The recent passing of the beloved author Beverly Cleary (1916-2021) brought to mind some of my favorite Cleary reads, such as Cleary’s YA classics Fifteen (1956), The Luckiest Girl (1958), Jean and Johnny (1959), and Sister of the Bride (1963)–I recently reread these gems. This quartet of novels, sometimes called malt shop novels, are all set in California and revolve around first romances. In the deft hands of Cleary, these books rise above the pack. Still, there are new YA books to consider. Below are listed a few new YA arrivals at TOJL.

Happily Ever Afters (2021) by Elise Bryant is surely in the vein of Cleary’s Fifteen. It is contemporary and smart, and the romance narrative is set within the context of today’s issues. Budding romance writer Tessa struggles to find her place in a new town and a new school and encounters real-life romance as well. This is Bryant’s debut novel.

Another recent YA novel at the library is You Have a Match (2021) by Emma Lord. In this novel of “romance, sisterhood, and friendship” we meet Abby who signs up for a DNA service on a lark only to find a secret sister. Lord is also the author of Tweet Cute (2020).

Also recently published is Lore (2021) by Alexandra Brackman. According to Publishers Weekly, this tale, set in New York City, “blends Greek mythology and modern-day Manhattan.” Bracken is New York Times best-selling author of The Darkest Minds series of books.

–K.E.

All the new thinking is about loss.

In this it resembles all the old thinking.

               –Robert Hass from Meditation at Lagunitas

Loss

These lines from poet Robert Hass came to mind while reading Ann Napolitano’s 2020 novel Dear Edward. The novel follows Edward, a twelve-year-old boy en route to a new life with his family—from New York to California—when the plane crashes leaving him as the sole survivor. Dear Edward is certainly about loss, unfathomable loss for most of us, but it’s also about surviving and moving forward in the most tragic of situations and with the help of compassionate strangers–which made the novel, in the end, joyful and hopeful. I highly recommend it. Napolitano’s other works include A Good Hard Look and Within Arm’s Reach.

Another “Ann”

Ann Patchett had me at the title. Although the Dutch house in Patchett’s novel is outside Philadelphia, in New York Dutch domestic architecture is part of the air we breathe. This latest Patchett work, The Dutch House, begins in midcentury America and follows the story of a brother and sister over five decades. Similar to Dear Edward, this novel also examines loss—loss of a house and much more—but is also about healing. The portraits of the brother and sister are well wrought and compelling.

Literary Fiction

Several new literary fiction titles have arrived at the library, including Chang-rae Lee’s My Year Abroad, which I am currently reading and enjoying, and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Also, just in, Jennifer Ryan’s novel The Kitchen Front set in WWII around a BBC radio cooking contest. Check out NPR’s review. You might also want to consider Ghanaian-American novelist Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom and, if you like fantasy, the best-selling The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab.

Mysteries

A patron recommended the works of recently deceased mystery author Margaret Maron. We have many of her titles, so we created a display of her works in the library. Maron’s works include two series both of which feature female sleuths.

New mysteries/thrillers in the library include works by Jonathan Kellerman, C.J Box, and J.A. Jance.

–K.E.

“Characters, characters, characters” – Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike

Brad Taylor, author of the Pike Logan Thriller series, noted in a recent New York Times Book Review’s By the Book column: “Setting, pace and trajectory are important, but they’re irrelevant without the reader’s emotional investment, and that is driven by characters.” No doubt it is the character of Cormoran Strike appearing in the eponymous series of crime fiction novels by Robert Galbraith, set in contemporary London, that has kept me reading. Galbraith is the pen name of British author J.K. Rowling. Strike is a big lug of a guy with a prosthetic leg; he is a throwback to the down on his luck private eye depending for sustenance, mental and physical, upon whatever walks through the door. His backstory is complex enough—he’s a former military policeman and the illegitimate son of a rock and roll musician—and he has a capable side-kick name Robin. I just finished reading the first in the series, The Cuckoos Calling (2013), and I am already on to the next, The Silkworm (2014). The latest in the series, Troubled Blood, appeared in September 2020.

*Taylor’s most recent installment in his Pike Logan Thriller series, American Traitor, just appeared.

Setting, setting, setting

Having stated that characters are paramount, I need to add that setting is a factor in what I like to read and, especially as we sit here in winter of 2021, a bit of sun is always welcome. A library patron suggested David Baldacci’s Atlee Pine series and I started with Long Road to Mercy (2018), the first book in the series. Pine is an FBI agent “with special skills assigned to the remote wilds of the southwestern United States.” I like the main character, and I am drawn to the vivid southwestern setting. The crime that sets off the narrative takes place at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I cannot get enough of the Grand Canyon and its environs, so when the characters dine at the El Tovar hotel with its breathtaking view of the canyon, the armchair traveler in me is delighted. Daylight, the latest Atlee Pine, appeared in November 2020.

Speaking of setting, I just read If Looks Could Kill (2002), the first book in the Bailey Weggins series by Kate White. This first-person story is set in the publishing world of NYC. I used to work in this milieu, and so it was fun to be plunged into that world again. The details of editorial meetings and book parties are spot on—not surprising as Kate White is a former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine. The most recent installment in this series is Such a Perfect Wife which appeared in 2019.

–K.E.

Where the Crawdads Sing, the bestselling novel by Delia Owens, was one of the most borrowed books at TOJ Library in 2019, but there must be many who missed it. Or for whom it is still on a TBR list.

The novel is set in North Carolina marsh country in the 1950s and 60s; it is structured as two related narratives which the reader expects are moving toward each other. The main story, which begins in 1952, is thoroughly engrossing as it follows a young girl, Kya, as she grows up mostly on her own in the marsh; the second, set in 1969, follows a criminal investigation. Kya’s coming-of-age story is completely absorbing, and so is the book’s deep evocation of place, its flora and fauna:  

“Ducking beneath the low-hanging limbs of giant trees, she churned slowly through thicket for more than a hundred yards, as easy turtles slid from water-logs. A floating mat of duckweed colored the water as green as the leafy ceiling, creating an emerald tunnel. Finally, the trees parted, and she glided into a place of wide sky and reaching grasses, and the sounds of cawing birds. The view a chick gets, she reckoned, when it finally breaks its shell.”

It is perhaps not surprising to learn that Owens is a zoologist, but it may be surprising to learn that she spent most of her adult life in Botswana and Zambia, rather than in North Carolina. She has written about her experiences studying wildlife in Africa in nonfiction works, including Cry of the Kalahari (1984). Crawdads is her first work of fiction. She has said of her novel, “It’s about trying to make it in a wild place.”

The Ickabog has arrived at TOJ Library. This is J. K. Rowling’s first children’s book since the last installment of Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007). Born as a bedtime story for Rowling’s now-teenaged children, The Ickabog is a fairytale set in the kindgom of Cornucopia and features a creature called the Ickabog.