Beagle and Wolf Books & Bindery Newletter

Staff Picks


Page One Staff Picks Youth Yak Book Groups News

Jen Jen

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The Silkworm
Robert Galbraith

Last month I dived into Robert Galbraith's first Cormoran Strike mystery, The Cuckoo's Calling, and enjoyed it so much I've now read the second book in the series, The Silkworm. Slightly more financially secure than he was in book one, Cormoran takes on a case to find Leonora Quine's missing husband, the author Owen Quine. Leonora may be one of the least sympathetic characters in fiction, and Owen isn't far behind. Nonetheless, Cormoran is moved to take the case, in part because of the Quine’s adult daughter who struggles with developmental challenges. As Cormoran begins to investigate, he discovers that Owen Quine has just finished writing an inflammatory novel that not-so-discreetly divulges the secrets of those in his sphere of contacts. Robin has returned in book two, and as she grows her investigative skills working for Cormoran, she struggles in her relationship with Matthew, her fiancé. These books are thorough, thoughtful, and include fantastic characters. If you're intrigued by this series, as I was, I recommend you start with the first book in the series, The Cuckoo's Calling. For audio book listeners, the narrator of these is great.

Here are Libro links for these books:

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The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death
Helen Marshall

If you think you've read all the circus books you'll ever need, make room for one more, because you don't want to miss Helen Marshall's circus novel. In a fantastic blend of Russian mythology, magical realism, and circus, the narrator - who brilliantly doesn't exist yet—gives her grandmother a reason not to die when wounded and teetering on the edge. Read it for the mystery, the family ties, the magic, or even for the circus, but for whatever reason, just read it.

Note: this book will be released June 24

Sally Sally

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The Allure of Elsewhere
Karen Babine

Karen Babine has mastered the art of writing personal essays and we’re lucky that she takes us along on her quest to visit the places where her family settled in Nova Scotia in the 1660s. A single woman, she revels in her independence on the open road with her cats, Maeve and Galway, as traveling companions. As she travels, Karen considers the human urge to understand our history, particularly in light of her self-proclaimed role as family historian. How are we shaped by the lives and stories of our forebears?

My family came to the United States far later than Karen’s, but reading her book prompted me to pull out a photo album and locate the picture of the farmhouse outside Cook, Michigan where my mother was born during a blizzard on March 3, 1922. Every few years, one of us treks there to ponder the mystery of the lives my grandparents and mother had there (and wonder about the stairway to the second story which is located on the outside of the house.) Perhaps reading The Allure of Elsewhere will prompt you to consider the places which have been home to your family in past years!

The long-abandoned Erickson farmhouse outside Cook, Michigan in 1952.

Lone Dog Road
Kent Nerburn

Kent Nerburn last visited the store November 22, 2013, shortly after the publication of Girl who Sang to the Buffalo. We’re thrilled that he has a new book out, Lone Dog Road, and that he asked to come back here for an event!

In the 1950s, a government agent travels to the remote home of Amos Lone Dog in South Dakota. Lone Dog has two great grandsons, Levi and Reuben. 11-year-old Levi attends an Indian boarding school, but the agent also wants 6-year-old Reuben. There is a scuffle, and Lone Dog’s sacred pipe is broken by the agent. Lone Dog is taken to jail and Ree, his granddaughter and the boys’ mother, instructs her sons to run away.

The boys hop a train going east, with little idea of what they will do. Their flight from the government agent quickly becomes a quest to go to pipestone quarries in Minnesota and secure stone to replace their great grandfather’s pipe. Along the way, they meet a variety of people and have experiences which will change and shape their lives. In turn, the lives of the people they meet are changed by the boys.

Lone Dog Road is the story of a quest, and of redemption, beautifully told by a master writer.

The Salt Stones
Helen Whybrow

Is there a place in which you are grounded, where you feel more truly at home than any other place on earth? Helen Whybrow has experienced that kind of grounding in two places: the farm where she grew up, and the farm where she now lives. Both are small, both are in Vermont.

Many things happen at Knoll Farm, but the central focus for Whybrow is caring for a flock of Icelandic sheep. This beautiful book takes us, as the subtitle promises, through the “Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life.”

Late winter/early spring is lambing time, and the book starts with these words, “With my fingertips in the dark, I can feel a nose and two feet.” I was immediately captivated, and I think you will be, as well. From this beginning, it’s clear that Whybrow’s grounding in the farm is visceral. As she takes us through the seasons of the shepherd’s life (the book actually covers about twenty years of her life), we join her in the birthing of lambs, in the muck of life on a sheep farm, in reciprocal relationships with neighbors, and in the joys and heartaches of her family life.

One night, she and her husband are lying in wait, intent on shooting the coyote which has been preying on the flock. They see the green eyes of the animal, but don’t hit it. Out of this experience comes learning about other ways to exist with the predators. It isn’t easy but is in harmony with the way Whybrow wants to live on Knoll Farm.

The writing of “The Salt Stones” is beautiful, and the reflections on life lived in harmony with the natural words are insightful. Don’t miss this book!

Oh, and salt stones? You’ll have to read the book to learn what they are.

Note: this book will be released June 3.

Far and Away
Amy Poeppel

Ah, summertime! Do you want a book that’s a little lighter and a lot funnier than what you’ve been reading? Take a look at Amy Poeppel’s latest, Far and Away. Amy has a talent for taking a situation in which you can imagine yourself and turning it up just a notch. Not enough to be totally implausible, but enough to make you grin at the absurdity. And her characters are like people you know, but in situations you’re glad you’re not finding yourself. Take Far and Away, a story about a house swap which proves to be far from straightforward. Lucy lives in a modern home in Dallas with three children and lots of pets. Her husband, Mason, is in the midst of a six-month stretch in a NASA biosphere, so remote that his family simply says he’s on Mars. Their son, Jack, a bright but geeky high school senior, gets himself in a situation which makes him an outcast. Greta, an up-and-coming art dealer and her husband Otto, an academic on the outs in his department, live in a museum-quality flat in Berlin. When Otto takes the offer of a summer job in Dallas, Greta’s world is upended. Through an old and sketchy connection, the women are put in touch with each other and quickly—too quickly, as it turns out, decide to swap homes. What can possibly go wrong? Plenty, as it turns out. The women move into not only each other’s homes, but their lives as well.

Get a glass of lemonade, flop into the hammock with Far and Away, and while away the afternoon.

Note: this book will release June 10.

Cascade
Cascade

See Youth Yak for more of Cascade’s reviews.

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Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
V.E. Schwab

This books is for fans of A Dowry of Blood and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Spanning centuries, this vampire novel follows three women in different time periods whose lives intersect with devastating consequences. In the 1500s, Maria tries to rise above her station by marrying well, only to discover she has become a kept woman. In the 1800s, Charlotte is caught being improper with a female friend and is subsequently sent away to learn how to become a good wife. In the present, Alice is a new college student who wakes up to a changed body after an eventful party and an uncharacteristic hookup. I hungrily tore through this lengthy book in only a handful of days and finished it wishing for more. Fingers crossed this one gets a sequel.

Note: this book will be released June 10.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Omar El Akkad

This short book tackles many topics related to the current political climate, with social justice at its core. Weaving throughout the chapters is the author’s own experience during his early life in Egypt and later as an immigrant in the U.S. I found one of the most interesting explorations to be the role journalists and the media play in shaping the cultural narrative, especially surrounding the current conflict in Gaza. Frequently devastating and uncomfortable, this is an important book and rallying cry for our times.

Hannah
Hannah

The Friend
Sigrid Nunez

A small novel; a meditation on writing, and on losing a beloved friend to suicide. The protagonist ends up taking a very large dog into her life: the dog is why I first picked up this book: I’d heard that a new movie has a magnificent dog actor. But when I read this wonderful book, I was bewildered by the thought of making it into a movie. They’ll have to just skim the surface of the wealth of thought the book inspires.

You Should Have Known
Rebecca Keller

Keller wanted to write a “morally complicated story—a story about a good person who has succumbed to their worst impulse.” She has certainly accomplished that.

Francine has fallen one time too many, and her son and daughter convince her to move into assisted living. It’s a very nice facility, and she finds her first new real friend in years. But she also realizes the person who has caused her, and her family, horrible anguish also lives in Ridgewood.

This novel captures some of the sad challenges about aging and about losing loved ones. It also reaffirms the value of living every blessed day.

An Instance of the Fingerpost
Iain Pears

Layers on layers, slowly unfolding…

This is a murder mystery unlike any other. It takes place in 1660 in England, mostly in Oxford. It’s in four parts. It opens with a traveler from Venice who is interested in the new, experimental approach to medicine. I was fascinated to learn about the level of ignorance among scientists, the ways they gradually learned, and the way traditionalists were horrified by experimentation.

Progressive doctors were beginning to understand that blood circulates (of course, as a farmer’s daughter points out, every farmer knows this from watching pigs when their throats are cut.) The Italian describes how he came up with the idea of blood transfusion, working with his friend Lower on a way to try it.

And Lower is an actual historical figure who did transfuse blood between dogs! Most of the characters are based on real people, including the murder victim. There’s a Dramatis Personae list in the backmatter that explains who they are.

To my surprise, the second book is written by one of the other characters involved in the incidents described in the first book. And the third and fourth relay the story as others experienced it. Each is sure he knows who committed the murder, but they all have different murderers in mind.

We never get back to learning about the state of medical knowledge, but we continue to learn about politics, religion, and how people negotiated life in this time and place. The book even becomes spiritual in the end. There were often passages I considered writing down to quote because they apply to our world today. This is a profound novel, if you ask me.



Katrina				The Memory Keeper of Kyiv Erin Litteken If you are a historical fiction lover, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv by Erin Littenken is a must read. This novel follows the story of 16-year-old Katya starting in 1929 during Stalin’s rule of Ukraine. This book introduced me to the Holodomor, a devastating man-made famine during which millions of Ukrainians were starved to death as a result of forced collectivization and the brutal enforcement of policies like “The Law of Five Ears of Grain.” This law contributed to unrealistic grain quotas, widespread food shortages, and mass starvation. While estimates vary, it is believed that between 3.5 and 7 million people perished although the exact number remains unknown, as the Soviet regime deliberately concealed the extent of the tragedy from the world. Explore day to day life as Katya and her family struggle to survive during this brutal time. Then, if you're like me and want to learn more about the Holodomor, read Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum.
				The Heiress Rachel Hawkins If you’re looking for a book that has twists and turns and has you guessing until the end, The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins is a great summer read. Step into the tangled story told through multiple perspectives of Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore, the richest woman in North Carolina, as the mystery of her childhood kidnapping unfolds. Is she truly Ruby, or an imposter? How could four of her husbands have died? And why does her adopted son, Camden, want nothing to do with the vast fortune she left behind?


Lee				Old School Indian Aaron John Curtis Abe Jacobs is 43 and dying. The first-person narration of this novel is done by Dominck Deer Woods, Abe’s alter ego. The publisher uses the phrase “astonishing coming-of-middle-age debut”, and it is all of that… in a good way. [Caution: It does include explicit violence and unconventional sex.] Rapidly approaching death, Abe returns home to the St. Regis Mohawk (Ahkwesáhsne) Reservation. He is willing to see his great uncle Budge Billings for a healing. Except for special occasions, Abe has been gone from the reservation life for 25 years, and he must contemplate how and why this has happened. This is a really really good book.
Lee
				Pictured (in pink) is Aaron John Curtis, author of Old School Indian, with his fellow booksellers at Books & Books in Miami.
				The River's Daughter Bridget Crocker The is an amazing memoir by a world-class whitewater rafting guide. Bridget Crocker’s early life was pleasant, though on the edge of poverty. She lived on the Snake River in a trailer park with her mom, stepfather, and baby brother. Suddenly all of this was torn asunder when her mom had an inexplicable personality shift. The only thing that provided consistency was the river. In escaping to the river, she found whitewater rafting to be the one thing that allowed her to eventually overcome years of abuse of every type and her own dependencies. This is a memoir that gifts the reader a full range of wonderful possibilities for their own life, and the descriptions of her rafting adventures are an incredible bonus. Note: this book will release June 3
				The Möbius Book Catherine Lacey One portion of the book is a conversation between Marie and Edie about failed loves (and a mysterious stain outside a neighbor’s door). The other part is a memoir where the novelist, after a sudden breakup, begins to trace her life through her friendships, relationships, travel, reading, and memories. Each part is a continuation and a reflection of the other. As with every memoir, the “truth” may lie somewhere outside the writer’s ability to observe and record. In other words, a memoir is true for the person who wrote it, just as our memories are true for ourselves. (And yet we have inevitably discovered at some point that relatives or friends may recall events in a far different way.) And perhaps fiction is just a different way for us to see truth. My favorite quote from the book … Fiction is a record of what has never happened and yet absolutely happened, and those of us who read it regularly have been changed and challenged and broken down a thousand times over by those nothings, changed by people who never existed doing things that no one quite did, changed by characters that don’t entirely exist and the feelings and thoughts that never exactly passed through them. Note: this book will be released June 17
				Ecstasy Ivy Pochoda This is a wild, wild ride for a short (224 page) novel. I was so close to giving it 5 stars, but I was afraid that people would think that meant that they would like it. It is not, at all ... even a little bit, for everyone. The story is very loosely based on "The Bacchae" by Euripides. A man has died. His wife, his son, the wife's friend, and the son's wife travel to the Greek island where the man died. The man had been developing a luxury villa complex, and his son is now within a week of finishing the project. Early on, the reader will find the son to be rudely assertive toward ... everyone. And his mother and her friend think back fondly on the days when they traveled the world as single women, having no money and complete independence. That's it. Sorry. Anything else would be a spoiler. Note: this book will be released June 17



Tim				Independence Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni I'm almost ashamed to admit this is the first book I've read by Divakaruni. Especially so because she writes so well and has written so much (this is like her 20th book.) This novel begins in the small rural town of Ranipur, West Bengal, India, in 1947—just as India is to become independent from Britian. Three sisters are beginning their lives. Different women, different expectations and different futures, yet linked indissolubly by love, family and events. The backdrop is a nation torn by political and religious factions, fueled by prejudice and having decided the best way to achieve statehood is to fracture into two distinct nations. The writing is smooth, gripping, and invites the reader into a world, and a history, rarely glimpsed by the western reader (sadly). This is the June selection of the T.E.D. reading group.
				The Favored Child Philippa Gregory I picked up this novel 'just for entertainment' and got WAY more than I bargained for. Gregory has written several novels of historical fiction, one being, The Other Boleyn Girl, which was great fun and was even made into a movie. Let me say right off... I vastly underestimated this book! Excellent writing, full of surprises. I have never been so simultaneously appalled by and emotionally enmeshed with a novel's main character. I found my skin crawling at some of the choices she made to resolve situations. I repeatedly asked myself, "How can she do that?" Are there limits to self-deceit and self-justification? Are we willing to hurt people we love to gain an objective? Can such an objective be worthy? We are presently being led by people who I do not feel confident, could answer such questions. I'm not entirely sure they would even understand the questions. That makes me DEEPLY uneasy. This book took me out of my own "bubble" and hopefully gave me greater perspective of my own ethical limits and boundaries, as well as the consequences of transgressing them. I wasn't expecting that!!