July Books From the Book Expo

Each month I will share with you the books that I got at the Book Expo that publish this month. The July books are particularly interesting.

The Last List of Miss Judith Kratt is a debut novel by Andrea Bobotis. Set in the small town of Bound, South Carolina, Judith discovers that she has inherited everything from her family- "the pie safe, the copper clock, the murder no one talked about." From Sourcebooks Landmark, it sounds like a book to read on the front porch with a cold glass of lemonade.

I read Marcy Dermansky's novel Bad Marie and thought that she was a remarkable writer. In Very Nice Rachel kisses her writing professor and when he needs a place to stay, she invites him home to her large Connecticut where he begins an affair with Rachel's divorced mom. Dermansky excels at writing complicated characters and this "brilliantly funny novel of money, sex, and bad behavior" should continue in that vein. Published by Knopf.

No one is getting more press than Colson Whitehead for his novel The Nickel Boys. Set in 1960's Florida, young Elwood is sentenced to a reform school, Nickel Academy, for an innocent mistake. The academy is supposed to provide "physical, intellectual and moral training" to help the boys grow into fine men. In reality it is a place of horrors where the boys, particularly the black boys, are beaten and sexually abused. Whitehead's last novel, The Underground Railroad, was a powerful novel about slavery in the South, and this one looks to be just as gut-wrenching. It's from Doubleday.

Karen Dukess has a perfect summer book, The Last Book Party, set in Cape Cod and the publishing world of 1980s New York (when times were good and the money flowed). It's a coming-of-age story about a young woman who wants to be a part of the literary scene, until she sees what it's really like. Henry Holt publishes.

I read Lisa Taddeo's nonfiction Three Women, where she writes about the sexual desires of three distinct women- Maggie (who had a sexual relationship with her high school teacher and when she reveals it, she is the one who suffers), Lina (an Indiana thirty-something housewife who has an affair with her high school boyfriend after a disappointing sexual relationship with her husband) and Sloane (a forty-something successful restaurateur who has sex with other men while her husband watches). There's a lot to be sad about here, as the women are not in great relationships, and it is very sexually graphic and brutally honest. Avid Reader Press publishes.

Laura Lippman follows up her fantastic novel last year, Sunburn, with the even better Lady in the Lake. It's set in 1960s Baltimore where middle-aged housewife Maddie leaves her husband and son, has an affair with a black police officer, and becomes a newspaper reporter trying to solve the murder of a young black woman. The characters are wonderfully drawn, and I loved the newsroom setting. It's published by William Morrow.

See you in August!

Friday 5ive- Catching Up

Welcome to this week's edition of the Friday 5ive, five things that caught my attention this week. This post is a catch-up of sorts, with two things that I did a few weeks ago and didn't have a chance to tell you all about.

1) On June 29th I went to see Hugh Jackman at Madison Square Garden in his "Hugh Jackman- The Man. The Music. The Show" tour. I saw Jackman when he did his one man Back on Broadway show a few years back. This show had a few elements from that one, he sang songs from his Tony-winning performance as Peter Allen, he told stories about his life. The big difference here was that he included songs from the movies The Greatest Showman and Les Miserables. He had Keala Settle come on and blow the roof off Madison Square Garden with her rendition of "This Is Me" from The Greatest Showman. The Harlem Village Academy school choir joined him for a few songs too, including "You Will Be Found" from Dear Even Hansen. I most enjoyed his medley of classic movie songs, including "Luck Be a Lady", "Singin' in the Rain" , "I Got Rythym", "Stepping Out With My Baby" and "Sing Sing Sing". He really knows how to rock a tuexdo and top hat too. Jackman is a versatile entertainer who just wants people to have a good time, and we all did. Catch his tour if you can, you'll leave with a big smile on your face.

2) I also went to see The Cher Show on Broadway, starring Stephanie J. Block as Star Cher in her Tony-award winning performance. You would swear you were seeing the actual Cher up there, Block is that good. I've seen her in 9 to 5 on Broadway (in the Jane Fonda role), in Falsettos and in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and she is a fantastic actress. I'm so happy she won the Tony. The show features three actresses in the role of Cher- "Babe", young Cher played by just-out-of-high school Micaela Diamond, (who is terrific and we'll be seeing her on Broadway for a long time) "Lady", (Cher of the Sonny and Cher Show years) played by Teal Wicks, and Block as "Star". Jarrod Spector brilliantly plays Sonny Bono, and he sounds exactly like him when he sings. The three actresses interact with each other as Cher, which some people found confusing, but I thought it worked well. The biggest problem is that it's too difficult to tell Cher's 50-years-in-the-spotlight story in two hours and fifteen minutes on stage. Netflix or HBO should do a miniseries on her life. Go see The Cher Show before it closes August 18th.

3) We went to our annual NY Yankees game this week with my brother, who was visiting. It was the perfect night for a game, a warm, sunny evening. The first place Yanks were playing second place Tampa Bay, and the first batter of the game, Travis D'Arnaud hit a home run to right field. He went on to hit two more home runs, including the game winning three-run homer in the 9th inning to beat the Yankees 5-4. At least we had good seats and my soft pretzel was tasty.

Brett Garner and Aaron Hicks in the outfield

4) My husband and I have been totally absorbed by The Good Fight on CBS on Sunday night. We watched The Good Wife when it was on, and we are loving The Good Fight. Christine Baranksi was always the best part of The Good Wife, so I'm happy to see her in the starring role. Cush Jumbo and Sarah Steele are also back from the first series, and their expanded roles here give them room to shine. I don't know why CBS relegated The Good Fight to their CBS All Access streaming network, it's better than any drama they currently have on their broadcast network.

The cast of The Good Fight

5) I'm reading two nonfiction books now- Say Nothing- The True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe and Three Women by Lisa Taddeo. Say Nothing tells the story of a widowed mother of ten children who is taken away from her home in Belfast by masked men and never seen again. Through her story, we find out about "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland, as the I.R.A., a militia of mostly Catholic men and women, battle the British soldiers who are there to maintain the status quo for the ruling Protestant minority by any means possible, including brutal violence against the citizens of Northern Ireland. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about that time in recent history.

Say Nothing

Three Women has been a very buzzed-about book for many months. Author Lisa Taddeo talks about the sexual desires of women through the stories of three women. The first is a young woman who had a sexual relationship with her teacher while in high school, and when she reports it a few years later is met with scorn from her community. The second woman is a successful restaurant owner whose husband likes to watch her having sex with other men. Rumors fly in her community about her as well. The third woman is a thirty-something housewife whose husband refuses to kiss her or have sex with her. She reconnects with a high school love and has an affair. This is riveting nonfiction that reads like fiction.

Three Women

I hope you have a great weekend and that you stay cool in this heat.