TOP SHELF
Recommendations of recent books from the staffs of a rotating list of Northern California independent bookstores. This week’s list is from Face in a Book, 4359 Town Center Blvd., El Dorado Hills. (916) 9419401. www.getyourfaceinabook.com.
NONFICTION
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Fraser: Fraser’s thorough and fascinating biography examines the more complex story of Wilder’s family and her life as a homesteader and writer. Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World, by Laura Spinney: More than an epidemiologist’s view of the scourge, “Pale Rider” examines the science of viruses and details of epidemics from ancient to modern times. Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War, by Lynne Olson: This superb account of spies, soldiers and resistance fighters shares the triumphs (and tragic missteps) of many extraordinary individuals who risked all in the struggle. A Wilder Time: Notes From a Geologist at the Edge of the Greenland Ice, by William E. Glassley: In evocative prose, he describes the startling beauty of Greenland and speculates on the nature of perception and the wonder inspired by wilderness.
FICTION Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders: This thoughtprovoking novel explores a vision of death and life, using the occasion of the death of Abraham Lincoln’s beloved son, Willie, and the president’s subsequent visits to Willie’s burial site and those who inhabit the transitional state known in Tibetan Buddhism as the Bardo. Now in paperback.
How to Stop Time, by Matt Haig: A charming time-traveling novel that recounts the many lives of one man, Tom Hazard, who suffers from a condition that makes him look perennially young while he ages.
The Great Alone, by Kristin Hannah: A teenage girl’s struggles to survive family tragedy are set against a backdrop of the many crises of the late ’70s in this gripping tale.
The Book of Boy, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock: The title character sets off on a pilgrimage to capture the seven relics of St. Peter, making discoveries about himself along the way.