All the Colors of the Dark

by: Chris Whitaker Goodreads description: 1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one […]

Familiaris

By: David Wroblewski Goodreads description: The follow-up to the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling modern classic The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Familiaris is the stirring origin story of the Sawtelle family and the remarkable dogs that carry the Sawtelle name. It is spring 1919, and John Sawtelle’s imagination has gotten him into trouble … again. Now John and his […]

Long Island Compromise

by: Taffy Brodesser- Akner Goodreads description: In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the […]

Tidbit- October 2024

It’s spooky season. Have you noticed that everyone on the block has a giant skeleton? They are all doing bizarre tasks like mowing the lawn or eating at a picnic table. What would Stefon from SNL have to say about it? Helen says: Here is my favorite skeleton pose thus far…Cue the Righteous Brothers. Holly […]

James

by: Percival Everett Goodreads description: A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he […]

Martyr

by: Kaveh Akbar Goodreads description: Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final […]

Night Watch

by: Jayne Anne Phillips Goodreads description: In 1874, in the wake of the War, erasure, trauma, and namelessness haunt civilians and veterans, renegades and wanderers, freedmen and runaways. Twelve-year-old ConaLee, the adult in her family for as long as she can remember, finds herself on a buckboard journey with her mother, Eliza, who hasn’t spoken […]

Sandwich

by: Catherine Newman Goodreads description: For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too. This year’s vacation, with […]