All Books
'Epic City' tells the story of a young expat and his love affair with CalcuttaAuthor Kushanava Choudhury's forte is history, well and freshly told.
'Jefferson's Daughters' tells the story of three of Thomas Jefferson's daughters 鈥� white and black'Jefferson鈥檚 Daughters' brings its period vividly to life, a credit to Kerrison鈥檚 exhaustive research, her passion for her subject, and her elegant writing.
'The Monk of Mokha' follows the true-life adventures of an immigrant turned coffee-entrepreneurIt's yet another example of the uncanny ability of Dave Eggers to transform the long-odds stories of real-life immigrants into poignant page-turners.
Read these books in 2018 Need some help with selecting new books this year? The Monitor asked four bookstores what books they think will excite readers in 2018.聽These 13 recommendations are from four independent bookstores across the United States: Prairie Lights in Iowa City; the Strand in New York; Off the Beaten Path in Steamboat Springs, Colo.; and Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tenn. (The Monitor has not reviewed these selections.)聽
7 popular books from 2017 Is reading more one of your New Year鈥檚 resolutions? Catch up on last year鈥檚 most popular reads 鈥� from fiction to the political 鈥� before diving into 2018 selections.
'Armed in America' asks exactly what the Founding Fathers intended with the Second AmendmentCharles, a historian and legal scholar, spent almost 10 years digging deeply into the issue of gun rights and he has written a credible record of what he learned.
'Norwich' is the town that grows OlympiansHow valuing development over winning helped a town become an Olympic pipeline.
Why are America's wild horses at a crisis point?'Wild Horse Country' author David Philipps discusses聽the rise (and fall and rise) of the American wild horse and the federal government's bizarre approach to equine management.
'Bringing Columbia Home' is a grimly captivating new history of the loss of the space shuttle ColumbiaAuthors Michael Leinbach and Jonathan Ward set their account apart from other 'Columbia' books by following the story from its central tragedy to its almost unthinkably sad immediate aftermath.
'Winter' is Karl Ove Knausgaard's attempt to make you see things anewKnausgaard's essays are naive, charming, and eye-opening.
'Tears of Salt' is a deeply moving, first-hand response to Italy's refugee crisisAs a doctor on Italy's southernmost island, Pietro Bartolo has a front-row seat to one of the world's most horrifying spectacles.
5 new titles to check out in the New YearAmong the flood of 2018 book releases, here are five particularly fine new titles.
How a book by a White House insider made waves ... in 1868Exactly 150 years ago, another insider account captivated the nation by exposing the secret inner workings of the White House. That one was from seamstress Elizabeth 'Lizzy' Keckley, a former slave who became Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker.
'Munich' dramatizes one of the turning points of World War IIRobert Harris's book centers on聽the Munich conference held in September 1938 in which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler in one last desperate attempt to forestall a general European war.聽
'Fools and Mortals' finds Shakespeare's brother taking center stageAs in all the best historical fiction, readers will come away with a seminar's-worth of historical knowledge without feeling like they did any heavy lifting.
'The Square and the Tower' considers the staggering power of networks'The Square and the Tower' gains in fascination as it tells its stories, considering networks ranging from the Mafia to the Soviet Union of Stalin.
'The Music Shop' celebrates the resilience of ordinary people and the healing power of music'The Music Shop' is less melancholy than Rachel Joyce鈥檚 2012 debut 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,' but still tends to a minor key.
'The Road Not Taken,' a biography of Edward Lansdale, makes no secret of its belief in its heroThe book is comprehensively researched and insightfully written. Max Boot is, as always, an extremely talented writer.
'Ghosts of the Tsunami' humanizes the survivors of Japan's 2011 catastrophe'Ghosts' is less an analytical or journalistic account than it is a character-driven, novelistic narrative about loss and trauma.
'A Village with My Name' blends family stories with 20th-century Chinese historyAn NPR reporter tracks his family roots and comes to see China in a new way.
