Book of the Day Roundup: November 6-10, 2023
My Dog and I
Luca Tortolini
Felicita Sala, illustrator
Milky Way Picture Books
Hardcover $20.99 (48pp)
978-1-990252-30-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A little girl has always wanted a dog; finding one transforms her life for the better, though he’s not quite like the other dogs in the neighborhood. When her dog disappears, the girl is devastated, until an unexpected new friend—and the return of an old one—reminds her that she is never alone. Soft jewel-toned watercolors are enlivened with spots of bright colors and detailed lines in this tongue-in-cheek picture book that’s perfect for animal lovers.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (October 27, 2023)
The Liberators
E. J. Koh
Tin House Books
Hardcover $27.95 (304pp)
978-1-959030-15-7
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A Korean family learns to live with their difficult history in E. J. Koh’s novel The Liberators.
Insuk and her newborn son, Henry, left Korea in the early 1980s to join her husband in California. But Korea will never leave them: Insuk’s father was murdered during a dictatorship, and news from home keeps leaking into the everyday moments of their lives. Haunted by their nation’s past as well as their own, Insuk’s family seeks a way to accept their painful memories without being ruled by them.
From the brutality of World War II to failed twenty-first-century attempts at reunification, Korea and its people underwent countless traumas. These shock waves are reflected in miniature by Insuk and Sungho’s distant marriage, Insuk’s fraught relationship with her mother-in-law, and Henry’s reluctance to commit to his relationship with a North Korean girl. Sparse, elegant prose conveys the depths of the devastation each person feels over everything they’ve lost, from people to beloved pets.
Here, inner turmoil causes people to pull away from the few others who can understand what they have gone through. It is a wonder that approval, affection, and a nation just a few miles away can be so out of reach. A family friend, Robert, cannot cope with this reality and pays a heavy price. But Insuk, Sungho, and Henry prove that not everyone has to suffer the same fate. Sometimes, with time and effort, old wounds can be healed, even if they are never forgotten. And sometimes, it is possible to learn from the past and start building bridges rather than walls.
Spanning nearly seventy years, The Liberators is a soaring multigenerational saga about learning to accept the past without letting it overshadow the future.
EILEEN GONZALEZ (October 27, 2023)
How to Build a Boat
Elaine Feeney
Biblioasis
Softcover $17.95 (304pp)
978-1-77196-585-9
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A motherless, neurodivergent boy bonds with his childless teacher in Elaine Feeney’s novel How to Build a Boat.
Jamie’s first day of secondary school was a complete catastrophe. But he also met Tess, an English teacher who treats him with kindness. Tess, like Jamie, never got to know her mother. Each feels lost in their own way.
Tess and Jamie spend the school term getting to know each other and themselves. They learn to find their own places in the world, away from the expectations of others. Along the way, Tess, who’s struggling with infertility and a crumbling marriage, develops an attraction to the school’s woodworking teacher, who helps Jamie with a boat-building project that may allow him to process his mother’s death at last.
Scenes depicting Jamie’s challenges are made all the more upsetting by the fact that he cannot understand the full danger of the bullying he faces or of the bigotry being planted in the students’ minds by extremist staff members. His inborn rationality proves both a help and a hindrance, serving as a barrier to adults’ bad intentions and to more flexible ways of viewing the world that could help him better deal with his overwhelming emotions. An eventful holiday break brings clarity to Tess—and trouble for everyone else.
Ending with a scene of quiet beauty, like the first beam of sunshine after a rainstorm, that cannot last forever but whose serenity is memorable and relieving, How to Build a Boat is a novel about the pressure that people face to mold to the expectations of others—and the relief of being able to shove that pressure aside.
EILEEN GONZALEZ (October 27, 2023)
Friday Night Cocktails
52 Drinks to Welcome Your Weekend
AJ Dean
The Collective Book Studio
Hardcover $19.95 (152pp)
978-1-68555-486-6
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Perfect for budding mixologists or seasoned professionals in search of inventive twists, the sleek cocktail book Friday Night Cocktails is replete with creative beverages to slake your seasonal thirsts.
A bit of history on cocktails themselves opens this irresistible guide, followed by a quick rundown of the gear—and glasses—that any accomplished cocktail-maker will claim. Thereafter, it’s a race through the year—beginning with the cozy, citrus-themed tastes of fall.
Perennial favorites like the Vesper and Boulevardier coexist with revived treasures like the Chrysanthemum (featuring absinthe and vermouth) and the raspberry-tart Clover Club. Chocolate bitters and shavings breathe decadent new life into the Old-Fashioned, and the Negroni Sbagliato is the mistake you’ll want to make.
The recipes are concise—one per page, with tidy lists of ingredients, garnishes, and the necessary glassware. Each is complemented by a corresponding image of the drink in question—pictures that are artful and evocative in their own right. And the suggested variations, recipes for scrumptious syrups, and intermittent tips (such as to dry leftover citrus for later, or on how to dry-shake egg white for the perfect foam) make the guide useful even beyond the promised 52 options.
With its elegant photographs and gleaming, gilt-letter packaging, Friday Night Cocktails is a crowd-pleasing guide for those who raise their glasses to the weekend.
MICHELLE ANNE SCHINGLER (October 27, 2023)
Shadow Hills
Sean Ford
Secret Acres
Softcover $23.95 (224pp)
979-898558634-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Sean Ford’s haunting graphic novel Shadow Hills focuses on a fantastical environment-versus-economics conflict.
Sleepy, remote Shadow Hills, with its vast, barren landscapes, doesn’t have much going for it beyond its shale reserves. Indeed, drilling is the mainstay of the local economy. When citizens start being covered by a mysterious, aggressive black liquid, the townspeople spring into action.
Even before the ooze, Shadow Hill residents led often bleak lives, though circumstances kept many from leaving town. Their intriguing backstories are shared throughout. Among them are twin sisters Anne and Dana; Dana disappeared underground with a boy years before and hasn’t aged since. She discovers the origin of the black substance; this, along with weird mushrooms and Anne’s questionable choice, leads the book toward its surprise conclusion.
There’s a striking environmental warning herein: though fracking benefits some Shadow Hills residents, it carries serious consequences for all. The book’s muted hues enhance this desolate setting, making people’s desperation palpable.
In the immersive graphic novel Shadow Hills, small-town denizens fight against the black ooze that threatens to destroy their home.
PETER DABBENE (October 27, 2023)
Barbara Hodge
