Family & Relationships

The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl

Adult Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Family & Relationships, Life Stages, Mid-Life, Nature, Personal Memoirs, Seasons, Southern Book Prize Finalist

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An October Read This Next! Book!

Margaret Renkl’s writing is the literary equivalent to being wrapped in a soft blanket in your favorite chair with a cup of tea on a crisp day. The Comfort of Crows continues her beautiful way with words (after her stellar Late Migrations) with 52 essays of her observations that take the reader through the seasons of the year…from the beauty of nature and all it encompasses to the varying human emotions and stages of life. You will want to plant something, feed something, preserve something, and protect something all at the same time. You don’t have to be a nature lover to read this book, but you will be by the time you finish it.

The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl, (List Price: 32, Spiegel & Grau, 9781954118461, October 2023)

Reviewed by Mary Patterson, The Little Bookshop in Midlothian, Virginia

The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl

Biography & Autobiography, Family & Relationships, Life Stages, Mid-Life, Nature, Personal Memoirs, Seasons

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Buy from your local indie.

An October Read This Next! Book!

In Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl has given us a remarkable gift. With keen observations of nature in her backyard, she helps us become better observers in our world. With wise commentary, she gently challenges us to become more caring of the wildlife around us. With beautiful writing, she engages us in an important conversation about conservation. And with stunning illustrations, the book becomes the perfect gift for nature lovers and environmentalists in our lives. It will be one of our top handbells for the holiday season and I can’t wait to put this book in the hands of our customers as a gift for themselves or for the people they love.

The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl, (List Price: 32, Spiegel & Grau, 9781954118461, October 2023)

Reviewed by Lia Lent, Wordsworth Books in Little Rock,, Arkansas

How to Say Goodbye by Wendy MacNaughton

Adult Nonfiction, Bereavement, Death, Family & Relationships, Grief

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This is a beautiful little book. It is partly a helpful guide for folks going through losing a loved one, partly a meditation on how to live. Her drawings are simultaneously simple, emotional, and direct. Words are used sparingly, which lends them more value and meaning. I will keep this book, and buy multiple copies to give away to friends and family. The resource guide in the back is also extremely helpful!

How to Say Goodbye by Wendy MacNaughton, (List Price: 28, Bloomsbury Publishing, 9781639730858, July 2023)

Reviewed by Daniel Jordan, Pearl’s Books in Fayetteville, Arkansas

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Abuse, Adult Nonfiction, Banned Books, Biography & Autobiography, Domestic Partner Abuse, Family & Relationships, Gender Studies, LGBTQ+, Personal Memoirs, Social Science

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An engrossing and necessary work of memoir, queer perspective, and groundbreaking from examining a history of abuse through a series of prismatic episodes dissecting road trips, meetings with parents, Disney villains, and gaslighting. Stumbling through each new layer you delve deeper into the unshakeable, irrational hold of abuse. At times what seemed like romance transforms in the next page into folklore, raw emotion, queer theory, criticism, and horror. I am immensely grateful for the work Carmen Maria Machado has done in writing as generous a book as In the Dream House.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, (List Price: $18, Graywolf Press, 9781644450383, December 2020)

Reviewed by Luis Correa, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia

Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge by Helen Ellis

Adult Nonfiction, Essays, Family & Relationships, Humor, Marriage & Family, Marriage & Long-Term Relationships, Southern Book Prize Finalist

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A June 2023 Read This Next! Title

Helen Ellis is back with a collection of essays about my marriage…sorry about her marriage. These hit so close to home on so many levels: snoring…yep my husband does that and I have threatened his life, grudges…yeah I will cut people out of my life for being slightly rude to my husband or my friends, ridiculous letter to the person caring for my pets…check. Hilarious and touching, this is a great portrait of a marriage

Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge by Helen Ellis, (List Price: 26, Doubleday, 9780385548205, June 2023)

Reviewed by Melissa Taylor, E. Shaver, bookseller in Savannah, Georgia

We Are Too Many by Hannah Pittard

Adult Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Divorce & Separation, Family & Relationships, Marriage & Long-Term Relationships, Personal Memoirs

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A May 2023 Read This Next! Title

A unique take on a memoir (kind of) that immediately hurls you into Hannah Pittard’s crumbling world. Her husband has just cheated on her with her best friend. Recounting conversations over a decade, Pittard brings a mix of fact and fiction at times as well when recalling memories with friends, families, and others. The first part’s structure is phenomenal: Told in a play-like format that jumps throughout the years and touches on conversations of eating disorders, infidelity, grief, and just the tender human experience. A book that truly bares its soul to the world, and it pays off in the best way possible.

We Are Too Many by Hannah Pittard, (List Price: 26.99, Henry Holt and Co., 9781250869043, May 2023)

Reviewed by Grace Sullivan, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

We Should Not Be Friends by Will Schwalbe

Adult Nonfiction, Family & Relationships, Friendship

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This is one of the best books I read this year. This story is about a friendship between two Yale college students who are members of a secret society they joined as seniors. From there, the book takes us on a forty year friendship that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that when we let people in at the most vulnerable and sincere place where we are in life, that we open our hearts and minds to the possibility that our lives will be enriched by the human connections we make.

We Should Not Be Friends by Will Schwalbe, (List Price: 29, Knopf, 9780525654933, February 2023)

Reviewed by Lauren Zimmerman, Writers Block Bookstore in Winter Park, Florida

This Story Will Change by Elizabeth Crane

Family & Relationships, Marriage & Long-Term Relationships

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“I thought we were going to grow old together, take care of each other.” The author Elizabeth Crane has been married for fifteen years and one day her husband tells her he isn’t happy. We ride with her on this winding story to see every turn in their lives and how it ended with this terrible pain. Truth is in every word of this memoir. Who doesn’t plan and hope for a happy ending when beginning a marriage? Elizabeth Crane reveals the honest painful truth that can be at the end of a relationship. Never has an ending of a marriage been told with more honest and heartbreaking TRUTH. She gets a new tattoo with just the word love. and writes “I still believe in it. sometimes like Santa. but I do.” Everyone who either hopes for a marriage or been in love and lost or longs for a partner could feel much of the truth in this too painfully unforgettable wise tale.

This Story Will Change by Elizabeth Crane, (List Price: 26, Counterpoint, 9781640094789, August 2022)

Reviewed by Nancy Pierce, Bookmiser, Inc. in Marietta, Georgia

Someone Other Than a Mother by Erin S. Lane

Adult Nonfiction, Alternative Family, Calling & Vocation, Christian Living, Family & Relationships, Feminism & Feminist Theory, Religion, Social Science

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In a society that puts mothers on a pedestal (no greater love than that of a mother!), even if they’re quick to mommy shame them (she lets those kids have too much screen time!), it can be tough and disheartening to navigate the world as a child-free woman. Erin Lane breaks down the Mother Scripts, tackling the origins of what it means to be a mother from biblical times, to the rise of modern motherhood (thanks, Teddy Roosevelt). She interviews women from all backgrounds- women who don’t want kids, can’t have kids, became step-parents, or are raising kids through the foster system. It’s a fascinating insight into the way society perceives women and an important discussion of moving beyond the boundaries of those expectations.

Someone Other Than a Mother by Erin S. Lane, (List Price: $26, TarcherPerigee, 9780593329313, April 2022)

Reviewed by Kate Towery, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia

Magic Season by Wade Rouse

Bereavement, Biography & Autobiography, Death, Family & Relationships, Grief, LGBTQ+, Parent & Adult Child, Parenting, Personal Memoirs

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They say truth is better than fiction and with Magic Season I completely agree. Wade and his rigid engineer father had a contentious relationship for quite awhile. When Ted learns he is dying Wade returns home for one final season of the one thing the men share a passion for-The St Louis Cardinals. This is inspiring and heartwarming and told with Wade’s poignant sense of humor. It gives hope to any one suffering from a desire to have a close relationship with a parent. There is always a chance for your team in baseball and a relationship with your parent.

Magic Season by Wade Rouse, (List Price: $27.99, Hanover Square Press, 9781335475176, May 2022)

Reviewed by Suzanne Lucey, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest, North Carolina

Wired for Love by Stephanie Cacioppo

Adult Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Cognitive Neuroscience & Cognitive Neuropsychology, Cognitive Science, Family & Relationships, Love & Romance, Personal Memoirs, Psychology, Science

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Wired For Love is part neuroscience and part memoir… but it is ultimately a love story between the world’s foremost authority on the brain’s response to love/loss and the world’s foremost authority on loneliness. Cacioppo includes a lot of scientific information and hard data pulled from years of her research, but she also guides the reader through her own personal story of falling in love and eventually her grief surrounding her husband’s death. She has a way of getting the reader to thoughtfully reevaluate the “common beliefs” surrounding incredibly complex (but purely human) emotions. This book is fantastic.

Wired for Love by Stephanie Cacioppo, (List Price: $28.99, Flatiron Bookss, 9781250790606, April 2022)

Reviewed by Stuart McCommon from Novel in Memphis, Tennessee

In Love by Amy Bloom

Adult Nonfiction, Bereavement, Biography & Autobiography, Death, Family & Relationships, Grief, Personal Memoirs, Survival

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When Amy Bloom’s husband of 15 years is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he decides to end his life on his own terms – “to die on his feet, not live on his knees”. In Love is an account of how the couple made that happen, as well as a celebration of their love. It’s by turns honest, raw, unsentimental, funny, captivating, powerful and utterly devastating. I devoured it in less than a day – an experience that left me emotionally wrung out, but also very glad to have done so.

In Love by Amy Bloom, (List Price: $27.00, Random House, 9780593243947, March 2022)

Reviewed by Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi

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