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What To Read: March & April 2020

Wednesday, Mar 04, 2020 at 5:21pm

A collection of recent books particularly recommended by Chris Hall. Look for our in-store What To Read display tables.

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips. Softcover. $22.95. RRC Price $20.65. One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula of Russia, two young sisters go missing. In the ensuing months, the investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across the community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women. Taking us through a year, this novel enters this community, its citizens all connected by the crime. We are transported into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused. (Vintage. April)

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. Softcover. $22.95. RRC Price $20.65. Keefe's book on the conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath details a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only the populace but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish. (Anchor. March)

See more What To Read picks after the jump...


The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells. Softcover. $24.00. RRC Price $21.60. It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible — food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. Wallace-Wells offers both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it. But just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation — today's. (Crown. March)

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton. Softcover. $21.00. RRC Price $18.90. Eli Bell's life is complicated. His father is lost, his mother is in jail, and his stepdad is a heroin dealer. The most steadfast adult in his life is Slim — a felon and record-holder for successful prison escapes — who watches over Eli and August, his silent older brother. Life insists on throwing obstacles in Eli's path — most notably Tytus Broz, Brisbane's legendary drug dealer. But the real trouble lies ahead. Eli is about to fall in love, face off against truly bad guys, and fight to save his mother from a certain doom — all before starting high school. (HarperCollins. April)

Mama's Last Hug by Frans de Waal. Softcover. $22.95. RRC Price $20.65. This book begins with the death of Mama, a chimpanzee who formed a deep bond with biologist Jan van Hooff. When Mama was dying, van Hooff visited her for a last hug. Their goodbye video went viral. This story and others like it form the core of de Waal's argument that humans are not the only species with the capacity for emotion. His message is one of continuity between us and other species, opening our hearts to the many ways in which humans and other animals are connected, shifting our view of the living world around us. (WW Norton. March)

Henry, Himself by Stewart O’Nan. Softcover. $23.00. RRC Price $20.70. Soldier, son, lover, husband, churchgoer, Henry Maxwell has spent his life trying to live with honour. He's always believed in logic, sacrifice, and hard work. Now, seventy-five and retired, he feels the world has passed him by. It's 1998, the century is ending, and nothing is simple anymore. His children are distant, their unhappiness a mystery. Only his wife Emily and dog Rufus stand by him. Once so confident, as Henry's strength and memory desert him, he weighs his dreams against his regrets and is left with questions he struggles to answer. (Penguin. April)

Feast Your Eyes by Myla Goldberg. Softcover. $23.00. RRC Price $20.70. This novel, framed as the catalogue notes from a photography show at the Museum of Modern Art, tells the life story of photographer, Lillian Preston. After discovering photography through her high school's photo club, Lillian rejects her parents' expectations of college and marriage and moves to New York City in 1955. When a small gallery exhibits partially nude photographs of Lillian and her daughter, Lillian is arrested and targeted with an obscenity charge. The sudden notoriety changes the course of her career and her life-long quest for artistic legitimacy and recognition. (Scribner. February)

Normal People by Sally Rooney. Softcover. $21.00. RRC Price $18.90. Connell is a popular boy in high school but he doesn't have much money. Marianne, a classmate, is plain-looking and odd but her family is welloff. There is, however, a deep connection between the two that develops into a secret relationship. Things change when both are accepted to Trinity College and Marianne is well-liked, holding court with her intellectual friends, while Connell is sidelined, not fluent in the language of the elite. But as Marianne dates an increasingly dangerous string of boyfriends, Connell must decide how far he is willing to go to save her. (Vintage. February)

Categories: Saskatoon, Winnipeg, What To Read

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