Books & Bites: April 2024

In an isolated outport on Newfoundland's northern coastline, Abe Strapp is about to marry the daughter of a rival merchant to cement his hold on the shore when the Widow Caines arrives to throw the wedding and Abe's plans into chaos. That ruthless act of sabotage is the opening salvo in a battle between the man and woman who own Mockbeggar's largest mercantile firms, each fighting for the scarce resources of the north Atlantic fishery, each seeking a measure of revenge on the person they despise most in the world

Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's. In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape—her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.

New York Times bestselling author Laurence Leamer reveals the complex web of relationships and scandalous true stories behind Truman Capote's never-published final novel, Answered Prayers--the dark secrets, tragic glamour, and Capote's ultimate betrayal of the group of female friends he called his "swans.""

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today.

Twin brothers born from a secret love affair between an Indian nun and a British surgeon in Addis Ababa, Marion and Shiva Stone come of age in Ethiopia, where their love for the same woman drives them apart.

This magnificent collection range over a variety of themes, equally original and unexpected

A “quietly stunning” (Ocean Vuong) exploration of love and loss, the struggles and limitations of family life—and how we all must learn to live together and apart—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours

“An Appalachian David Copperfield. . . . Demon Copperhead reimagines Dickens’s story in a modern-day rural America contending with poverty and opioid addiction. . . . .Kingsolver and Dickens overlap: both of them exuberant writers of social novels with a strong political message and a concern for the lower classes. . . . Kingsolver’s novel sweeps you along just as powerfully as the original does.” — New York Times

An utterly beguiling novel about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing in a primeval Polish forest.

Detective Frank Mackey finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind twenty-two years ago when the suitcase belonging to his first love, Rosie Daly, shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place.

In May 2016, the city of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, burned to the ground, forcing 88,000 people to flee their homes. It was the largest evacuation ever of a city in the face of a forest fire, raising the curtain on a new age of increasingly destructive wildfires. This book is a suspenseful account of one of North America's most devastating forest fires-and a stark exploration of our dawning era of climate catastrophes"-- Provided by publisher.

A novel written by more than twenty-five major literary voices follows the tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building in Manhattan during the COVID-19 shutdown, as they gather on the roof, share stories, and become real neighbors.

"The unauthorized, unvarnished story of famed Wall Street hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio

In Ghost Dogs, Dubus’s nonfiction prowess is on full display in his retelling of his own successes, failures, triumphs, and pain

Presents Capote's masterful account of the senseless 1959 murders of four members of a farm family in Holcomb, Kansas, and the search for the killers, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith.

An unforgettable novel of a BBC-sponsored wartime cooking competition and the four women who enter for a chance to better their lives.

A huge-hearted, redemptive coming-of-old-age tale, a love story, and an ode to good food.

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—“a time-spanning, genre-blurring work of storytelling magic” (The Washington Post)

The story of a not-so-famous scientist who not only loved Albert Einstein, but also shaped the theories that brought him lasting renown.

The Queen of Dirt Island is an uplifting celebration of fierce, loyal love and the powerful stories that bind generations together"--

Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller enlists the help of his half-brother, Harry Bosch, to prove the innocence of a woman convicted of killing her husband.

After a divorce, a former Chicago police officer resettles in an Irish village where a boy goes missing.

A timeless work of vivid, raw western fiction and a no-holds-barred portrait of the real American frontier.

“In 1864, the nation was riveted by a society divorce trial that had everything: cheating, wealth, feuding brothers and lurid details Weisberg’s sensitive examination reconstructs the trial while giving dimension to the real-life people involved.”―The New York Times Book Review “Editors Choice”

Jane Smiley's most famous novel--King Lear on an Iowa farm--which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. A Thousand Acres spins the most fundamental themes of truth, justice, love, and pride into a universally acclaimed masterpiece

Virginia Woolf examines family dynamics and the tensions between men and women in her 1927 novel To the Lighthouse.

In this epic American novel, which served as the basis for the classic film directed by John Huston, a family is torn apart when an old enemy starts a vicious rumor that sets the range aflame.

In 1965, a nursing student follows her brother to serve during the Vietnam War and returns to a divided America.