The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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February 13, 2022

1:36 pm

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The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Description:

The legend begins…

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. “The best of all the Greeks”—strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess—Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine—much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles’ mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.

When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece, bound by blood and oath, must lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

Built on the groundwork of the Iliad, Madeline Miller’s page-turning, profoundly moving, and blisteringly paced retelling of the epic Trojan War marks the launch of a dazzling career.

(flap copy)

First Sentence:

My father was a king and the son of kings.

While the Iliad covers just a short period of time in the last year of the Trojan War, this novel begins with the childhood of Patroclus, Achilles’ companion who appears a few times in the epic before becoming the reason Achilles finally re-enters the fighting. (I’d say sorry for the spoilers, but can you spoil the ending of something that’s been out for a couple millenia?)

Patroclus narrates the story, from his exile through his growing relationship with young Achilles, right on up to and beyond his death on the Trojan battlefield. About halfway through the book, I began wondering how the ending was going to be handled. The answer is: beautifully. Patroclus remains our window to the action, underscoring just how horrific all of it really is.

Since the story draws on Homer’s Iliad, there is quite a lot of violence, but it is not glorified. Patroclus is a sensitive boy in a world that only celebrates the most masculine of men. His slow realization of who Achilles is (to the rest of the world) is heartbreaking. After reading the Iliad, with its description of battle after battle, reading this novel brought it all back down to the human level.


Source: My actual, physical TBR shelf. I think I picked it up for free somewhere.

Challenges: Official TBR Pile Challenge; Mount TBR; and Read Harder 2022: Either #3 (Read any book from the Women’s Prize shortlist/longlist/winner list) or #21 (Read a queer retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, folklore, or myth), depending on whether I get to a couple of other books before the end of the year.

The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander

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February 5, 2022

5:08 pm

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The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander by Homer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Description (from back cover copy):

Composed around 730 B.C., Homer’s Iliad recounts the events of a few momentous weeks in the protracted ten-year war between the invading Achaeans, or Greeks, and the Trojans in their besieged city of Ilion. And, as told by Homer, this ancient tale of a particular Bronze Age conflict becomes a sublime and sweeping evocation of the destruction of war throughout the ages.

Carved close to the original Greek, acclaimed classicist Caroline Alexander’s new translation is swift and lean, with the driving cadence of its source—a translation epic in scale and yet devastating in its precision and power.

First Sentence:

Wrath – sing, goddess, of the ruinous wrath of Peleus’ son Achilles
that inflicted woes without number upon the Achaeans,
hurled forth to Hades many strong souls of warriors
and rendered their bodies prey for the dogs,
for all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished;
sing from when they two first stood in conflict —
Atreus’ son, lord of men, and godlike Achilles.

Homer’s Illiad is a Classic-with-a-Capital-C. I think I must have read some of it as part of a comparative literature course in college, but I don’t remember it at all, so aside from vague recollections of Greek mythology and a middle school play about the Trojan War (mostly memorable for a joke that none of us understood at the time), I came to it without any background.

I really appreciated Arnold’s introduction, which went over what is known about Homer and the Epic Cycle, as well as the historical setting and the major players in the drama. The map and family trees provided were a helpful reference – for some reason, I had particular difficulty remembering that Alexandros is Paris, and who was related to whom on which side of the war.

War is the center of this poem, and it is not pretty. There is chapter after chapter of This-Guy-Son-of-That-Guy-Brother-of-This-Other-Guy-King-of-That-Land slew That-Guy-Son-of-This-Guy-Nephew-of-That-Other-Guy-Ruler-of-Such-and-Such-People in graphic ways that emphasize the absolute brutality of battle (even if the grasp of anatomy is questionable). And there are lots of animal sacrifices described in detail.

The sacrifices are meant to keep the favor of the gods, who are busy squabbling amongst themselves on Olympus. That both sides are performing sacrifices and praying to the same fickle gods is also a factor, it seems.

The last few chapters, in which Achilles is finally prodded out of his truly epic sulk and joins in the fighting, take the stakes up a notch, but in the end, the war still hasn’t reached its conclusion. So much horrific bloodshed, and this is only a tiny portion of the Trojan War.

The Iliad is one of the books on my Classics Club list, which I have been neglecting. It’s one of the earliest works on my list, and an important text in Western Literature and History, but I suspect it’s never going to rank among my personal favorites.

Source: Purchased at The Last Bookshop, Los Angeles, February 2020

Challenges: Back to the Classics: Classic Set in a Place You’d Like to Visit (we’re going to assume visiting the modern-day site counts, since I don’t particularly wish to visit the last year of an epic war, thanks); Official TBR Pile Challenge; Mount TBR; and Classics Club.

An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science by Edward J. Larson

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January 26, 2022

7:00 am

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An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science
by Edward J. Larson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book Description (via GoodReads):

Published to coincide with the centenary of the first expeditions to reach the South Pole, An Empire of Ice presents a fascinating new take on Antarctic exploration. Retold with added information, it’s the first book to place the famed voyages of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, his British rivals Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and others in a larger scientific, social, and geopolitical context.

Efficient, well prepared, and focused solely on the goal of getting to his destination and back, Amundsen has earned his place in history as the first to reach the South Pole. Scott, meanwhile, has been reduced in the public mind to a dashing incompetent who stands for little more than relentless perseverance in the face of inevitable defeat. An Empire of Ice offers a new perspective on the Antarctic expeditions of the early twentieth century by looking at the British efforts for what they actually were: massive scientific enterprises in which reaching the South Pole was but a spectacular sideshow. By focusing on the larger purpose, Edward Larson deepens our appreciation of the explorers’ achievements, shares little-known stories, and shows what the Heroic Age of Antarctic discovery was really about. 

First Line:

When I tell friends that I’m writing a book about the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration, they typically respond in one of two ways.

(Preface)

Larson won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in History for Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion, which is (of course) now part of my never-ending virtual TBR. I added this book to that list in April of 2011, making it – as of the first of this year – the oldest entry. Since the book published in May 2011, I suspect I ran across it while doing collection development for the library.

I picked up a physical copy at The Strand in NYC in January 2018 (for a Sherlockian gathering – I do spend a lot of time thinking about the Victorian era), along with a copy of Apsley Cherry-Garard’s The Worst Journey in the World. The latter is on my Classics Club list.

Larson is a historian, and this book came out of Yale University Press, so it’s no surprise that it is not a light read. It delves into details about the major British Antarctic expeditions – the Discovery (British National Antarctic Expedition 1901-04, under Commander R.F. Scott), the Nimrod (British Antarctic Expedition 1907-09, under E. Shackleton), and the Terra Nova (British Antarctic Expedition 1910-13, under Captain R.F. Scott) – and connects them to the broader history of Arctic and Antarctic exploration.

As Larson points out, there have been many works published about these voyages, but few focus on the scientific research that was a main focus of the expeditions at the time. Power struggles between the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society were a constant behind the scenes, affecting the structure, the crew selection, and the objective(s) of each mission. Larson looks at the lasting social, cultural, and scientific impacts of the Heroic Age, using each chapter to focus on the developments in a specific field (including biology, glaciology, and paleontology) over the broad time period, highlighting the ways earlier expeditions affected later ones on multiple fronts.

There is a lot of information packed into this book. I expect I’ll be revisiting it in future. I’m very happy that there is a nice index. I do wish there had been a full bibliography included, since I’m now combing through the notes to compile my own.

In 2018, Larson published To the Edges of the Earth: 1909, the Race for the Three Poles, and the Climax of the Age of Exploration. It’s also on my to-read list, naturally.

Source: Purchased at The Strand, NYC, in 2018

Challenges: Read Harder 2022: Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest; Mount TBR 2022

Murder Outside the Lines (Pen & Ink Mysteries #3) by Krista Davis

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January 17, 2022

7:00 am

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Murder Outside the Lines
by Krista Davis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Publisher Description (via GoodReads):

With Halloween just around the corner, the fall colors in Georgetown are brilliant. As manager of the Color Me Read bookstore, coloring book creator Florrie Fox has arranged for psychic author Hilda Rattenhorst to read from Spooktacular Ghost Stories. But the celebrity medium arrives for the event in hysterics, insisting she just saw a bare foot sticking out of a rolled-up carpet in a nearby alley. Is someone trying to sweep murder under the rug? Florrie calls in her policeman beau, Sergeant Eric Jonquille, but the carpet corpse has disappeared without a trace.

Then in the middle of her reading, Hilda chillingly declares that she feels the killer’s presence in the store. Is this a publicity stunt or a genuine psychic episode? It seems there’s no happy medium. When a local bibliophile is soon discovered missing, a strange mystery begins to unroll. Now it’s up to Florrie and Jonquille to expose a killer’s true colors . . . 


First Line:

The crate was delivered to Color Me Read around noon on Thursday.

It’s Spooky Time in Georgetown in the third Pen & Ink Mystery. Florrie Fox is comfortable in her renovated carriage house home, her job as bookshop manager, and her other job creating adult coloring books. So, naturally, things take a turn for the wacky. A human skull arrives in the deliveries. Strange noises come from nowhere. The celebrity psychic booked for an author event shows up claiming she just saw what might be a murder victim, but there is no corpse to be found.

In addition to the present-day mystery, a 200-year-old ghost story is told in pieces, eventually tying into the main story and adding to the atmosphere. In the end, of course, all the seemingly-supernatural happenings get rational explanations. Well, mostly.

This is a fun addition to the series. I only wish I’d read it in the fall for the proper mood. I’ve read both of the previous volumes, but it’s been a while, so I don’t really remember the details. I didn’t really need to, though; there’s enough information in the text to bring readers up to speed on the important things without doing a full recap of everything that’s happened. There’s also a “Cast of Characters” in the front that I found very useful.

There is an ongoing thread about the disappearance of a child (the daughter of Florrie’s boss) years ago that I hope gets some resolution eventually. That was one detail that I had completely forgotten about, so when a reference to it popped up, it was jarring. If harm to children is a no-go for you, dear reader, you might want to skip this series. Other than that, I really enjoy these cozy mysteries and look forward to the next book, A Colorful Scheme, currently slated to publish in August 2022.

Source: Checked out from my public library

Challenges: Read Harder 2022 Task #2: Read a book set in a bookstore

Reading Challenges 2022

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January 12, 2022

7:00 am

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Sepia-toned picture of two piles of books
Image by Thorsten Frenzel from Pixabay

Oh, look. It’s January again.

I actually started this post in December, which might say something about how this is going already.

I’m signing up for four reading challenges this year, along with my ongoing Classics Club list, which is going to play a large part in three of the challenges.

My 2022 Reading Challenges:

  • Read Harder 2022: From the folks at Book Riot, this challenge (now in its 8th year) is “designed to help you break out of your reading bubble and expand your worldview through books.” I managed 22/24 tasks in 2021, largely thanks to a big push in December. Goal for 2022: spread the effort out a bit more.
  • Back to the Classics Challenge 2022: I’m so glad Karen at Books and Chocolate is hosting this again. After my showing of 0 tasks last year, there’s nowhere to go but up, right? I’ll be pulling from my Classics Club 2019-2023 list, which I’m still a teensy bit behind on.
  • Mount TBR Challenge 2022: Another one I completely dropped in 2021. One thing I did do last year, though, was purchase several of the books I want to read from my Classics Club list, which means they all count toward this goal. I also have at least half a shelf of books received when I was part of a mystery-of-the-month club that I would like to read and then probably donate to the library.
  • Official TBR Pile Challenge 2022: Adam at Roof Beam Reader has brought back the Official TBR Pile Challenge. Unlike Mount TBR, this one requires a list at the beginning of the year. My list has its own Official TBR Pile Challenge 2022 page.

I will once again be tracking the challenges using the post tags and using the pages linked under “Reading Challenges“.

How about you? Any goals for 2022?

Virtual Birthday Fun

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January 10, 2022

7:00 am

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Sherlockiana

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Not my birthday (though that is approaching)!

Sherlockians like to celebrate the (possible) birthday of one Mr. Sherlock Holmes with festivities at the beginning of January. Some of these events have become annual traditions that take place in New York City. Last year, everything went virtual, but this year, some brave souls are once again venturing to gather in the Big Apple.

But! There are also quite a few virtual events going on this weekend, and I will definitely be attending some of them. If you’d like to join in the merriment, the fabulous Madeline Quiñones at A Study in Imagination has the round-up for you: Virtual BSI Weekend Schedule.

Will I see you there?

2021 Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

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January 9, 2022

7:00 am

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Well. That was certainly a year, wasn’t it? Remember all those reading challenges I signed up for in 2021? Let’s see how those went!

Read Harder 2021
Goal: 24 Books
Result: 22 (92%)

  1. Read a book you’ve been intimidated to read
  2. Read a nonfiction book about anti-racism: Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
  3. Read a non-European novel in translation: The Others by Sarah Blau
  4. Read an LGBTQ+ history book: Stonewall: A Building, an Uprising, a Revolution by Rob Sanders
  5. Read a genre novel by an Indigenous, First Nations, or Native American author: Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
  6. Read a fanfic: Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse
  7. Read a fat-positive romance
  8. Read a romance by a trans or nonbinary author: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
  9. Read a middle grade mystery: Linked by Gordon Korman
  10. Read an SFF anthology edited by a person of color: A Universe of Wishes: A We Need Diverse Books Anthology edited by Dhonielle Clayton
  11. Read a food memoir by an author of color: The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-american Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty
  12. Read a work of investigative nonfiction by an author of color: The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell: A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI’s Hunt for America’s Stolen Secrets by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
  13. Read a book with a cover you don’t like: Shirlick Holmes and the Case of the Wandering Wardrobe by Jane Yolen
  14. Read a realistic YA book not set in the U.S., UK, or Canada: If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan
  15. Read a memoir by a Latinx author: Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx by Sonia Manzano
  16. Read an own voices book about disability: The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer
  17. Read an own voices YA book with a Black main character that isn’t about Black pain: Tristan Strong Destroys the World (Tristan Strong #2) by Kwame Mbalia
  18. Read a book by/about a non-Western world leader: No Room for Small Dreams: Courage, Imagination, and the Making of Modern Israel by Shimon Peres
  19. Read a historical fiction with a POC or LGBTQ+ protagonist: The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan
  20. Read a book of nature poems: The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane
  21. Read a children’s book that isn’t about disability that includes a main character with a disability: Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly
  22. Read a book set in the Midwest: Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park
  23. Read a book that demystifies a common mental illness: Empty by Susan Burton
  24. Read a book featuring a beloved pet where the pet doesn’t die: Murder Always Barks Twice (Chatty Corgi Mystery #2) by Jennifer Hawkins

There were several books that I sought out specifically to satisfy challenges, so I feel this did what it was supposed to do in broadening my reading horizons. I had a book picked out for task 7, but I just ran out of time. And I never did figure out what to read for task 1. At least, not with enough time left in the year to finish.

2021 Netgalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge
Goal: 25 books (silver), and 10% feedback ratio
Result: 39, and 10% feedback ratio

I gave feedback on a whole slew of titles I’d read since joining Netgalley in 2011, but I also requested a bunch of new titles.

Back to the Classics Challenge 2021
Goal: 12 books
Result: 0

I’m sure I read books that fit at least two of the challenges, but I forgot to actually post about them, so I’m not counting them.

Mount TBR Challenge 2021
Goal 24 books (Mount Blanc)
Result: 0

I know I’m missing some books from my reading log – I’m sure I read something in the month of April. I checked out a lot of books from the library, though. Almost 82% of the books I read, according to the log stats.

Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2021
Goal: 24 books(Mount Crumpit)
Result: 77 books (320%)

So, the thing about this challenge is that it counts books that you add to your virtual TBR within the year. It’s really a count of books I read that I don’t own, including a bunch I read for work after the Youth Media Awards were announced. If I only count books that I added to my GoodReads list prior to 1/1/21, the total drops to 19.

Overall, it was a pretty good year of reading. But in 2022, I’ve really got to tackle my physical TBR and those classics. My Classics Club deadline is coming up fast.

Yarn for the Holidays

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November 29, 2021

7:00 am

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Yarn

The last several years, I’ve watched as folks opened yarn Advent calendars all through December. I, of course, already have my Adagio tea Advent calendar, but I decided to get myself some holiday yarn this year, too.

It seems the Universe decided to showcase its wacky sense of humor, because I ended up ordering not one, not two, but three different holiday yarn boxes. Two of them will appear later, but let’s start with this lovely package from Shaina Bilow Designs.

There have been a few Christmas Advent yarn calendars on offer, but not a lot of goodies for Chanukah. (Note: No, Chanukah is not “Jewish Christmas”. It is, however, a lovely holiday in its own right, personally significant for me, and absolutely a fine excuse reason to treat oneself or a loved one to some yarny goodness.)

Light blue cardboard box open to reveal blue tissue paper

This is a single box of goodies, all to be opened at once, under this fun blue tissue paper.

Light blue cardboard box open to reveal yarn and related goodies

Look at all that! So much packed into that box!

A set of mini-skeins of yarn in blue, gray, gold, and cream, several recipe cards, two packets of tea, chocolate gelt, stitch markers, cookies, and a few other treats.

The yarn is so, so squishy. The cookies and chocolates disappeared pretty early on. The moisturizer is really, really nice. And there are, of course, eight stitch markers in that set.

A (digital) pattern booklet with one crochet and eight knit patterns was included. I’ve been working on the “Eighth Knit Brioche Cowl“. It’s my first brioche project, which has its own challenges, but it is so soft and lovely I get a kick out of just squooshing it as I work.

Chag Chanukah sameach, my friends.

A Big Addition to the Collection

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August 10, 2021

9:00 am

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Sherlock Holmes, Sherlockiana

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Things have been rough in the world of late, and my little corner of it is no exception. But at the end of a particularly rocky week personally, I came home from work to a box full of books.

Not just any books, of course. These are Sherlockian kids’ books, the kind of books of which, being both a Children’s Librarian and a Sherlockian, I have curated a small collection.

That collection just got bigger.

40 books!

Kids’ books tend to have short lifespans; they come into print and go out again at speed. The intended audience is not the adult collector, but the child (or teen) looking for a fun read. They get tossed into backpacks, carted around, and generally enjoyed and then disposed of.

And that’s great! That’s what they’re for!

It does, however, present challenges for the collector, or even someone just looking to read them later. Last year, while researching for a presentation (that was sadly scuttled by the pandemic), I had to get special permission to borrow one of the later Basil of Baker Street books, because it was the only copy in my very large library system, and so had been made non-circulating.

So you can imagine how excited I was to receive an email from Denny Dobry, who was arranging a very large sale of Sherlockian items to benefit the BSI Trust. He receives a lot of stuff, and the market for the sort of books I collect is quite small. He had heard about my collection, and he offered me the pick of what he had.

I resisted the temptation to just say, “Send the lot and I’ll sort it out here,” because even I do not need a third copy of Railroad Arthur. (Why do I already have two copies of that book? Another story for another day.)

There were books I’ve been trying to find for ages, like Arthur and the Great Detective, and books I had no idea existed, like Jane Yolen’s The Robot and Rebecca. Sherlock Holmes as a Muppet, as a bird, as a bug, as a kid. Chapter books, picture books, manga. And, of course, an edition of Hound of the Baskervilles.

I took a few quick photos before finding spots on the shelves. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the books as I read them!

  • Joe Sherlock is awfully cute.
  • Young Miss Holmes manga, and something by Jane Yolen
  • Sherlock Bones, naturally
  • Trouble in Bugland, another book I had to borrow last year
  • More dogs
  • I have been searching for Arthur and the Great Detective for years
  • Hound of the Baskervilles, or Hounded by Baskervilles? Why not both?
  • Muppets!

Is there anything better than book mail?

Ten Books I’m Looking Forward to in June 2021

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May 25, 2021

8:00 am

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A floral-patterned teacup on a saucer sits on a stack of thick books with yellowed pages.
Image by Ylanite Koppens from Pixabay

It’s time once again to take a peek at the TBR and a few books I’m especially excited about in the next month. Publication dates are as listed in May 2021 and are subject to change.

The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease by Daisy Hernández (June 1)

Why do some infectious diseases make headlines and others fall by the wayside? After her aunt’s death, Hernández begins searching for answers about who our nation chooses to take care of and who we ignore. Crisscrossing the country, she interviews patients, epidemiologists, and even veterinarians with the Department of Defense. She learns that outside of Latin America, the United States is the only country with the native insects—the “kissing bugs”—that carry the Chagas parasite. She spends a night in southwest Texas hunting the dreaded bug with university researchers. She also gets to know patients, like a mother whose premature baby was born infected with the parasite, his heart already damaged. And she meets one cardiologist battling the disease in Los Angeles County with local volunteers. 


Wolf Lamb Bomb by Aviya Kushner (June 1)

 In the aftermath of September 11th, ongoing violence in the Middle East, and resurgent antisemitism, Kushner reflects on a Biblical understanding of humanity and justice. Wolf Lamb Bomb wonders equally about our relationship with an inherited past and our desire to understand the precarious present. These poems place the prophet Isaiah in the position of poet, crooner, and rival as they search for a guide in poetry and in life.


The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-Chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts (June 1)

In 1954, sixty-three-year-old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins embarked on an impossible journey. She had no money and no family, she had just lost her farm, and her doctor had given her only two years to live. But Annie wanted to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She ignored her doctor’s advice to move into the county charity home. Instead, she bought a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, donned men’s dungarees, and headed south in mid-November, hoping to beat the snow. Annie had little idea what to expect beyond her rural crossroads; she didn’t even have a map. But she did have her ex-racehorse, her faithful mutt, and her own unfailing belief that Americans would treat a stranger with kindness.


One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston (June 1)

A 23-year-old realises her subway crush is displaced from 1970’s Brooklyn, and she must do everything in her power to help her – and try not to fall in love with the girl lost in time – before it’s too late . . .


The 2000s Made Me Gay: Essays on Pop Culture by Grace Perry (June 1)

Join Grace on a journey back through the pop culture moments of the early 2000’s, before the cataclysmic shift in LGBTQ representation and acceptance―a time not so long ago, that people seem to forget.


After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made by Ben Rhodes (June 1)

Equal parts memoir and reporting, After the Fall is a hugely ambitious and essential work of discovery. Throughout, Rhodes comes to realize how much America’s fingerprints are on a world we helped to shape: through the excesses of our post-Cold War embrace of unbridled capitalism, post-9/11 nationalism and militarism, mania for technology and social media, and the racism that shaped the backlash to the Obama presidency. At the same time, he learns from a diverse set of characters – from Obama to rebels to a rising generation of leaders – how looking squarely at where America has gone wrong only makes it more essential to fight for what America is supposed to be at home – for our own country, and the entire world.


Ruby Red Herring (Avery Ayers Antique Mystery #1) by Tracy Gardner (June 8)

The trouble starts when the Museum of Antiquities hires Avery to appraise a rare, resplendent ruby. It bears a striking similarity to a stone in the museum’s bejeweled dragon’s-head medallion. One of the dragon’s ruby eyes was stolen long ago–replaced with a fake. Now, Avery’s colleagues–pompous Sir Robert Lane and fatherly Micah Abbott–suspect they may have the missing gem. But facets of the case remain cloudy. Detective Art Smith is snooping around. Another body turns up. And Avery finds mysterious notes that, impossibly, seem to be written by her father.


Battle for the Big Top: P.T. Barnum, James Bailey, John Ringling, and the Death-Defying Saga of the American Circus by Les Standiford (June 15)

Millions have sat under the “big top,” watching as trapeze artists glide and clowns entertain, but few know the captivating stories behind the men whose creativity, ingenuity, and determination created one of our country’s most beloved pastimes.


The Natural Mother of the Child by Krys Malcolm Belc (June 15)

As a nonbinary, transmasculine parent, Krys Malcolm Belc has thought a lot about the interplay between parenthood and gender. Giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity and allowed him to project a more masculine self. And yet, when his partner Anna adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as “the natural mother of the child.”


The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict (June 29)

Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle’s complexion isn’t dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white–her complexion is dark because she is African American.