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings 

Cathy Park Hong offers a fierce excavation of her hardships as an Asian American woman living and working as a poet and artist. Historical traumas and cultural criticism are woven through this erudite collection of personal essays on family, art history, female relationships and racial awareness. (read the full review)

What do you love most about your book?
I love it because it’s my most honest, vulnerable and bravest book to date. It’s also my personal intervention against what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls the “single story,” which is basically the same tired racial narratives that we hear over and over again that comfort us rather than makes us rethink how we perceive others.

What kind of reader do you think will most enjoy your book?
I’m writing directly to Asian Americans, rather than writing about Asian Americans to a white audience. But I think so many people would enjoy this book: other people of color, immigrants, women, millennials, the curious-minded, people who don’t mind being challenged.

What is one thing in your book that’s true that readers may think you made up?
That I had a brief and unfortunate foray into stand-up comedy.

 

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, author of Children of the Land

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo’s powerful, poetically infused memoir adds a soul-searing voice to the canon of contemporary immigration narratives. Undocumented as he crossed over the desert into California as a child, temporarily blind from the stress, he grows up riddled with the shame of his family’s invisibility. (read the full review)

What do you love most about your book?
I love that I was given the freedom to cordon off sections, or chapters, or even single scenes as complete units in their own right and, more so that they are all of different sizes. Something special happens when text is placed alone in a sea of blank space like a tiny island made of language.

What kind of reader do you think will most enjoy your book?
I don’t think I could say who will enjoy my book most, but perhaps I could say who might get the most out of my book, and for different reasons. I am not afraid of critics looking from the outside in (I can shut away that noise) but rather of disappointing people who share similar experiences with me.

What is one thing in your book that’s true that readers may think you made up?
I think it might be difficult for readers to accept how little healing there is in the book, and they may think I cherry-picked only the most emotionally difficult parts of my life with the belief that it would automatically translate into empathy for the reader. I truly wish that were the case, that somewhere out there, I’m living a life where I’ve moved on and put all of this behind me. I was always keenly aware of presenting joy that is at times enmeshed with grief.

In celebration of Memoir March, we asked the authors of eight groundbreaking memoirs what readers will love about their life stories—and which parts are even stranger than fiction.

author photo of Dolly AldertonDolly Alderton, author…

Fiction

What it takes to believe

Feature by Chika Gujarathi

In these four novels, there’s no problem too big for the power of faith.

Where does courage come from? For the women in these novels, faith in God is their guiding light during moments of self-doubt, heartache and mayhem. Though set in vastly different times—from 1770s Boston and 1870s Chicago to present-day North Carolina and New York—these stories share some of the universal challenges that women have faced throughout history. Collectively, these tales reveal that the courage to defy convention and follow your own heart comes from believing that God is right by your side.

The Tea Chest

In Heidi Chiavaroli’s The Tea Chest, we meet two very different women from very different centuries dealing with similar questions of love and responsibility. In the present, Lieutenant Hayley Ashworth is on the verge of making history by becoming the first female SEAL in the U.S. Navy. In 1773, Emma Malcolm is about to change history by helping the man she loves carry out what will be known as the Boston Tea Party. Emma’s choices are limited by the times she lives in and by a father who is an English Loyalist, while Hayley’s struggle is steeped in self-doubt from an abusive childhood. When Hayley travels to Boston to make peace with her past, she runs into the man she once loved—and then finds a tea chest that holds one of Emma’s secrets. 

Though their stories are separated by centuries, Hayley and Emma share a heritage of courage and faith that guides them to their eventual callings. Chiavaroli does a wonderful job of adding historic details to Emma’s struggles, making this novel a page turner for sure.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Discover more inspirational fiction.

Veiled in Smoke

Jocelyn Green’s Veiled in Smoke takes us to 1870s Chicago, where Meg Townsend and her younger sister, Sylvie, run a small bookstore called Corner Books & More. Between their responsibility to the store and to their father, who suffers from lingering trauma from his days as a soldier, the sisters can barely keep up with their own lives and aspirations.

When a fire sets the city ablaze on the night of October 8, 1871, their lives become even more complicated. Their bookstore and home is burned to ashes, and in the chaos of the night, their father is somehow arrested for murdering a well-respected man. How could anyone carry on in such pandemonium? Meg and Sylvie’s story illustrates that when all is lost, God provides the courage and strength to seek the truth and rebuild for a brighter future. With strong supporting characters and historical facts woven throughout, Veiled in Smoke makes for a great read.

A Long Time Comin’

Robin W. Pearson’s first novel, A Long Time Comin’, brings us to contemporary North Carolina, where Beatrice Agnew has just found out she is dying of cancer. Surprisingly, she’s not upset by the news. Life has always been terribly hard and unfair for Beatrice, so why be upset now? What does make her angry, however, is that her granddaughter, Evelyn, has come uninvited to help Beatrice mend fences with the rest of the family. 

Beatrice’s seven children might be successful now, but there was no room for love in the Agnew household while they were growing up poor and fatherless. Beatrice wants no part in this little reunion, because dealing with the past means digging up old secrets. She believes that her choices were forced by circumstances that her granddaughter could never understand. But Evelyn and Beatrice have more in common than they realize, as Evelyn is struggling with her own marriage and possible motherhood. Together, the two women confront pain and secrets and try to move on without any regrets. 

The Fifth Avenue Story Society

In Rachel Hauck’s The Fifth Avenue Story Society, a strange invitation connects five New Yorkers in an old library on Fifth Avenue. Lexa is an overworked and overlooked executive assistant at a big company. Jett is a literature professor struggling to finish his latest book. Chuck is a divorced Uber driver who misses seeing his kids. Ed is an aging widower who works as a super in his building. And Coral, the multimillionaire owner of a cosmetics company, is famous for leaving a real prince at the altar. The only things shared by these five almost-strangers are broken dreams, and their story society becomes less about writing and more about helping each other. 

Hauck is spot-on in creating characters that are relatable, and she skillfully saves the mystery of who sent the invitation until the end. This is a sweet journey of five people finding the courage to follow their hearts and make big things happen. 

Though set in vastly different times, these four faith-based stories share the belief that the courage to follow your heart comes from knowing that God is by your side.
Science Fiction & FantasyFictionYA FictionYAMysteryClassics

The Hold List: Zombie apocalypse survival teammate

Feature by the editors of BookPage

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, it would be wise to have a plan in place. Perhaps most importantly, who would be on your team? We’ve picked our preferred partners—magical powers are allowed, but no dragons, bears or mythical beasts!

Edmond Dantès from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

I have long resigned myself to my own lack of apocalypse survival skills. I can’t run without getting winded. I don’t have combat skills. I can’t farm or dress wounds or build shelter or tools. In truth, I would be among the first to go—unless I aligned myself with someone wealthy and powerful. Edmond Dantès is the perfect choice: rich, scrappy and weirdly fixated on avenging himself against those who have wronged him. We could quite comfortably wait out the apocalypse from inside his château. And if that fails, the man owns his own island. Everybody knows zombies can’t swim, so a quick yacht ride to the Island of Monte Cristo would solve our little army-of-the-undead problem.

—Christy, Associate Editor

Sabriel from Sabriel by Garth Nix

Like many of my colleagues, my talents are perhaps better suited to rebuilding the world after the zombie apocalypse than surviving it in the first place. That’s why I need someone like Sabriel on my team, and not only because she possesses a bandoleer of seven magical bells with the power to send the dead back through the nine gates of death to their final rest, although I acknowledge that will come in handy. But Sabriel is also resourceful, adept at other forms of magic, brave and kind. As we make our way to a population-sparse area like—ha, as if I’d tell you my plans—I know she’ll leave me behind only if she absolutely has to, and if I get bitten, she’ll make my death swift and ensure I stay dead.

—Stephanie, Associate Editor

Frank Mackey from Faithful Place by Tana French

My biggest fear wouldn’t be zombies, as they are usually stupid. I’m more afraid of humans in a crisis, as they are, historically, the worst. And that’s why I want Irish undercover cop Frank Mackey on my team. First introduced in Tana French’s The Likeness, Frank becomes the central character in Faithful Place, which puts his ability to pursue multiple, sometimes conflicting objectives—while manipulating almost everyone around him—to the hardest test, as he has to do it to his own dysfunctional family. If he can do that and emerge (somewhat) in one piece, he’d easily survive the human chaos of an apocalypse. Frank is also funny as hell, so we’d have some laughs while trying not to die.

—Savanna, Associate Editor

Vasya from The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

To give myself a real shot at living through this, I need a partner with knowledge of mythical and otherworldly situations, as well as the powers to match—and I need her to live in the middle of nowhere. In Katherine Arden’s debut novel, headstrong young Vasya is an heir to old magic and has the abilities to protect her family from dangers that are plucked straight out of folklore. She’s got a great attitude—which I’ll appreciate when I get upset about the situation—and she excels at riding horses and saving people, so we’ll get along great. We’ll treat the apocalypse like it’s a long winter night, hidden away so deeply in the wilderness of northern Russia that we might not even notice when the end of the world is over.

—Cat, Deputy Editor

Captain Woodrow F. Call from Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Genre-bending is prominent in today’s cultural landscape. From rock with hip-hop beats to Mexican-Korean fusion, the lines have dissolved. All of these hybrids make me think that a cowboy would feel right at home in the zombie apocalypse, and Captain Woodrow F. Call—brave, strong, levelheaded and loyal to the bone—is the paragon of cowboy-ness. Take, for example, when Call saves Newt, the youngest member of the Hat Creek Outfit, from a soldier harassing him. Call beats the man to a pulp until Gus McCrae has to lasso him off. The only explanation Call offers for this violent outburst: “I hate rude behavior in a man. I won’t tolerate it.” Just imagine what the man would do to a zombie!

—Eric, Editorial Intern

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, it would be wise to have a plan in place. Perhaps most importantly, who would be on your team?
FictionMystery

Whodunit: March 2020

Feature by Bruce Tierney

Rural noir, historical horrors and a tense courtroom drama are featured in this month's best new mysteries.

The Deep

The “unsinkable” Titanic has engendered story upon story. What is less known is that the Titanic had a sister ship, the Britannic, that outlived its sibling by only four years. Alma Katsu’s latest thriller, The Deep, weaves together narratives of the two doomed luxury liners through the experiences of Annie Hebbley, who sailed on them both. Annie served as a maid/stewardess on the Titanic in 1912, then as a nurse on the Britannic in 1916 after it was converted into a wartime hospital ship. In between postings, she spent several years in an asylum and at first, Annie remembers almost nothing of the iceberg crash she experienced on the Titanic, or its aftermath. But then her memories of seemingly paranormal experiences on the doomed ship start to return. She is not unlike Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining, a none-too-together person who’s drawn toward the occult somewhat against her will. The reader will wonder whether the evidence of the supernatural are just figments of Annie’s imagination or something more sinister. And even though you know what will happen—these ships are gonna go down—it does not diminish the eerie suspense one iota.

The Holdout

Los Angeles, 2009: A jury remains deadlocked in the trial of African American teacher Bobby Nock, accused of murdering 15-year-old student Jessica Silver. The evidence is pretty overwhelming, and 11 jurors agree on a guilty verdict, but Maya Seale, juror number 12, disagrees. One by one, the other jurors come around to her way of thinking, and Bobby is acquitted. In the second story arc of Graham Moore’s gripping legal thriller The Holdout, we fast forward to 2019, by which time several jurors have expressed their reservations about Nock’s acquittal. The 10-year anniversary of the crime occasions a TV documentary on the alleged murderer, the trial and the jurors. One juror in particular, Rick Leonard, strongly regrets his acquittal vote and embarks on a mission to find the evidence that will prove Bobby guilty. He doesn’t get far into his quest before he is murdered—in Maya’s hotel room. While the earlier crime drama is revisited on network TV, a rather more pressing contemporary crime drama unfolds as Maya attempts to prove her innocence. Have your page-turning fingers limbered up, because The Holdout will give them a workout.

The Last Passenger

After establishing PI Charles Lenox in about a dozen mystery novels, author Charles Finch penned a prequel series chronicling the early adventures of the detective. The third and final installment, The Last Passenger, takes place in 1855 London, where a dead body has been found in a train car in Paddington Station. The victim has the look of a member of the gentry, but every piece of evidence that could lead to his identification has been painstakingly removed. As often happens in mysteries, an overworked and plodding policeman enlists the help of the urbane PI in solving the crime, and the PI develops an entirely different take on the situation. Finch’s plotting is excellent, his characters well developed, but it is his prose that truly shines. He evokes the writing style of 19th-century English authors—Wilkie Collins jumps to mind—lending a degree of authenticity to the narrative found in comparatively few historical novels. Finch also incorporates then-contemporary international politics, especially the burgeoning abolitionist movement in the U.S., in this exceptional and atmospheric mystery.

★ The Bramble and the Rose

Rural noir has roots dating back at least to James M. Cain, and writers such as James Lee Burke, C.J. Box and Attica Locke carry on the tradition today, exposing readers to the dark side of country life (and death). Tom Bouman, a relative newcomer to the scene, scored big with his 2014 debut, Dry Bones in the Valley, which won the prestigious Edgar Award for best first novel that year. His latest, The Bramble and the Rose, is third in the series featuring small-town cop Henry Farrell. Henry’s town, Wild Thyme, Pennsylvania, has indeed provided a wild time for retired PI Carl Dentry, and not in a good way. His decapitated body has been discovered in some nearby woods, the severed head secreted in the hollow of a tree. When Henry’s ex is murdered before she can tell him something she knows about Dentry’s murder, Henry finds himself the main suspect in the case. And as he delves further into the growing number of mysteries that plague his small town, he becomes not only the chief suspect but also the target of person or persons unknown. There is a free-form stream-of-consciousness element to Henry’s first-person narration that is very appealing—world-weary yet cautiously optimistic.

Rural noir, historical horrors and a tense courtroom drama are featured in this month's best new mysteries.

The Deep

The “unsinkable” Titanic has engendered story upon story. What is less known is that the Titanic had a sister ship, the Britannic, that outlived…

Biography

Book Clubs: Living between the lines

Feature by Julie Hale

Four standout biographies of American female writers will foster excellent discussion for reading groups.

Tracy Daugherty’s The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion chronicles the life of essayist, journalist and fiction writer Didion, who made her name in the 1960s with era-defining works like Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album. The first biography on Didion, Daugherty’s brisk and fluid book contains a plethora of interesting topics for conversation, from the gender dynamics of Didion’s carefully constructed literary persona to the impact of her home state of California on her outlook and writing as they both evolved over the course of the 1960s and ’70s.

In Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, Ruth Franklin sheds new light on the background of visionary fiction author Jackson, who wrote the famously creepy novel The Haunting of Hill House (the basis for the 2018 Netflix series). Along the way, Franklin traces the roots of Jackson’s dark aesthetic, which mined the quiet tensions of wifehood in postwar America and specifically her own tumultuous marriage to create chilling psychological horror. How much have things improved for women, and specifically female artists? Ask your group, if you dare.

Read our review of Shirley Jackson by Ruth Franklin.

Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder proves that Wilder’s life was a lot tougher and more complicated than she depicted in her Little House books. Using rare source materials, Fraser documents the financial hardships, risky farm enterprises and vagaries of nature that dogged the Wilder and Ingalls families. Fraser’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography raises tricky questions of how American history has often been romanticized rather than truthfully portrayed. If you have any diehard Little House fans in your group, make sure they’re ready for a no-holds-barred reevaluation of the classic series and the family that inspired it.

Read our interview with Caroline Fraser.

Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry is an impassioned investigation of Hansberry, who deserves to be remembered for much more than her iconic play, A Raisin in the Sun. Hansberry used her platform to promote civil rights and support African leaders fighting against colonialism, and she joined one of the first lesbian organizations in America. (Hansberry was married to activist Robert B. Nemiroff but identified as a lesbian.) Like Didion’s, Hansberry’s life can spur conversation about many fascinating, thorny aspects of midcentury America.

Four standout biographies of American female writers will foster excellent discussion for reading groups.

Tracy Daugherty’s The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion chronicles the life of essayist, journalist and fiction writer Didion, who made her name in the 1960s with era-defining works…

NonfictionChildren's & YAYA FictionYAMiddle GradeGraphic Novels & Comics

They had to be brave

Feature by Alice Cary

Stories about World War II continue to resonate with young readers. These four titles offer distinct formats—a young adult novel, a work of nonfiction, a graphic novel, and a middle grade novel—but all capture the horror, the humanity and the hope of this moment in history.

A Holocaust heroine
Sharon Cameron’s young adult novel The Light in Hidden Places is based on the true story of Holocaust heroine Stefania Podgórska, a 16-year-old Catholic girl in Poland who not only took care of her younger sister but also hid 13 Jewish people in the attic of her tiny apartment.

In order to tell Stefania’s story, Cameron (The Dark Unwinding, The Knowing) did extensive research, which included interviewing several of the attic’s survivors, gaining access to Stefania’s unpublished memoir and traveling with Stefania’s son to Poland. There, they visited the places in which this incredible tale unfolded. Cameron saw for herself the minuscule, cramped space where 13 people cowered for more than two years with no electricity, water or toilet, and which Stefania and her sister could only access via a ladder to bring them food and water and carry out their waste in buckets. 

What’s more, an SS officer lived in an adjacent apartment for months, and by the end of the war, two German nurses had moved into Stefania’s apartment. The nurses often brought their SS boyfriends home for the night, making Stefania feel like she was not only secretly and illegally hiding Jewish people but also “running a Nazi boarding house.”

Cameron’s wide-ranging research and deft storytelling abilities combine to create an astoundingly authentic first-person narration. Her exquisite prose conveys in riveting detail exactly what it was like for Stefania to live through the horrors she witnessed, as well as the difficult decisions that had to be made by both survivors and those who did not, ultimately, survive.

Though it at times reads like a memoir, The Light in Hidden Places is a tense and gripping novel, full of urgency, in which death seems to wait around every corner. Although it’s still early in the year, it seems destined for my list of the best books of 2020.

The Kindertransport kids
When 6-year-old Frieda Korobkin’s parents told her that she and her siblings were going on a “great adventure,” she had no idea they would leave their parents behind in Vienna, Austria, to go to England as part of a Kindertransport, an evacuation effort for Jewish children, in December 1938. As they walked to the train station, two thugs attacked Frieda’s father and cut off his beard. When they finally reached the station, Frieda was so frightened that her father had to force her, kicking and screaming, onto the train; the angry, bewildered girl refused to wave goodbye. “As a result,” she remembers, “I am haunted forever by the image of my father standing desolate and bleeding on that station platform, watching helplessly as the train carrying his four children vanished before his eyes.”

This is just one of the many personal stories included in Deborah Hopkinson’s outstanding work of nonfiction, We Had to Be Brave: Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport. This relief effort saved 10,000 children, mainly from Germany and Austria. In engrossing, lively prose, Hopkinson, who contributes regularly to BookPage, has compiled many of their stories, personally contacting many of these now-elderly survivors. “Before they were refugees,” she writes, “before they were victims, before they were survivors, they were ordinary children and teens. They were like you.”

Hopkinson zeroes in on these personal stories while also skillfully setting the historical stage every step of the way. “Look, listen, remember” sidebars throughout the book will guide curious readers to related online video and audio links. Hopkinson also includes a wealth of photographs and helpful follow-up information, including brief accounts of the later years of the many survivors she profiles.

Despite their seemingly bleak circumstances, the survivors’ stories include a multitude of hopeful and redemptive moments. As Hopkinson notes in her introduction: “We may not be able to change the entire world. But what we do matters. We can be brave and raise our voices to make sure others are not silenced, hurt, or bullied.”

We Had to Be Brave is a powerful book that will haunt readers—and should.

Photos of hope amid despair
Bearing witness. That’s what Catherine Colin does in the fascinating graphic novel Catherine’s War, a coming-of-age story written by Julia Billet and inspired by her mother’s life. Like Catherine, Billet’s mother was one of the Jewish children who attended the progressive Sèvres Children’s Home outside Paris and was moved from place to place all over France to avoid capture by the Nazis.

Catherine’s real name is Rachel Cohen. In order to stay alive, she must take on a Catholic identity and leave her family and friends behind. Her Rolleiflex camera becomes both her passion and lifeline, allowing her to chronicle the bright moments as well as the turmoil and danger she encounters as she hides in a monastery school, a rural family farmhouse, a chateau orphanage and a house in the woods that belongs to a fighter in the French Resistance. “I love seeing the world through the viewfinder,” she says. “One click stops time.”

And what a time it is. Claire Fauvel’s lively illustrations help readers keep track of these many locales and of the people Rachel encounters, as well as her multitude of experiences (eating pork soup for the first time, photographing three young girls who are later taken by the German police, falling in love). The easy, sketch-like quality of Fauvel’s panels lends immediacy to the narrative and humanity to the characters. Her illustrations seem particularly suited to moments of tension, especially in scenes where adults must punish the children for small errors that could prove costly, including accidentally responding to their real names or making the sign of the cross with the wrong hand.

Haunted by the losses she has suffered, Catherine stops taking photos for a while, but eventually finds her way back to her camera, able to once again see “beauty everywhere, hidden in each reflection.” She eventually witnesses the liberation of Paris and travels the world to continue her artistic journey. Catherine’s War packs a big story within its pages and serves as a tribute to the healing power of art and and to the promise of hope, even in the midst of death and danger.

Young heroes of France
Maggie Paxson’s 2019 nonfiction book for adults, The Plateau, garnered acclaim for telling the story of the Vivarais-Lignon plateau in southern France. It’s an area that has welcomed refugees for centuries; during World War II, the villagers of Le Chambon successfully hid Jews and foreigners throughout their town. Now, Newbery Honor winner Margi Preus (Heart of a Samurai) focuses on the heroic actions of numerous young people in Le Chambon in Village of Scoundrels, a middle grade novel.

Preus bases her characters on a variety of real-life heroes to tell a bold, exciting story with precision and passion, full of action at every turn. Red-headed Philippe sleeps all day and transports people and vital items on his sled at night. Jean-Paul sets up shop forging documents, putting his life in danger, as he also tries to attend medical school, even though, as a Jewish person, he isn’t allowed to do so. Celeste carries messages for the Resistance and overcomes her paralyzing fears. “It’s as if we’re fighting our own little war, all by ourselves,” she observes. Each of their narratives depicts people, young and old, who must make excruciating moral choices and muster extreme courage in the face of grave danger. Celeste so wisely concludes, “They had no choice but to be brave. They had no choice but to take action.”

Middle-grade readers will be both transfixed and inspired by the many acts of courage chronicled in Village of Scoundrels.

Stories about World War II continue to resonate with young readers. These four titles offer distinct formats—a young adult novel, a work of nonfiction, a graphic novel, and a middle grade novel—but all capture the horror, the humanity and the hope of this moment in…

Romance

Four sweet but substantial historical romances

Feature by Elizabeth Mazer

Delicious and decadent, these four historical romances transport us back to the England of yesteryear, when dukes and debutantes mix and mingle. But in addition to romance and adventure, they provide valuable insight into the way women were viewed and treated in the 19th century, including frank discussions of sexual violence and domestic abuse. Society was set up to keep them down, but the heroines of these books find a way to rise to the top anyway.

The Bachelor

The Hook: Heiress Gwyn Drake is poised to have her first Season—but it could all be ruined by the machinations of a despicable figure from her past. Gruff, scowling Major Joshua Wolfe, the cousin of her half brother, steps up to become her bodyguard . . . while trying desperately to hide his desire for the woman he believes could never love a wounded soldier like him.

The Surprise: Gwyn’s not a blushing teen or a wide-eyed innocent but a 30-year-old woman who knows her own mind. She also isn’t afraid to go after what she wants, whether that be shooting lessons or pleasure in the arms of a certain wounded soldier she’s entirely willing to love after all.

The Unexpected (and Hilarious) Sidekick: Gwyn’s chaperone, a friend of her mother’s named Lady Hornsby, is a hoot and a half—especially when she promises to teach Gwyn some of the bawdy songs she and Gwyn’s mother sang in their youth.

The Takeaway: Even if you arm yourself with guns, arrows and a sword in a cane, you can’t guard yourself against love, so you should let yourself enjoy it. (But still keep a sword in a cane—swords in canes are awesome.)

 

His Secret Mistress

The Hook: Wealthy engineer Brandon Balfour will never forget how actress Kate Addison shattered his heart. Still, she was supposed to be 15 years in his past, not a new arrival to town at the invite of Bran’s vain, spoiled nephew, the Duke of Winderton. Winderton falls for Kate instantly—and while he’s semi-patiently waiting for her to succumb to his (dubious) charms, it becomes Bran’s assignment to rein in his wayward nephew, quell local gossip and keep his own heart from falling right back into Kate’s hands.

The Surprise: Where does true nobility lie? An actress might be considered scandalous, but when Kate attends a soirée that gets a little out of hand, it’s clear that she’s not the one who needs lessons in how to behave with grace and dignity. Meanwhile, the handsome, titled young duke, whom one might expect to be a hero in stories of this sort, instead comes across (mostly endearingly) as a boy who still has a lot of growing up to do.

The Unexpected (and Hilarious) Sidekick: Mrs. Warbler, a gossipy matron, seems poised to be Kate’s biggest detractor. So it’s remarkable when the two women end up bonding. The somewhat stuffy widow shows unexpected depth as she talks about the poetry she’s written that has always been dismissed by others—and Kate offers her understanding and support. From that point on, her dogged support of Kate is really quite charming to see.

The Takeaway: Send in the cloooooowns . . . (Sorry, couldn’t resist—sometimes the Sondheim in my soul simply must break out.) For real now: It’s never too soon to let yourself trust, and it’s never too late for love.

 

An Inconvenient Duke

The Hook: As a war hero and newly appointed duke, Marcus Braddock can get anything he wants—except for answers from Danielle Williams about what happened to Elise, Marcus’ sister and Danielle’s best friend, who died while he was serving overseas. Refusing to take no for an answer, Marcus keeps digging for Danielle’s secrets, and Elise’s, in a search that uncovers a sinister scandal that has woven its way through England’s high society.

The Surprise: Danielle is basically a superhero. The secret she’s hiding from Marcus is that she’s been working to spirit women away from unsafe situations such as abusive husbands and lecherous employers. It’s easy to glamorize Regency society, especially for those in the upper echelons, but author Anna Harrington shines a brilliantly honest light on just how little agency those women had—and the steps they might take to seize some of it back.

The Unexpected (and Hilarious) Sidekick: The Viscountess Bromley—Danielle’s great-aunt Harriet—tells the best stories imaginable: dining with George Washington on a chicken the general believed to be a British spy; skinny-dipping with Benjamin Franklin; pinching the bum of the king of England. Are any of these stories meant to be true? Who knows? Who cares? They’re fantastic, and Harriet, bless her, is a gift that keeps on giving.

The Takeaway: In a world full of dark corners, happiness comes from finding someone to help you hang a light.

 

Chasing Cassandra

The Hook: Railway magnate Tom Severin has built himself up from nothing thanks to his brilliant mind, his iron will, his immense stubbornness and his remarkably shrewd negotiating abilities. But when he meets the beautiful Cassandra Ravenel, all his abilities seem to fail him. He’d be delighted to be her husband, friend and protector. He wants to deck her with jewels. He’d give her anything she could think to ask for. But he’s entirely certain that love is simply something he’s not built to feel. And a marriage based on love is the only type she’s willing to accept. But when an immovable heart meets an irresistible Ravenel, is there any doubt what will happen in the end?

The Surprise: In a story as sweet, fun and wonderfully charming as this one, it’s a shocking reminder that bad things often happen to those who least deserve it when Cassandra is subjected to a true betrayal. But it’s to Lisa Kleypas’ credit that she presents the bad, acknowledges it and then shows all the good that comes from having the right people (wonderful, loveable, staunchly supportive people) around you to help you bear it.

The Unexpected (and Hilarious) Sidekick: Bazzle. Oh, Bazzle. Darling, ridiculous Bazzle—the street urchin who Tom takes in, and who slowly works his way into Tom’s heart. Bazzle who is composed of wonderfulness—even if that wonderfulness is occasionally hidden behind head lice and fleas.

The Takeaway: Don’t condemn a man for missing the point of the novels you adore. Even if he thinks that Jane Eyre would be much improved if Rochester simply “told Jane the truth and installed his wife in a decent Swiss clinic,” what matters isn’t whether he becomes a literary analyst. What matters is all the effort he’s willing to make to try to understand you better. Because that’s love—whether he’ll admit it or not.

Their society was set up to keep them down, but the heroines of these books find a way to rise to the top anyway.

NonfictionSocial ScienceReligion & SpiritualityPoliticsMemoir

Searching for meaning

Feature by Henry L. Carrigan Jr.

When our relationships falter under the pressure of political or religious demands, when ambiguity more than certainty guides our lives, we may be tempted to succumb to our malaise. However, there is another option: We can stumble through the shadows, searching for some thread of meaning that will guide us out of the darkness. The authors of these books have chosen the latter path, peeling away the detritus of life to discover meaning—personal and political—and plumbing the spiritual depths that accompany their searches.

★ Thin Places

With humor and razor-sharp insight, Jordan Kisner’s Thin Places: Essays From in Between captures the visceral, palpable feeling of loss. The ways we inhabit space occupy many of these evocative essays, such as in a piece on an art installation at New York City’s spacious Park Avenue Armory, in which Kisner encourages readers to find someplace “big and empty” when they are “stuck somewhere small . . . somewhere unhappy or afraid or paralyzed or heartbroken.” In her celebrated essay “Thin Places,” she discovers the age-old concept of the space between the spiritual and physical world. This “thin place” is porous, a space where distinctions between “you and not-you, real and unreal, worldly and otherworldly, fall away.” It’s in these thin places that we can find ourselves, absorb glimpses of new meaning from another world and live in the moment. Kisner weaves together reflections on Kierkegaard, her early Christian conversion (and later “unconversion”) and waiting for the subway to gracefully guide us through our own emptiness in search of fullness.

The Great Blue Hills of God

Kreis Beall’s The Great Blue Hills of God explores in lyrical prose what happens when her life falls apart. Beall, who helped create Blackberry Farm, one of the South’s most heavenly resorts, appears to have it all: a loving marriage, great wealth, a beautiful family and a satisfying career. But the demands of building up several properties slowly erode her marriage, and she finds that her and her husband’s financial bank is full but their “emotional bank” is being emptied. As her marriage fades away, Beall falls, and suddenly her health is compromised, and she temporarily loses her hearing. She experiences further devastation when her son, Sam, dies in a skiing accident. Despite the loss of her family, health and wealth, she discovers glimpses of grace in her reading of the Bible, discussions with her pastor and friends and meditations on the nature of home. Throughout the book, Beall sprinkles in fruitful bits of wisdom, embracing the conclusion that, “to me, home is God, family, friends, and legacy. . . . A home is a heart. It is love, people, relationships, and the life you live in it.”

Scandalous Witness

Lee C. Camp’s Scandalous Witness: A Little Political Manifesto for Christians offers a brilliant summary and exposition of the ways that Christianity is a politic, not a religion. Camp (Mere Discipleship) asks a series of questions that frames Christianity as not just a private spiritual practice but a guide for our life together: “How do we live together? Where is human history headed? What does it mean to be human? And what does it look like to live in a rightly ordered human community that engenders flourishing, justice, and the peace of God?” In the end, the Christian community embraces its mission when it “sets captives free, demolishes strongholds, and . . . [sows] the seeds of the peaceable reign of God.” Camp’s manifesto is a must-read in a world in which Christianity has become either a bedfellow of political parties or an isolated, private practice.

I Am Not Your Enemy

Michael T. McRay’s I Am Not Your Enemy takes Camp’s idea to the personal level. We create meaning in the stories we tell each other, and if we tell a good enough story, we can convince others that certain individuals are our enemies. But just as stories have the power to cultivate hate, they also have the power to reconcile and redeem. Throughout his travels across Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland and South Africa, and through his work as a conflict and resolution counselor, McRay hears violence-filled narratives with shattered endings. Yet, as he illustrates, not every story needs to end this way. McRay shares stories of a mother who refuses to seek vengeance for her son’s death, a community theater director who helps people who are marginalized find their voices and discover beauty in their lives and a woman who forgives the man who murdered her father. With the verve of a great storyteller, McRay regales us with spellbinding narratives that illustrate the power of words to change our lives and bring meaning to the world.

When our relationships falter under the pressure of political or religious demands, when ambiguity more than certainty guides our lives, we may be tempted to succumb to our malaise. However, there is another option: We can stumble through the shadows, searching for some thread of…

Whodunit: April 2020

Feature by Bruce Tierney

Suspense is the name of the game in these four books, which include the latest from Harlan Coben and a high-stakes forensic accounting thriller that's a total page turner (yes, really).

★ The Last Tourist

Milo Weaver, the protagonist of Olen Steinhauer’s The Last Tourist, surely must be the standard bearer for disillusioned spies the world over. He is semiretired, now serving the CIA as an information broker after beating a hasty retreat to one of the world’s most remote outposts, the Western Sahara, in hopes of keeping a low profile. But when a somewhat green CIA interrogator comes to question Milo about a series of mysterious deaths in which he peripherally features, he discovers that his life is perhaps even more in peril than it was in the old days when he worked as a field agent. And after the pair is attacked in the supposedly safe Sahara outpost, you will find yourself wondering if they’ll survive the next 48 hours. When the series kicked off with 2009’s The Tourist, the Department of Tourism (Steinhauer’s euphemistically named CIA spy shop) was the bastion of the good guys—or at least that was how it was fashioned. Not so much anymore. It isn’t imperative that you read the three volumes that precede The Last Tourist, but it helps. And in any event, once you read this one, you will want to go back and read the others, so just get them all and block out a long weekend to enjoy some of the finest modern spy thrillers.

The Familiar Dark

Raised by a drug-addicted single mother in an all-but-forgotten Ozark town, Eve Taggert has persevered in the face of adversity, scratching out a meager but respectable living as a waitress. And then Eve’s 12-year-old daughter gets murdered in a neglected playground, along with a school classmate, her best friend. No clues are immediately forthcoming, and the police are inept at best, so if justice, even rough justice, is to be done, it will fall to Eve to dispense it in Amy Engel’s thriller The Familiar Dark. Complicating matters are two family factors. The first is Eve’s brother, who is a police officer connected with the investigation; the second is her mother, who is a meth dealer. Either or both may bear some responsibility—if not for the murders themselves, then at least for the surrounding toxic situation that may have put the girls in the radius of collateral damage. There aren’t many happy endings in towns where meth is the leading industry, but The Familiar Dark certainly has a satisfying ending, and perhaps, as in life, that is the best one can hope for.

Strike Me Down

You wouldn’t think that a book featuring an accountant as the protagonist would make for an edge-of-your-seat read, but you would be wrong. Mindy Mejia’s latest thriller, Strike Me Down, is a page turner of the first order, a brutal mashup of world-class martial arts and high-stakes embezzlement. Twenty million dollars in prize money goes missing shortly before a kickboxing extravaganza. Forensic accountant Nora Trier has been hired by the owners of sporting goods company Strike to investigate the theft and hopefully recover the purloined funds. Nora has personal connections with both co-owners of Strike: Logan Russo, a noted kickboxer, has been Nora’s personal trainer; and Logan’s husband, Gregg Abbott, was Nora’s partner in a one-night stand, perhaps the steamiest of her life. So when conflict erupts between the two owners, Nora finds herself caught uncomfortably in the crossfire as suspicions flare and supporting evidence follows close behind. This is not a book that will make you want to seek out a career in accounting, the way Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer might have inspired a budding generation of legal eagles, but without a doubt it will give you a new appreciation for the field and its practitioners.

The Boy From the Woods

How about this for an offbeat protagonist? A boy, living wild and with no memory of his name or the beginnings of his circumstances, is discovered by a pair of hikers in the wilds of New Jersey. (Yes, New Jersey has wilds.) Now, 30-odd years later, he has become a private investigator, and whether by design or coincidence, he goes by the name of Wilde—no first name, no middle initial. This unlikely premise kicks off Harlan Coben’s intriguing new thriller, The Boy From the Woods, which sees Wilde investigating the disappearance of a bullied teenage girl, Naomi Pine, in the same woods where he was once found. Wilde’s investigation uncovers dirty politics by which even current-day shenanigans pale in comparison, including a figure who makes Donald Trump look like a choirboy, and folks, whichever side of the political divide you may occupy, you gotta admit that ain’t easy! Much in the manner of Ed McBain and Carl Hiaasen, Coben stretches his characters and situations paper-thin, almost to caricature, and then page by page brings the story around to a rousing conclusion. 

Suspense is the name of the game in these four books, which include the latest from Harlan Coben and a high-stakes forensic accounting thriller that's a total page turner (yes, really).

★ The Last Tourist

Milo Weaver, the protagonist of Olen Steinhauer’s The Last…

RomanceNonfictionFictionChildren's & YAWorld FictionPicture BookMemoir

The Hold List: Raining cats and dogs

Feature by the editors of BookPage

The battle of cats versus dogs has raged among BookPagers for more than 30 years. This month, we’re picking sides and sharing some of our favorite literary cats and dogs.

The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare

Taken aback by a duke’s proposal of marriage (he wants an heir to spite his annoying cousin, just go with it), Emma Gladstone insists on bringing her cat to their new home. Emma doesn’t actually have a cat, but she wants something she can love while entering into a marriage that promises to be little more than a business arrangement. But a harried Emma only has time to find Breeches, the angriest and ugliest alley cat in all the land. Breeches proceeds to stalk through the chapters of Dare’s hilarious historical romance like the xenomorph from Alien, interrupting love scenes, stealing fish from the dining table and generally being a total nuisance. The reveal of why Emma named him Breeches in the first place is both giddily funny and oddly touching, which is basically The Duchess Deal in a nutshell.

—Savanna, Associate Editor

A Small Thing . . . but Big by Tony Johnston, illustrated by Hadley Hooper

A Small Thing . . . but Big is a deceptively simple charmer. A little girl goes to the park and, gradually, overcomes her fear of dogs, thanks to a fuzzy muppet named Cecile and the dog’s owner, who is only ever referred to as “the old man.” Illustrator Hadley Hooper’s spreads are a masterclass in expression and framing, and Tony Johnston’s language is delicate and playful, as Lizzie “carefully, oh carefully” pats Cecile, then works her way up to “springingly, oh springingly” walking her around the park. “All dogs are good if you give them a chance,” Cecile’s owner tells Lizzie, and by the end of the book, it’s clear that Lizzie agrees. It’s a practically perfect picture book: a small thing . . . but big.

—Stephanie, Associate Editor

Dewey by Vicki Myron

When you are a notorious cat lady, people send you cat stuff—cat memes, cat socks, cat salt and pepper shakers and, occasionally, cat books. My grandma sent me a copy of Dewey when I was in college, and initially I thought, “Thanks, Grandma, but I’ve got a lot of Sartre to get through before I have time for a heartwarming cat memoir.” Reluctantly, I started skimming. A helpless kitten is abandoned through the book-return slot of an Iowa library. A librarian fallen on hard times discovers and raises him. A community is transformed through the affections of a bushy, orange cat. Before I knew it, I was reading this book every night before bed, and by the end, I was openly weeping. Fellow cat ladies and laddies, put your pretensions aside and give this one a chance.

—Christy, Associate Editor

Good Boy by Jennifer Finney Boylan

Jennifer Finney Boylan knows that to write about dogs is to write about the very nature of love. “Nothing is harder than loving human beings,” she writes, but loving a very good dog has the power to remind us of our best selves—and to reveal who we are in our human relationships. Boylan offers an ode to all the dogs she’s loved before in Good Boy, a memoir-via-dogs coming April 21. Dog books are sometimes just a vehicle for crying, so for me, the inevitable bittersweetness can never be maudlin. And if memoir can help us better understand our own stories, then breaking up our memories into dog treat-size bites is a special exercise for anyone who puts unreasonable expectations on their best friend. (For the record, my dog is very good. Perfect, even.)

—Cat, Deputy Editor

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Cats are intelligent, if not outright magical creatures. Their attitudes, their curiosity, the uncannily human pathos in their meows all let us know there is something going on beneath the surface. Japanese author Haruki Murakami is aware of this, and so he took advantage of cats’ magic in Kafka on the Shore. In the story, Mr. Nakata, one of two central characters, has the ability to speak to cats and makes a living searching for lost felines. We see Mr. Nakata use his abilities in a few hilarious scenes before he loses his ability to speak to cats, but as the story unfolds, cats become a central part in unlocking the mysteries that send Mr. Nakata on a journey across Japan. Murakami uses the whimsical magic of cats to unfold grand metaphysical mysteries.

—Eric, Editorial Intern

The battle of cats versus dogs has raged among BookPagers for more than 30 years. This month, we’re picking sides and sharing some of our favorite literary cats and dogs.
Nonfiction

Book Clubs: Heavy topics, light touch

Feature by Julie Hale

Four essay collections balance wisdom and high-spirited humor, tackling weighty topics with exhilarating playfulness that will encourage freewheeling discussion. 

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life

In her funny, fearless We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, Samantha Irby—a popular blogger who writes for the Hulu comedy series “Shrill”—opens up about what it’s like to be a bisexual black woman in today’s world. Irby is frank and unfiltered in essays on her troubled childhood and alcoholic father, her adventures in dating and sex, and the strange nature of personal connection in the digital age. Themes of gender, race and self-love run through these bold autobiographical set pieces. Irby’s progressive sensibility and cutting-edge comedic attitude will set the tone for spirited and unrestrained conversation.

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter

Scaachi Koul ponders her background as the daughter of immigrants in her slyly humorous debut, One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter. In this wide-ranging collection, the Buzzfeed staffer writes about interracial romance, internet harassment and the unique blend of cultures that has informed her identity. Book clubs will find much to dig in to here, as Koul shares her thoughts on minority issues and sexism. Her shrewd observations and well-honed sense of humor will inspire rousing conversation—and lots of laughter. 

I Miss You When I Blink

In her delightful book of essays, I Miss You When I Blink—new in paperback this month—Emmy Award-winning co-host of “A Word on Words” and bestselling author Mary Laura Philpott offers insights into the vicissitudes of modern womanhood. Whether she’s reflecting on the challenges of being a mom, her struggles with depression or the nagging need so many of us feel to have an Instagram-worthy life, Philpott is a companionable presence on the page, and her compassion for like-minded readers is palpable. Book clubs will find weighty topics in this collection, but the author’s sparkling wit and lively narrative style make for an all-around upbeat reading experience.

Calypso

With his 10th book, the essay collection Calypso, David Sedaris proves again that he’s a master of the amusing anecdote. From the vagaries of book tours to his experiences as a litter collector in England, Sedaris’ comic scenarios are sure to make readers smile. His one-of-a-kind views on the human condition, the passing of youth and the inescapable bonds of kin will fire up book club conversation without dampening spirits. Pieces focusing on family matters, such as the suicide of Sedaris’ sister Tiffany, can feel wistful, yet the author’s trademark hilarity prevails. 

Four essay collections balance wisdom and high-spirited humor, tackling weighty topics with exhilarating playfulness that will encourage freewheeling discussion.  We Are Never Meeting in Real Life In her funny, fearless We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, Samantha Irby—a popular blogger who writes for the…
FictionPoetry

Poetry: April 2020

Feature by Stephanie Pruitt-Gaines

As National Poetry Month, April is the the ideal time to celebrate poetry. But these four collections offer poems to which you’ll return time and time again.

★ Lean Against This Late Hour

Some works of art can simultaneously break and build up your heart, a marbling of devastation and hope. Lean Against This Late Hour by Garous Abdolmalekian offers such an experience. These nuanced, nimble poems remind readers to “Take care of your sorrows.” Whether those sorrows are the public grief of war or more private, familial grief, the speaker laments that “We ought to accept / that no soldier / has ever returned / from war / alive.” These are poems written out of and for difficult days, but they succeed at a fundamental lift that feels natural, no sugar-spooning or sentimentality to be found. This lift is the hard-won hope found in self-awareness. “Staring at me from the table / an injured poem / has accepted its last lines.” Abdolmalekian is a major Iranian poet who should be a mainstay on bedside tables, syllabuses and award shortlists around the world. This is the first of his seven collections to be translated into English, and the transformation from the original Persian has been handled beautifully by translator Ahmad Nadalizadeh and novelist Idra Novey.

Ledger

Jane Hirshfield’s ability to distill a single image with vodka clarity is on full display in her ninth collection, Ledger. While reading these poems, “You go to sleep in one world and wake in another,” and before you know it, hours have passed, emails have gone unanswered, and the dog is scratching at the door to be let out. But you also feel human, humane and a little less worn by the world’s swirling. During what will likely be a divisive election year, I’ll surely return over and over to poems such as “Let Them Not Say,” “Cataclysm,” “Spell to Be Said Against Hatred” and “Things Seem Strong” to remind me of the power of witnessing and the power of resisting, not surrendering to, simplifications. Whatever exquisite form these poems take, they carry a haiku spirit. Ledger moves through a public and private accounting of sorts, but instead of striving for balance, as most ledgers do, these poems herald a natural world full of shifts, tilts and breaks, where “A house seems solid, and yet, in the living, any footstep shakes it.”

Foreign Bodies

Consumption is more than a measure of economic power in Kimiko Hahn’s Foreign Bodies. It is a measure of adoration and memory and a cataloging of lives. Inspired by a museum exhibition of ingested objects, these poems explore dynamics of ownership, objectification and personal history. Whether a coin, shell, harmonica, piece of broken jewelry or whale tooth, “Each feels like a story’s climax.” Initially the mind might wander to the TV series “My Strange Addiction,” in which people eat all sorts of objects. But there is nothing sensational about the big questions these poems conjure, like “How to store the object of your ardor,” especially as the speaker grapples with understanding childhood in the rearview  mirror and the ways we nestle parents in our minds as we grow older. Our relationships with things tend to shift when “Memory is falling away / as if an image shattered to shards then / re-collected for a kaleidoscope.” These poems pull at the delicate thread linking past with present, with versions of the truth desperately in need of closer investigation. Things—objects—provide the looking glass. Under Hahn’s masterful hand, these Foreign Bodies feel quite familiar.

The Age of Phillis

In 1773, Phillis Wheatley, a black woman enslaved in America, published a book of poetry. The text challenged a nation that would have preferred to view the writer through the lens of chattel slavery. Future generations of poets would hold Wheatley in the blinding light of legend. Now, 247 years later, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers rights the light and lens with The Age of Phillis. Here Jeffers is a researcher and historian, offering context through dates, quoted briefs, articles, letters, lists and, most satisfyingly, her account of the 15 years spent crafting this collection. But most assuredly, Jeffers is a poet. History is at the forefront of this collection—but gracious, these poems are deliciously good. Traditional and inventive forms deftly admit, “This is a complicated space. / There is slavery here. / There is maternity here. / There is a high and low / that will last centuries.” These poems teeter in the space between inhale and exhale, bidding the reader to continue. One poem asks, “And who must speak for me / in order for you to believe?” After reading The Age of Phillis, the answer will clearly be Honorée Fanonne Jeffers.

 

Poet and ARTrepreneur Stephanie Pruitt-Gaines lives in Nashville, where she’s powered by pancakes, art and a furkid named Sugar.

As National Poetry Month, April is the the ideal time to celebrate poetry. But these four collections offer poems to which you’ll return time and time again.

Animals

Advice on taking care of man’s best friends: Pets are people, too

Feature by Linda Stankard

As John Ruskin so insightfully wrote, “There is in every animal’s eye a dim image and a gleam of humanity.” Perhaps our fascination with animals lies in our awareness of a basic kinship and our realization of each animal’s unique ability to teach us something about ourselves.

For those who want to learn something more about their pets and possibly themselves this summer, we have sifted through the season's pet books and selected a few of the best. This collection offers a wide range of animal-related material; you'll find everything from practical pet care strategies to amusing cat autobiographies, but however light-hearted the approach, all these books share an underlying respect and love for the animals who look to us humans for their well-being.

An excellent reference book for serious feline fans or the newly initiated about to take on the responsibility of a kitten is The Humane Society of the United States Complete Guide to Cat Care by Wendy Christensen and the staff of the Humane Society. The comprehensive text covers all aspects of cat care, from the smallest details, like getting your cat's collar size correct, to larger issues such as proper nutrition, grooming and choosing the right veterinarian. Not surprisingly, this text advocates getting your pet from your local animal shelter not only will an animal's life be saved, but the authors hope that people who see first-hand the abundance of unwanted, innocent life sitting on death row will be more motivated to spay or neuter their animals helping to break the sad cycle of throw-away pets.

A chapter is devoted to stray (lost) and feral (never owned) cats, but for a more complete study, Living in Shadows: How to Help the Stray Cat in Your Life (Without Adding to the Problem) by Ann K. Fisher offers an analysis of this complicated problem and a step-by-step guide for tackling it. Fisher provides an invaluable service not only to the millions of homeless cats living in shadows, on the outside looking in, but also to the people willing to reach out to them.

If you're a puppy person or you want a gift for a new puppy parent, The Good Life: Your Dog's First Year by Mordecai Siegal and Matthew Uncle Matty Margolis is a wonderful month-by-month guide that follows a dog's development from birth to adulthood, ending with a chapter containing 10 lessons in training fundamentals. Siegal and Margolis are experts in the field with numerous other canine collaborations to their credit, and they write with an engaging, down-to-earth style. Like the books above, The Good Life contains photographs and will help the new puppy parent become a veritable Dr. Dolittle, with advice on everything from feeding to first aid.

For a true veterinarian's perspective on animal care, Real People Don't Own Monkeys: And Other Stories of Pets, Their People and the Vets Who See It All by J. Veronika Kiklevich D.V.M. with Steven N. Austad is an eye-opening collection of warmly humorous, though often poignant, stories of the animals (iguanas, turtles, pigs and pythons along with the traditional cats and dogs) Kiklevich has doctored. More than mere entertainment, these engaging tales also serve to illuminate the personalities of the human owners these pets are either blessed with or subjected to and the result is captivating, provocative and sometimes disturbing reading.

 

Linda Stankard was adopted years ago by a dog named Sweetie and lately by a cat who has just given her four grand-kitties. They all live with two fish who keep a tight rein on them.

As John Ruskin so insightfully wrote, “There is in every animal’s eye a dim image and a gleam of humanity.” Perhaps our fascination with animals lies in our awareness of a basic kinship and our realization of each animal’s unique ability to teach us something about ourselves.

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