Staff Picks Category: Fiction

Elevation by Stephen King [Book]

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A quick read by a master of his craft, Elevation by Stephen King has all the best traits of the author in a short, easy to read format–perfect for a rainy afternoon! In typical Stephen King fashion, the story is set in Castle Rock where the day-to-day life of the locals seems just that…day-to-day. Scott Carey is part of those everyday challenges with one exception; he is slowly losing weight without getting any thinner. As his affliction becomes a gift, he faces the fact that he may be leaving Earth soon and wonders what he can and will leave behind. For readers, there are lessons to be learned and allegorical themes to be questioned. Stephen King is at his finest here and this short book leaves a lasting impression.

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams [Book]

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Words matter. Williams’ romantic novel places several imaginary characters inside the very real creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. The women who were really involved in that enterprise have left little historical record. The novel’s focus is the lost words: the words of women and the poor that are not recorded in history and the lives of women that go unrecorded and disregarded by academia. The protagonist experiences a series of losses, yet the book is overwhelmingly positive in outlook. A strong sense of place takes the reader to England at the turn of the last century and at the beginnings of World War I.

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger [Book]

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The historical and the literary worlds meet in this beautifully written novel, a perfect choice for a book group! The story is rooted in the literary tradition of Huckleberry Finn all while following the path of The Odyssey. The novel takes place during the Great Depression and it revolves around Odie, a 12 year old orphan who runs away from the horrendous boarding school he and his brother have been left in. As Odie and his band of friends make their way towards St. Louis, they encounter a wide array of characters: everyone from a drunken, one eyed farmer who is hiding a family secret, to a faith healer who is able to see the truth behind the lies. The book deals with many hard truths, including the hatred shown to Native Americans throughout American history and the abject poverty of the Hoovervilles that littered the country during the Depression. In the midst of that is a search for meaning, a search for faith, and an understanding that love of friends, family, and home can combat hatred.

I Kissed a Girl by Jennet Alexander [Book]

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After dying early in a few horror movies, actress Lilah Silver is headlining for the first time. Noa Birnbaum just dropped out of college to take a makeup artist/special effects job on Lilah’s movie. Lilah hopes this final girl role will open her up to serious acting opportunities. Noa, who has been crushing on Lilah since her first bit part, hopes this gig will get her the hours and recommendation she needs to join the union. There is chemistry between them when they meet, and a rule against fraternization between cast and crew to complicate things. Add an uncannily accurate anonymous item in a gossip magazine and evidence of a dangerous fan, plus the heightened emotion of an intense film shoot, and you have a fast read filled with warmth, romance, coming out, vivid supporting characters, and a behind-the-scenes peek at Hollywood. Lilah and Noa are believably imperfect young Jewish women navigating early adulthood with the support of their friends and families, stumbling into solvable problems on their way to each other. A charming entry in the new adult queer romantic comedies trend in the vein of Casey McQuiston and Alexis Hall.

Catch Us When We Fall by Juliette Fay [Book]

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A compelling read from seasoned author Fay features the story of Cass Macklin: grieving the death of Ben, her boyfriend of nearly ten years, while newly pregnant, homeless, and scared. Cass spent most of the previous decade drunk, and is now faced with the challenge of creating a healthy life for herself and her baby with no friends nor funds to support these goals. After suffering a setback in her sobriety, she tracks down Ben’s brother Scott, a professional baseball player, to ask for help. Skeptical of her commitment to cleaning up, and sharing the same early life suffering that drove Ben to drink, Scott also has a lot to learn about life. Cass goes through rehab and moves into Scott’s spare room on the condition that she stay sober. Scott plays ball through the season, coming home between road trips to Cass as she attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and pursues her education. Their tentative agreement grows into a mutually supportive friendship that carries them through the birth of the baby and into the future.

Readers who enjoy an emotional journey including hope and redemption will be well satisfied with this story. Offer it to fans of Jacqueline Mitchard and Jodi Picoult.

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. [Book]

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If you are looking for a vacation read that is thought provoking, beautifully written, and exciting, I recommend Flights by Olga Tokarczuk.

Olga Tokarczuk is the first Polish woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature, and perhaps the most internationally beloved living Polish writer. Her books are always full of eccentric characters and rich prose.

Flights takes the form of what Tokarczuk calls a “Constellation Novel” — a disciple of Jung, she strings together vignettes, short stories, and essays (some only one sentence long) loosely associated as she creates a psychological portrait of her narrator.

The book is a meditation on travel, and on the psychology of people in states of motion. (The original Polish title, Bieguni, [lit. “runners”] refers to a sect of the Old Believers who believe that constant motion is a way to avoid evil.)

The structure of the book itself is designed for a travelling reader — the small vignettes make it easy to pick up and put down, for example when going between a plane and an airport terminal, without sacrificing the literary quality. You will meet a 17th century Dutch Anatomist who discovers the Achilles tendon in an unexpected way, a woman returning to her native Poland to poison her childhood sweetheart, A wife and child who disappear from their husband to return weeks later with no explanation, and academics who give lectures at airline gates to captive audiences.
This is an extraordinary book, in an excellent translation, that I expect I will return to again in moments of travel through life.

I also enjoyed Tokarczuk’s mystery novel Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead, although that one is better read in winter, and I look forward to reading her recently translated magnum opus, The Book of Jacob, an epic novel of the Frankist movement in Poland, but at 912 pages it may be slightly too large to fit into your beach bag.

Let me know what you think of Flights, and happy summer reading everyone!

I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Flights:

“This is why tyrants of all stripes, infernal servants, have such deep-seated hatred for the nomads — this is why they persecute the Gypsies and the Jews, and why they force all free peoples to settle, assigning the addresses that serve as our sentences.

What they want is to create a frozen order, to falsify time’s passage. They want for the days to repeat themselves, unchanging, they want to build a big machine where every creature will be forced to take its place and carry out false actions. Institutions and offices, stamps, newsletters, a hierarchy, and ranks, degrees, applications and rejections, passports, numbers, cards, elections results, sales and amassing points, collecting, exchanging some things for others.

What they want is to pin down the world with the aid of barcodes, labeling all things, letting it be known that everything is a commodity, that this is how much it will cost you. Let this new foreign language be illegible to humans, let it be read exclusively by automatons, machines. That way by night, in their great underground shops, they can organize reading of their own barcoded poetry.

Move. Get going. Blessed is he who leaves.”

Popisho by Leone Ross [Book]

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Dead Collections by Isaac Fellman [Book]

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Sol Katz is the head archivist of an LGBTQ historical society, an avid fan of retro sci-fi television, a Jewish trans man, and a vampire. Any sun exposure could kill him, so his work organizing queer ephemera in a windowless basement suits him well. When Elsie, the widow of a well-known television writer, comes to donate her late wife’s papers, Sol is consumed by the project–both because the writer was the showrunner of his favorite 90’s space drama, Feet of Clay, and because of his growing attraction to Elsie. But things begin going wrong in the archive: film reels disintegrate, papers wither into dust, and Sol begins to suspect that a force beyond nature is to blame. As Sol searches for answers and learns more about the writer’s troubled life and career, he also grows closer to Elsie and begins reckoning with the way his vampirism limits and defines his life.
Though it’s easy enough to say that this is a book about a trans vampire archivist, mere description of the plot doesn’t do it justice. It’s a love letter to archives, but it’s also a meticulous and tender exploration of online fan communities and queer media. The story takes on many forms from chapter to chapter, including emails, forum posts, and scripts. This is my favorite book of the year so far, and I especially recommend it to anyone who enjoys explorations of gender, introspective horror, or Star Trek fanfiction.

What a Happy Family by Saumya Dave [Book]

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Saumya Dave follows up her debut (Well-Behaved Indian Women, 2020) with this story about another Indian-American family. The narrative is told from varying points of view: Bina and Deepak Joshi, who immigrated to the United States to give their children opportunities they never had; eldest daughter Suhani, following in her father’s footsteps as a psychiatrist; her white husband Zack; middle daughter Natasha, who turns down a proposal from the son of lifelong family friends to pursue a career in comedy; and son Anuj, their youngest child. Natasha’s rejection of her boyfriend’s proposal, shortly after she loses her job, begins a series of events that affect the family, their connections to their community, and their ability to support each other. Dave examines happiness itself from several angles, revealing different aspects for members of the family related to their individual mental health and interpersonal dynamics. Equal parts family drama, women’s fiction, and coming-of-age story, each family member is challenged and finds their way through with the strength of their relationships intact, if changed by experience. A sure bet for vacation reading and fans of hopeful family dramas.

She Wouldn’t Change a Thing by Sarah Adlakha. [Book]

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Maria Forssmann is thirty-nine years old, a successful psychiatrist with a charming husband, two beautiful daughters, and a son on the way, when she inexplicably wakes up in her seventeen-year-old body. Desperate to return to her life in the future, Maria finds herself committed to a mental health facility where she meets a doctor who may be able to help her. He’s also a time traveler and knows how this has worked for others. She’s returned to this time and place for a reason, and only completing her mission will send her back. Miles away in another state, her future husband’s family is about to suffer a terrible tragedy. Maria has knowledge that would allow her to prevent it, and doing so would also alter the future and thus erase her marriage. The choice before her is impossible, and she must make a decision.

Sarah Adlakha’s debut is a truly compelling read, making the reader consider what they would do if offered a second chance, how they might deal with a difficult choice, and what is most important in life. The characters are relatable, the story is gripping, and the blend of domestic fiction with a hint of science fiction is just plain great. Offer it to fans of Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, Jo Walton’s My Real Children, and book clubs.

Everything After by Jill Santopolo. [Book]

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In Santopolo’s (The Light We Lost, 2018) latest, Emily Gold is a psychologist with a fulfilling practice, married to Ezra, a compassionate pediatric oncologist. They live in a lovely Manhattan apartment and are preparing to expand their family. Emily’s feelings about getting pregnant now are mixed with her feelings about a pregnancy thirteen years earlier, when she was a college student and musician on the cusp of success playing gigs with her talented boyfriend. Told in chapters that alternate between college Emily’s journal and grown up Emily’s thoughts, the reader learns more about Emily’s past than even her husband knows. A challenging week for her marriage, with problems at home and work, coincides with the appearance of her college boyfriend on the hit music charts (and a local performance), compelling Emily to question the decisions she made then and is making now. Life, love, and loss are themes throughout both timelines.

Offer this to fans of women’s stories like those by Rebecca Serle and Taylor Jenkins Reid, readers who appreciate a good “what if…?” and those who like interpersonal drama set in New York City.

How Lucky by Will Leitch [Book]

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On the surface, this novel is a mystery story about the disappearance of a young college student. Mystery novels are obviously numerous, but it is the narrator (Daniel) that sets this book apart and above other typical mystery stories. Confined to a wheelchair and virtually non-verbal, the novel is told through Daniel’s curious, sharp, and often hilarious point of view. He watches the world go by from his front porch and, after witnessing the abduction already mentioned, works with a loveable and quirky cast of characters to solve the crime. While entertaining from start to finish, this book also gives a unique look into the world of those that suffer from degenerative diseases, and gives a voice to those that are often overlooked or underestimated.