Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). International intrigue thriller, beginning with the disappearance of our central woman’s new husband – we think …
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George Ernsberger
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6/10/22
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Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach (Henry Holt). Lovely novel, smart and sweet and racked with grief, by a writer the column has, clearly inexcusably, neglected.
The one who …
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George Ernsberger
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5/27/22
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The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner (Atria).
What? A warm-hearted but sharp-eyed family novel by Jennifer Weiner, with Summer in the title? Who saw that coming? Well, we all did, of course, and …
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George Ernsberger
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5/20/22
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The Fervor by Alma Katsu (Putnam).
Versatile, inventive Katsu here again ingeniously places her supernatural horror fiction within a historical event. Which is, in this case, one that has been …
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George Ernsberger
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5/13/22
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Two Heads: A Graphic Exploration of How Our Brains Work with Other Brains by Uta Frith, Chris Frith, and Alex Frith; Illustrations by Daniel Locke (Scribner).
Oversized (a bit past 7” x …
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George Ernsberger
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5/6/22
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A Tiny Upward Shove by Melissa Chadburn (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). What a first novel! Chadburn is an established essayist, but has made no fiction that I know of before this novel. It’s …
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George Ernsberger
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4/29/22
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Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf).
Beautiful novel by an author I ought to be arrested for never having noticed before (and high on best best-seller lists next Sunday). Clearly …
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George Ernsberger
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4/22/22
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What Comes After by JoAnne Tompkins (Riverhead).
One of last year’s best first novels, set aside by the column then (I remember why: it’s hard to summarize, hard to be clear and …
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George Ernsberger
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4/8/22
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A Sunlit Weapon: A Maisie Dobbs Mystery by Jacqueline Winspear (Harper).
This classic series keeps finding ways to get richer. There’s a crime to be solved, as usual, but this is more a …
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George Ernsberger
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4/1/22
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The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation by Cathy O’Neil with Stephen Baker (Crown).
An ingenious, at once enraging and entertaining, pop-sociological screed against, not …
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George Ernsberger
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3/25/22
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Ocean State by Stewart O’Nan (Grove).
O’Nan is often attentive, as here, to working class life, which it’s clear he knows; he lives in it with us. I don’t recall another …
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George Ernsberger
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3/18/22
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All suspense, all the time (we sometimes have weeks like this, don’t we?)
The Cage by Bonnie Kistler (Harper).
Regular readers will surely remember the dramatic moment a few weeks ago …
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George Ernsberger
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3/11/22
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