And so, beloved patrons, we come to another Friday…a mercifully sunny one after the frigid temperatures of earlier this week. We hope this week’s selection of new books gives you some ideas for your weekend reading. Make sure to let us know your newest literary loves in the comments!
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past: Though not, perhaps, the most artistic of titles (or perhaps an overly-provocative one), Jennifer Teege’s book is still a fascinating one. At it’s heart is Teege’s discovery, as an adult, that her grandfather was Amon Goeth, the commander of the Plaszow concentration camp in Poland, portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in the film Schindler’s List. Teege’s biological mother was Monika Hertwig, who gave birth to Teege after a brief relationship with an Nigerian man, and put her into a Catholic children’s home when she was a month old. It wasn’t until Teege was in her thirties that she saw her biological mother’s picture on a cover of a book dealing with her relationship with Goeth that Teege began to realize her family’s complicated legacy. This book is not only the result of her research, but a deeply important reminder about how close we all are to the events of the past, and how much power that past still holds over us all.
Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News: Most of us have heard at least some of the story that grounds this book: in 1938, the Mercury Theater Company produced a dramatized version of H.G. Wells’ War of the World that treated the events as if they were happened in real time, and in New Jersey. The result was mass panic and one alleged death when a listener had a heart attack induced by fear of the imminent alien invasion. But how much of that story is true? A. Brad Schwartz looks at the letters that Orson Welles and his company received in the days and weeks following the broadcast and finds that what people feared wasn’t aliens, but the power of technology, specifically, the radio, to influence their lives. The book itself is an incredibly engrossing, readable story, and, like Teege’s book, has a number of wider implications, especially in our world of breaking news and constant updates.
Dearest Rogue: This is cheating, just as little, as this book came in at the very end of last week, after our last Five Book Friday post, but any time Elizabeth Hoyt comes out with a new book, I throw a little party, so we are including it in this week’s round-up. In this 8th installment in Hoyt’s Maiden Lane series, Captain James Trevillion is charged with protecting Lady Phoebe Batten, who is gradually going blind, and needs all the help she can get to allude the kidnappers who are pursuing her. There simply aren’t enough characters in romance who face issues that cannot be healed by love alone, whether that is emotional scars or physical handicaps, but in this book, Hoyt gives us a heroine who is vivid, strong, and utterly sympathetic–and also losing her sight. Her condition doesn’t matter a whit to James, and it won’t change the way that readers feel about her, either.
Finders Keepers: Stephen King’s newest. I personally don’t think much more needs to be said on the matter, but then again, I grew up thinking he was a family friend because so many of his books were in our house. In any event, this is another story in which King plays with the relationship between readers, writers, and the characters that bind them together, and feature the same three protagonists from Mr. Mercedes. I really don’t want to spoil too much more of this twisted, suspenseful, and genuinely unsettling book so…just put it on reserve today!
Anna and the French Kiss: This book is new to our shelves, but has been garnering praise from readers and romance writers alike (Maureen Johnson, author of the Star of London series, declared it “Very sly. Very funny. Very romantic. You should date this book”). Not only will those readers will a perennial case of wanderlust delight in the adventures of Anna, who is sent to a French boarding school by her father for a year, the hardest of hearts will not help but be softened by the relationship that develops between her and Etienne, a sweet and savvy half-English, half-French student…even though he has a girlfriend already. Does this mean he and Anna can only be friends? And would that be a bad thing, necessarily? This is a unique romance, that doesn’t rely on tragedy or special powers to keep its plot moving, but instead focuses on two people who genuinely enjoy and respect each other. I admit, I was skeptical going in, since so much high praise always makes me a little wary, but I have to admit, Stephanie Perkins’ book lives up to all of it.