The Westport Library Resource Guides: Sybil's List: June 2015

Sybil Steinberg's Summer Book Picks

Westporter Sybil Steinberg, contributing editor and former book review section editor for Publishers Weekly, returned with her ever-popular talk on the best new reads for June 2015.

Fiction (A-L)

American Romantic by Ward Just
Publication Date: 2014-04-01
An idealistic young man beginning his diplomatic career in 1960s Indo China has a disastrous meeting with a chief of the Viet Cong guerillas.
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
Publication Date: 2014-09-02
A metaphysical adventure that begins in Thatcher’s England and demands belief in a paraphysical world that exists alongside our known experiences.
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
Publication Date: 2014-09-09
When Jehovah’s Witness parents deny their dying son blood transfusions, a British judge must decide on his behalf.
The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal; Edmund De Waal (Foreword by)
Publication Date: 2014-01-07
The grandmother of the author of The Hare with Amber Eyes wrote this perceptive and absorbing novel in the 1950s.
Eyrie by Tim Winton
Publication Date: 2014-06-10
The ironical title is the 10th floor apartment in a seedy building in Australia occupied by a man who is down on his luck bigtime.
Friendship by Emily Gould
Publication Date: 2014-07-01
Two young women pushing 30, their careers at dead end, trying to survive broken love affairs and social inadequacy in Brooklyn.
A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride
Publication Date: 2014-09-09
Another experimental novel written in Joycean prose in which an Irish girl deals with serious family problems.
How to Be Both by Ali Smith
Publication Date: 2014-12-02
Highly inventive double narrative that tells the same story from two different points of view. Booker nominee.
Let Me Be Frank with You by Richard Ford
Publication Date: 2014-11-04
Loosely connected to vignettes featuring Frank Bascombe of Ford’s wonderful trilogy.
The Liar's Wife by Mary Gordon
Publication Date: 2014-08-05
Four novellas, each superbly imaginative and resonant. The settings are Manhattan, Italy, Indiana and New Canaan, CT.
Lucky Us by Amy Bloom
Publication Date: 2014-07-29
A comic-tragic account of two half-sisters who storm Hollywood in the 1940s and later experience social and historical events.

Short Fiction

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel
Publication Date: 2014-09-30
Ten incomparable stories from Mantel’s slightly morbid point of view. Not to be missed.
Black Vodka by Deborah Levy
Publication Date: 2014-06-10
Edgy, unsettling, ambiguous short stories about people at odds with their surroundings and haunted by past experiences.
The Emerald Light in the Air by Donald Antrim
Publication Date: 2014-09-02
Highly sophisticated short stories that feature men in acute psychological distress.
A Spy among Friends by Ben Macintyre; John Le Carré (Afterword by)
Publication Date: 2014-07-29
Kim Philby was the greatest spy and double agent in history. How he got away with his audacious game for so many years.
Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood
Publication Date: 2014-09-16
Sumptuously imaginative short stories that attest to the perils of love, the ignominies of old age and the joy of revenge.
The Stories of Jane Gardam by Jane Gardam
Publication Date: 2014-06-03
This collection holds the first appearance of “Old Filth” and many imaginative stories about British people in tricky situations.

Fiction (M-Z)

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
Publication Date: 2014-08-12
A harrowing account of the brutal torture endured by a group of Australian POW’s forced by the Japanese to build a railroad through the jungle in Burma and Thailand. Booker nominee.
Next Life Might Be Kinder by Howard Norman
Publication Date: 2014-05-13
A haunting story about loss, grief and psychological dislocation. The narrator cannot come to terms with the murder of his wife.
One Plus One by Jojo Moyes
Publication Date: 2014-07-01
Opposites attract in this warmhearted novel of family dysfunction and moral quandaries.
Panic in a Suitcase by Yelena Akhtiorskaya
Publication Date: 2014-07-31
A darkly hilarious first novel that recreates the vibrant world of Russian émigrés to America who live in Brighton Beach.
A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman
Publication Date: 2014-06-03
Elderly refugees from Soviet Russia live in a hermetic community in Brooklyn, trying to survive in a new moral landscape.
The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman
Publication Date: 2014-06-10
A woman’s search for the identity of her parents and the reason for her bizarre upbringing.
Some Luck by Jane Smiley
Publication Date: 2014-10-07
The lives of a couple and their children who live on a farm in Iowa seen over several generations. NBA longlist.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Publication Date: 2014-09-09
A highly imaginative portrait of the future after the world has been de-populated by a plague. NBA longlist.
The Story of Land and Sea by Katy Simpson Smith
Publication Date: 2014-08-26
Three generations of early settlers in North Carolina in the late 18th century meet fates as inexorable as the tides.
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris
Publication Date: 2014-05-13
Someone steals the identity of a Manhattan dentist and claims he is the descendant of a Biblical tribe. Booker nominee.
The Vacationers by Emma Straub
Publication Date: 2014-05-29
Witty account of a family’s vacation in Mallorca, sharing a villa with friends and trying to repair a fraught relationship.
The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis
Publication Date: 2014-09-30
The Holocaust seen through the eyes of the bureaucratic Nazis who run Auschwitz.The banality of evil writ large.

Nonfiction

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
Publication Date: 2013-06-04
The astonishing saga of the University of Washington rowing crew who competed in the Berlin Olympics in 1936.
Factory Man by Beth Macy
Publication Date: 2014-07-15
The rise and fall of the furniture industry in North Carolina epitomized through the Bassett family.
My Grandfather's Gallery by Anne Sinclair; Shaun Whiteside (Translator)
Publication Date: 2014-09-16
The granddaughter of renowned art dealer Paul Rosenberg, famous for discovering Picasso and other modern artists.
My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff
Publication Date: 2014-06-03
Working for a literary agency, Rakoff dealt with a reclusive author she learned to call Jerry.
Timeless by Lucinda Franks
Publication Date: 2014-08-19
The love affair and May/December marriage of journalist Franks and Robert Morgenthau, the famous New York District Attorney.
Updike by Adam Begley
Publication Date: 2014-04-08
Absorbing and insightful bio of Updike’s life and oeuvre, with analysis of his place in America’s literary pantheon.