Yiyun Li’s Music Against the Night, Shawn Gude’s American Socialist, Bonnie Garmus’s Peck & Peck, and Lieke Marsman’s On Another Planet They Can Save Me stand out as some of the best-reviewed titles of the week.
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Fictional Works
1. Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
6 Rave • 2 Positive • 2 Mixed
“Delightfully wondrous and utterly hypnotic … Li displays complete mastery over her intricate, probing storytelling here … It’s the kind of sui generis novel that doesn’t appear often, much like the virtuosos whose early lives it investigates.”
–Cory Oldweiler (The Boston Globe)
2. Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus
(Scribner)
4 Rave • 4 Positive
Read an interview with Bonnie Garmus here
“It is impossible not to be beguiled by Garmus’s irrepressible humor and the freewheeling exuberance of her imagination. It’s hard to imagine a novel with more laugh-out-loud jokes about typography, harder still to dismiss her fierce exhortation to all of us to make words count.”
–Claire Clark (The Guardian)
=3. Solace House by Will Maclean
(Grove)
5 Rave • 2 Positive
“There are faint echoes of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History: a tight-knit cluster of students becomes consumed by obscure ideas that alter their sense of reality … Even though it spans more than 500 pages, Solace House maintains a steady atmosphere with impressive consistency. Thoughtful, unsettling and ambitious, it seeks to evoke a slow, disorienting collapse of reality rather than conventional jump scares.”
–Julia Kelly (The Irish Times)
=3. Luna, Phoenix, Queen by Julie Orringer
(Knopf)
5 Rave • 2 Positive
“Astonishing … Luna, Phoenix, Queen brilliantly underscores the agony of isolation in its many forms, and the relief that comes from telling a story that belongs to you.”
–Meg Wolitzer (The New York Times Book Review)
5. The End of Everything by M. John Harrison
(Riverhead)
4 Rave • 1 Positive
“A fascinating, sometimes frustrating and thoroughly original new novel … This book, a masterly exercise in restraint, unsettling beauty and elliptical writing that can enlighten even when it obfuscates … This grim but powerful book portrays the many incompatible states of existence, and the baffling collapse of time, that stem from extreme crises.”
–Dave Kim (The New York Times Book Review)
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Nonfiction
1. On Another Planet They Can Save Me by Lieke Marsman
(Catapult)
4 Rave • 1 Positive
“Cathartic and often wondrous … Seeing her altered mind grapple with some of humanity’s most sweeping questions is an undeniable pleasure.”
–Publishers Weekly
=2. American Socialist: The Life and Legacy of Eugene V. Debs by Shawn Gude
(Simon & Schuster)
3 Rave • 2 Positive
“This charmingly written and rigorously researched study both refreshes familiar narratives and nudges readers to rethink common assumptions … A page-turning delight, American Socialist is a compelling and valuable resource for anyone aiming to imagine a world where such freedom can flourish.”
–Matthew E. Stanley (Jacobin)
=2. Morbid: Debunking Modern Longevity Science by Saul Justin Newman
(MIT Press)
3 Rave • 2 Positive
“Intriguing, quirky … In an era of constant online grifting and era-defining conspiracy talk about public health, Newman’s conclusions feel refreshingly clear. Longevity science is largely built on dubious data.”
–Rachel Clark (The Guardian)
4. The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East by Kim Ghattas
(Henry Holt & Company)
4 Rave
“Ghattas is eminently qualified to trace the sly interplay of ideology, convenience, and betrayal that has left Lebanon with decades of instability … If the ideal American is someone whose view of the Middle East remains detached, benevolent, and free from the desire for commercial or strategic dominance, Ghattas’s excellent work memorializes a type that is nearly extinct.”
–Christopher de Bellaigue (The New York Times Book Review)
5. Reds: A Global History of Communism by Paul Mason
(Scribner)
3 Rave • 1 Mixed
“A deeply researched, thoughtful, essential history of a protean ideology.”
–Kirkus
