My LINKcat AccountAmong other things, today, June 3rd is the last day of school, and if that doesn’t herald the start of summer more than the near-ninety-degree days we had this Memorial Day weekend and that three or four day stretch of highs in the 90s from the 10th through the 13th this May, then nothing will. We are most definitely in summer mode. The sounds of summer are abounding. Not only do we have those silly robins singing in the dark before the sun even begins to think about pulling itself over the horizon, but the whole dawn chorus is lustily vocalizing through a good park of the dawn and dusk (and let’s face it, daylight too) hours. Lawn mowers and weed-whackers are adding their notes to the summer symphony as are motorcycles and other smaller, less-mufflered vehicles. Frogs are croaking. Peepers are peeping. Bees are buzzing. The trees are soughing. The night hawks are blatting as they hunt bugs at dusk. Killdeer are piping. Music is spilling out of car and truck windows are folks cruise around town with their windows rolled down to enjoy the balmy breezes of early summer. The summer symphony is available in surround sound – simply open your house windows or step outside and listen. If it’s too hot or too rainy for soaking in all that summer has to offer. I have some new, summer titles, listed below, that you may like to peruse. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
Back to the Prairie: A Home Remade, a Life Rediscovered by Melissa Gilbert. The “New York Times” best-selling author and star of “Little House on the Prairie “recounts her return to rustic life with her new husband in a cottage in the Catskill Mountains during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Become the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be by Marissa Moss. An inside story of the last 20 years of country music through the lens of Maren Morris, Mickey Guyton, and Kacey Musgraves—their peers and inspirations, their paths to stardom, and their battles against a deeply embedded boys’ club, as well as their efforts to transform the genre into a more inclusive place for all.
Hometown Victory: A Coach’s Story of Football, Fate, and Coming Home by Keanon Lowe and Justin Spizman. An NFL coach returns home after losing a friend to opioids to coach a team of high schoolers on a 23-game losing streak.
Here’s the Deal: A Memoir by Kellyanne Conway. One of the biggest insiders from the Trump Administration finally tells her story.
Lily’s Promise: Holding on to Hope Through Auschwitz and Beyond— a Story for All Generations by Lily Ebert & Dov Forman. In a life-affirming intergenerational memoir, a Holocaust survivor and her great-grandson come together to share a tale of resilience and resistance.
New Fiction
Misrule by Heather Walter. When the woman she loves falls under a curse that not even her vast power can break, Alyce, a dark sorceress, vows to do everything she can to save Princess Aurora, even if it means turning into the monster everyone in Briar believes her to be.
Razzmatazz by Christopher Moore. In 1947 San Francisco, bartender Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin is tasked by club owner Jimmy Vasco to find out who is killing the city’s drag kings, while Eddie “Moo Shoes” Shu seeks to save his uncle’s opium den from Squid Kid Tang.
Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi. A young Omani woman attempting to assimilate in Britain reflects on the relationships that have been central to her life in the new novel from the Man Booker International Prize-winning author of “Celestial Bodies”.
Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner. Presents a story of post-war London, a century-old bookstore and three women determined to find their way in a fast-changing world.
The Last White Rose: A Novel of Elizabeth of York by Alison Weir. Saved from the clutches of her uncle, the notorious Richard III, by Henry Tudor, Elizabeth of York, the oldest daughter of the late King Edward IV, becomes the first queen of the Tudor line—a blessed union that results in the unification of the warring houses of Lancaster and York.
Overboard (V.I. Warshawski) by Sara Paretsky. In a city emerging from its pandemic lockdown, detective V.I. Warshawski must elude Chicago powerbrokers and mobsters as she tries to find a missing girl who is the key witness to a nefarious conspiracy, which makes Warshawski a target as well.
Summer Love by Nancy Thayer. Reuniting 26 years after an amazing summer in Nantucket, four friends realize life hasn’t worked out the way they had all hoped as they confront the past, while their children, exploring the island together, experience love and heartbreak, and forge lifelong bonds just as their parents did years ago.
Magpie by Elizabeth Day. When their new lodger, Kate, becomes obsessed with her, her husband and the baby they are desperately trying to conceive, Marisa must find out who Kate really is before she loses everything she’s worked so hard to create—her perfect romance, her perfect family and her perfect self.
The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian. In 1964, Hollywood royalty Katie Barstow and her new husband, along her glittering entourage, arrive for their luxury African safari, but are instead taken hostage by Russians mercenaries, in this blistering story of fame, race, love death set in a world on the cusp of great change.