NEW THIS WEEK..JANUARY 2017

According to the New York Times, there  are plenty of options this week. Ottessa Moshfegh, author of the acclaimed novel EILEEN (Which I am currently reading....no opinion yet)  has published a collection of short stories, HOMESICK FOR ANOTHER WORLD.

Lucinda Rosenfeld's new novel satirizes liberal Brooklynites and their pieties about class and race. Plus, André Aciman has a new novel....And Marilyn Stasio's Crime column looks at a debut medical mystery, another thriller with "girl" in the title, and a chilly suspense novel by Randall Silvis.

IDAHO by first time author Emily Ruskovich, has been described as a beautifully written lyrical book that almost reads like poetry.

IDAHO by Emily Ruskovich

Random House

Sam McPhee

Set in the wilderness of northern Idaho, Emily Ruskovich’s haunting debut novel Idaho is told from the perspectives of married couple Ann and Wade, and Wade’s first wife, Jenny, who is now in prison. Though Wade’s memory is now fading from early onset dementia, Ann tries to unravel the mystery of what exactly happened to Wade, his ex-wife, and their daughters, and the tragic, shocking act that shattered their lives. 

Publication date: Jan. 3

NOT FOR BEACH READING

Beach reads or not, these books are on my TBR LIST...I hope to get to them eventually as Sunday Times reviews were glowing..if you can believe that....So take a chance...both authors are moderately famous...Leave a comment...

BEFORE THE FALL by Noah Hawley (Thriller) Audiobook available, read by Robert Petkoff On a foggy summer night, 11 people --- 10 privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter --- depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs --- the painter --- and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family. With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members, the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub. MODERN LOVERS by Emma Straub (Fiction) Audiobook available, read by Jen Tullock Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth, Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth. But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch to their own offspring. Now nearing 50, they all live within shouting distance in the same neighborhood deep in gentrified Brooklyn. The summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adult lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose can never be reclaimed. Reviewed by Maya Gittelman. Bookreporter.com

YEAR AHEAD LIST (JANUARY 2015)

 What's coming out in 2015? Having read two really good books on vacation (Scroll down to see reviews) and several not so good, I'm anxiously searching for some year-ahead lists. 

Should I start HONEYDEW by Edith Pearlman? The Times and Boston Globe wrote glowing reviews...or start reading some neglected downloads on my Kindle, overlooked in favor of Words With Friends, the Daily Mail Gossip Page and a quirky Sue Grafton mystery? But that's another story... 

Those who can’t face living in the present, the end of all the retrospective 2014 lists doesn’t have to spell doom. It’s time to see what the future brings....

Here's what John Williams of the Times had to say.....

“GOD HELP THE CHILD” due in April, is a short new novel by the Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison about childhood trauma and its reverberations in adulthood. From the slender to the sizable, April also sees the publication in English of the fourth volume of "MY STRUGGLE" Karl Ove Knausgaard’s series of six autobiographical novels. This one finds him as a teenager, attempting to kick-start a writing career while teaching at a school in a tiny village in the Arctic. Contemplation, no doubt, ensues.

"OUR SOULS AT NIGHT" the last novel by Kent Haruf, who died at 71 in November, is slated for May. It’s set in the fictional town of Holt, Colo., which will be familiar to readers of Haruf’s previous novels. The same month, Nell Zink, whose short novel “The Wallcreeper” drew praise just this past October, wastes no time publishing her second book, " MISLAID" also in May. 

September will bring at least one guaranteed best seller: Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, "PURITY" which revolves around a young woman named Purity, or Pip, who investigates the identity of her father. Also scheduled for September is “THE TSAR OF LOVE AND TECHNO"  a collection of stories by Anthony Marra, whose first novel, “A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,” was published in 2013 to widespread acclaim. 

Other writers with new books scheduled for 2015 include Miranda July, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jane Smiley, Nick Hornby and, in English translation, Mario Vargas Llosa.