novel.

Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper

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Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper
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Better Living Through Birding is a memoir that is very much about birds… but it’s also about so much more. Cooper was thrust into the media spotlight via a viral video in which he was subject to racial threats in Central Park from a dog walker… and he discusses this incident in detail. However, he also discusses growing up gay & black in NYC in the 70’s & 80’s, how comic books and nature saved his life, and how activism against social injustice runs in the family. From Harvard to writing for Marvel Comics & Star Trek to following elusive birds in the most remote places in the world, this memoir is honest, emotionally stirring, and heartfelt. It made me want to go for a nature walk immediately after I finished it.

Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper, (List Price: $28, Random House, 9780593242384, June 2023)

Reviewed by Stuart McCommon, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich

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At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich
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Out of necessity, Laura has chosen to live a simpler, yet, courageous life in a secluded, rustic cabin in the woods on the outskirts of an Italian village. Necessity turns into a reorganization of priorities, which I wholly admire, as Laura shares her thoughts with the reader on living with nature, interacting with others, and what it means to survive. Beautiful.

At the Edge of the Woods by Kathryn Bromwich, (List Price: 26, Two Dollar Radio, 9781953387318, June 2023)

Reviewed by Jill Naylor, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

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Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
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A May 2023 Read This Next! Title

Crushing like a hammer and sharp as a scythe, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a master class of brutality drenched in grace. From the first page, Adjei-Brenyah exposes our inherent complicity and demands a good, long look inward, and asks what we’re gonna do about it. It’s powerful, exciting, horrifying, and an utterly outstanding feat of contemporary literature. It’s speculative fiction that feels so close to reality that it’s shockingly unsurprising and brilliantly difficult to endure. Damn.

Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, (List Price: $27.00, Pantheon, 9780593317334, May 2023)

Reviewed by Carly Crawford, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

The Insatiable Volt Sisters by Rachel Eve Moulton

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The Insatiable Volt Sisters by Rachel Eve Moulton
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The Insatiable Volt Sisters is straight-ahead horror, but it looks deeply into struggles of defining one’s own legacy despite a troubled heritage. Told from the perspective of four very different women, Moulton’s characters are flawed and struggling, but also courageous and unrelenting in their choice to face darkness and despair head-on. This book is eerie and mysterious…and I could feel Fowler Island dripping off the pages as the sisters reveal/fight the beast within.

The Insatiable Volt Sisters by Rachel Eve Moulton, (List Price: 18, MCD x FSG Originals, 9780374538323, May 2023)

Reviewed by Stuart McCommon, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius

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Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius
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Stolen is a thoughtful examination of what it takes for a people to maintain cultural traditions in a modern era that is not always very accommodating. Laestadius has written a coming-of-age tale that takes the reader through the pains (as well as the pride) of the Sami and she does so while also highlighting the need to protect the places/animals that represent the last of the remaining true wilderness areas. This book is very well done.

Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius, (List Price: $18.99, Scribner, 9781668007167, January 2023)

Reviewed by Stuart McCommon, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

Fieldwork : A Forager’s Memoir by Iliana Regan

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Fieldwork : A Forager’s Memoir by Iliana Regan
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Fieldwork is an exploration into the author’s passion for the natural world and her chosen place in it. She delves into the beginning of her love for food and foraging as a child growing up on a homestead and she expands upon it in the unsteady present as a chef/restaurant owner during a global pandemic. In doing so, she views topics such as her addictions, sexuality, and personal growth through the lens of how her family history and the forests are beautifully intertwined. This memoir is heartfelt, honest, and perfectly written.

Fieldwork : A Forager’s Memoir by Iliana Regan, (List Price: $27.00, Agate Midway, 9781572843189, December 2022)

Reviewed by Stuart McCommon, Novel in Memphis, Tennessee

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns

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Bad Cree by Jessica Johns
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Bad Cree is the perfect mix of mystery, horror, and suspense. Johns uses the importance of dreams in Cree culture to cover several issues involving corporate greed, trauma, and familial grief. Also, her use of symbolism throughout the book makes for an ethereal experience for the reader and she highlights the strength that can come from the female bonds of sisterhood/motherhood throughout the plot. This is an incredibly enjoyable debut that is as creative as it is moving.

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns (List Price: $28, Doubleday, 9780385548694, January 2023)

Reviewed by Stuart McCommon, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet

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Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet
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After reading (and loving) A Children’s Bible, I was not expecting Dinosaurs to be so gentle, so earnest, so attuned to its characters’ flaws and traumas while being even more attuned to the ways their pain has strengthened them with empathy and circumspection. This is a brief and generous novel that begins with our hero’s 2,500-mile journey on foot from NYC to Phoenix and ends with him getting cactus barbs torn out of his back with pliers, with so much good stuff sandwiched in the middle there.

Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet (List Price: $26.95, W. W. Norton & Company, 9781324021469, October 2022)

Reviewed by Kat Leache, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

Which Side Are You On by Ryan Lee Wong

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Which Side Are You On by Ryan Lee Wong
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An October 2022 Read This Next! Title

Which Side Are You On is a dialogue-heavy book with prose that is sharp, thought-provoking, and humorous at times. The reader sees the subjects of race, policing, politics, & privilege through the eyes of a young activist as he pries into his parents’ own personal history of activism in their younger days. Filled with interesting anecdotes and hard-learned lessons, this book shows that sometimes personal growth is best attained through deep conversation and self-reflection.

Which Side Are You On by Ryan Lee Wong, (List Price: $24, Catapult, 9781646221486, October 2022)

Reviewed by Stuart McCommon, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

The Rabbit Hutch by Tessa Gunty

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The Rabbit Hutch by Tessa Gunty
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The Rabbit Hutch is about 18 year old Blandine Watkins, who has recently aged out of the foster care system and hopes soon to escape her earthly body like the female mystics who obsess her. It’s also about a dying Midwestern town, formerly home to an automobile manufacturer with a cultishly devoted customer base whose bankruptcy left the town in financial ruin and poisoned by toxic chemicals. And The Rabbit Hutch is also about the Rabbit Hutch, a low-income housing experiment full of residents living lives of varying degrees of quiet desperation, all of whom are brought sharply to life by Tess Gunty’s intricate, precise, dishy prose. It’s dark, but funny. It’s tragic, but affirming. And I didn’t want to skim over a single sentence, the writing is just that good. I will read anything Gunty publishes in the future.

The Rabbit Hutch by Tessa Gunty, (List Price: $28.00, Knopf, 9780593534663, August 2022)

Reviewed by Kat Leache, Novel in Memphis, Tennessee

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

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Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
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Ali Hazelwood has quickly worked her way to being a favorite Romance author, for myself and many other readers. Mixing STEM, Feminism and romance is her recipe for her superb romances. Love on the Brain follows Bee, a strong willed and smart scientist as she embarks on a project partnered with NASA that just might turn her career around. An awful break-up changed the course of her career choices previously, but she is back stronger then ever about to show her stuff! However, her college nemesis Levi ends up being her partner for this project. You don’t have to be a science lover to appreciate Bee’s resilience in a male dominated career and to enjoy her nerdy, flirty, and powerful love story unfold.

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood, (List Price: $17.00, Berkley, 9780593336847,  August 2022)

Reviewed by Lillian Kay, Novel in Memphis, Tennessee

Hawk Mountain by Conner Habib

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Hawk Mountainby Conner Habib
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Hawk Mountain is a meditation on how toxic masculinity can lead to trauma and how that trauma can manifest itself into violence & horror. Additionally, Habib points to the manner in which consequences of our actions can cycle through generations as well and he does so with propulsive prose that continually ratchets up the tension with every page. This novel is pure psychological horror and it takes gaslighting to a whole new level of craziness that is tough to witness, but impossible to look away from.

Hawk Mountain by Conner Habib, (List Price: $26.95, W. W. Norton & Company, 9780393542172, July 2022)

Reviewed by Stuart McCommon, Novel. in Memphis, Tennessee

Girls They Write Songs About by Carlene Bauer

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Girls They Write Songs About by Carlene Bauer
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It’s so hard to pin down exactly how I feel about this one. Safe to say, though, to start: I loved reading every page, so there is that! I think part of what makes me feel confused is how close to the bone it could have cut given a few of the similarities between me and Rose and Charlotte. But I was never ambitious. Never really tried to make a go of it as a writer. I was never of New York or the region. Girls They Write Songs About is brilliant, deliciously wry, not afraid to proceed to its destination. It pulls zero punches. It’s mature in a way that is hard to describe. It respects its characters and the reader enough to stay the course on its own terms. And that is a little difficult to accept at times, like real life. I loved it and will have no trouble recommending it to customers. But I’m going to spend between now and June refining my elevator pitch.

Girls They Write Songs About by Carlene Bauer, (List Price: $27, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 9780374282264, June 2022)

Reviewed by Kat Leache, Novel in Memphis, Tennessee

Such Big Dreams by Reema Patel

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Such Big Dreams by Reema Patel
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This book was beautiful. Rakhi was such a carefully crafted character with such a distinct voice. The novel has a sense of place and identity that is wholly it’s own and immensely compelling. The book speaks to poverty and voluntourism and privilege and hypocrisy while maintaining a focus on character and story. It paints upon a setting that unblinkingly presents both the beauty and the injustice of Bombay, and it presents Rakhi as she is—fiery and smart and insightful and honest. This is a perspective that needs to be heard and is so dignifying to its subject. I can’t recommend this book highly enough—I love a book that speaks honestly to the injustices of the world while completely holding its own as a literary work.

Such Big Dreams by Reema Patel, (List Price: $27, Ballantine Books, 9780593499504, April 2022)

Reviewed by Becca Sloan, Novel in Memphis, Tennessee

The Golden Swift by Lev Grossman

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The Golden Swift by Lev Grossman
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A middle grade fantasy novel with magical trains, a magical submarine, an apartment in the sky, a missing uncle, talking animals, endangered species and rewilding? Yes, please! This series is proof that kids can learn about current day issues in novels. Not that any of us in the industry need convincing of this, but this series does it effortlessly. Brilliant! Can’t wait for more!

The Golden Swift by Lev Grossman, (List Price: $35, Little Brown and Company, 9780316283540, May 2022)

Reviewed by Jill Naylor, Novel in Memphis, Tennessee

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