Ann Patchett's Tom Lake, Jamel Brinkley's Witness, and Yepoka Yeebo's Anansi's Gold all feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week.
Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub's "Rotten Tomatoes for books."
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Fiction
1. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
(Harper)
13 Rave • 4 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an interview with Ann Patchett here
"Not that a heart is not broken at some point, but it breaks without affecting the remarkable warmth of the book, set in summer's fullest bloom … This generous writer hits the mark again with her ninth novel … Knowing Patchett's personal history with motherhood makes the fullness of the maternal feelings she imagines for Lara Kenison particularly poignant."
–Marion Winik (The Washington Post)
2. Witness by Jamel Brinkley
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
5 Rave • 1 Positive
Read a story from Witness here
"Like all good stories, Brinkley's are slices of life or dramas in miniature that, despite their relative brevity, come packed with incident, insight and emotion … Some of Brinkley's finest stories depict romantic relationships blossoming or withering on the vine … Well-drawn characters … Brinkley is shaping up to be one of the most impressive contemporary practitioners of short stories. Here, as before, we watch in admiration as he makes a little go an extremely long way."
–Malcolm Forbes (The Star Tribune)
3. Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
(Ecco)
3 Rave • 2 Positive • 2 Mixed
"Chronicles the tumultuous days leading up to the celebration, slowly unearthing the secrets and private pains each of these women has held tight over the years. The narrative flits back and forth in time … Acevedo has laid herself bare in Family Lore as both a creator and as a person, which makes this not just her bravest book to date but perhaps also her best."
–Stephenie Harrison (BookPage)
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Nonfiction
1. Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World by Yepoka Yeebo
(Bloomsbury)
5 Rave • 2 Positive
"Yepoka Yeebo's riveting Anansi's Gold traces the outlines of Blay-Miezah's life, shedding light on how he perpetrated his deceptions for years while living in incredible opulence. The author, a freelance journalist, delves into archives across the Atlantic, digs up criminal proceedings and conducts interviews with victims and associates alike, in the process telling us not just about Blay-Miezah, but about the world that enabled him to thrive … This character study also functions as a key historical text on post-Nkrumah Ghana. We gain behind-the-scenes access to two coups and insight into the functioning of the state intelligence system that ruled before Ghana's transition to democracy."
–Anakwa Dwamena (The New York Times Book Review)
2. The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean by Susan Casey
(Doubleday)
3 Rave • 2 Positive
"Casey's story is irresistibly personal … Casey's descriptions of the shimmeringly strange life teeming below the waves capture her wonder and ravishment in prose that morphs into poetry … Casey touts state-of-the-art, water-loving organizations like OceanX, which means to inspire change by bringing the ocean's wonders up to dry land with cutting-edge cinematography, vivid storytelling, and science—to grip us with the same awe, excitement, and call to action as Casey's luminous book does."
–Caroline Leavitt (The Boston Globe)
3. The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times by Wolfram Eilenberger
(Penguin Press)
7 Positive
"Illuminating … Though Eilenberger could sometimes weave the narrative's various threads together more seamlessly, his energetic, multilayered group portrait reveals that these celebrated thinkers were real people whose ideas, as contradictory as they may seem, developed in response to shared social or political circumstances."
–Publishers Weekly
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