BOOK NOTES
WATERMARK BOOKS & CAFE
Bestsellers
1. “All the Beauty in the World” by Patrick Bringley
2. “James” by Percival Everett 3. “Buffalo Fluffalo” by Bess Kalb
4. “Demon of Unrest” by Erik Larson
5. “Funny Story” by Emily Henry
New and notable
“Long Island” by Colm Tóibín (Scribner, $28) From the beloved, critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving and intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding and love — the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of “Brooklyn,” Tóibín’s most popular work — 20 years later. The silences in Eilis’ life are thunderous and dangerous, and there’s no one more deft than Tóibín at giving them language. This is a gorgeous story of a woman alone in a marriage and the deepest bonds she rekindles on her return to the place and people she left behind, to ways of living and loving she thought she’d lost.
“In the Country of the Kaw: A
Personal Natural History of the American Plains” by James H. Locklear (University Press of Kansas, $34.95) Gathering its waters from the plains of Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska, the Kaw is truly America’s prairie river; the only one to arise entirely on the Great Plains and traverse all three major grasslands—shortgrass, mixed-grass, and tallgrass prairies. James Locklear’s “In the Country of the Kaw” is a joyous exploration of the realm of the Kaw River, which stretches from the High Plains of Colorado to the Kansas City metropolitan area.
EIGHTH DAY BOOKS
Bestsellers
1. “On Imagination” by Mary Ruefle
2. “The Art of Purifying the Heart”” by Tomas Spidlik
3. “How to Focus: A Monastic Guide for an Age of Distraction” by St. John Cassian
4. “The Sea and Poison: A Novel” by Shusaku Endo
5. “They Flew: A History of the Impossible” by Carlos Eire
New and notable
“I Cheerfully Refuse: A Novel” by Leif Enger (Grove Press, $28) Set in a not-too-distant America, this book is the tale of a bereaved musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. Rainy seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. Encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. An apocalyptic yet magical tale.
“The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War”
by Erik Larsen (Crown, $35) On Nov. 6, 1860,
Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Somehow, the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink of catastrophe.
Denise Neil: 316-268-6327, @deniseneil