REQUIRED READING
Goodbye to Clocks Ticking: How We Live While Dying
Joseph Monninger (nonf iction, Steerforth) After more than three decades of teaching, Joseph Monninger was looking forward to a long retirement in a New England cabin. Three days after his last class, he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, and given only a few months to live. With a temporary reprieve granted in the form of a drug that could prolong his life (while not curing the cancer), he sets out to live life to the fullest.
Love and Other Scams
Philip Ellis (f iction, GP Putnam’s Sons) Single and broke, Cat can’t help but resent her friends, most of whom seem to be married or engaged. She develops a side hustle as a pickpocket at weddings; who’s going to notice? Well, no one except one of the bartenders, who, it turns out, is also skilled at the con. When a friend shows up with a priceless engagement ring, the two pair up to try to steal it.
American Mermaid
Julia Langbein (f iction, Doubleday) English teacher Penelope Schleeman is surprised and thrilled when her feminist novel “American Mermaid” becomes a bestseller. She promptly quits her job and moves to LA to help turn the novel into an action flick. But when she’s pressured to change her fierce protagonist, strange things start happening.
Radical By Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace
James T. Costa (nonf iction, Princeton University Press) Perhaps the most famous naturalist of the Victorian age, Wallace’s expeditions to Amazonia and Southeast Asia were the stuff of legend. But it was his devotion to various social causes and radical ideas that flew in the face of the mainstream that made him a truly fascinating figure.
How I’ll Kill You
Ren DeStefano (f iction, Berkley) A thriller about identical triplets with a nasty habit of killing their boyfriends. But when one of them makes a big mistake and falls in love with her mark, the sisters become restless.
The Nursery
Szilvia Molnar (f iction, Pantheon) A woman struggles with motherhood in the aftermath of her baby’s birth; in her apartment with the baby, she falls into a postpartum depression and struggles to come back to life.