The Swan Gondola by Timothy Schaffert Riverhead Books, 2014 Hardcover: $27.95 A fair, done correctly, fills its visitors with wonder and amusement. A bizarre bazaar should make people’s eyes sparkle and satiate their sense of adventure from darling rides and attractions. The fair is the talk of the town during its stay, and memories of …
The Heart of June by Mason Radkoff Braddock Avenue Books, 2014 $16.95 The Heart of June by Mason Radkoff is Pittsburgh, from its industrial laborers to its old money societies. Pittsburghers will enjoy mapping the story through their city, writers will appreciate the painstaking craft, hopeless romantics will cheer for the various couples, and laborers …
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer HarperCollins, 2013 Hardback: $26.99 Many people have thought: What would my life be like if I were born in a different era? Andrew Sean Greer answers that question and takes it a step further in his recent novel, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells. The …
The Bookman’s Tale by Charlie Lovett Viking, 2013 Hardcover: $27.95 What would you do if you found the Holy Grail of books? In Charlie Lovett’s, The Bookman’s Tale, such a book is called Pandosto. On its title page is the name of W. Shakespeare from Stratford, and in its margins are notes linking this …
The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, 2013 $16.00 Unreliable narrators cause readers to question their own methods of perceptions, particularly when recognizing logical cause and effect. As if to prove this, in Suzanne Rindell’s debut novel, The Other Typist, she takes a character with untapped potential for mental instability and places …
The Cleaner of Chartres by Salley Vickers The Viking Press, 2013 Hardcover: $26.95 Everyone has a story. For The Cleaner of Chartres, Salley Vickers chose the one belonging to a quiet cleaner in Notre Dame, the famous cathedral in Chartres, France. Vickers’s problem with this choice, however, is the style with which she began …
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler St. Martins’ Press, 2013 Hardback: $25.99 The Golden Couple of the Roaring ’20s was actually tarnished pyrite. This is revealed in Therese Anne Fowler’s recent novel, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. Its overall message seems to be that reputations lie; it shatters any …
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra Hogarth, 2013 $26.00 A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is depressing darkness filled with war-torn horrors and punctuated by bright moments of fragile tenderness. Individual points of light converge to create a story—to convey connected lives. To view a constellation is to see each star’s past during the …