Seeking your next good read? Emma Snyder, owner of The Ivy Bookshop at 5928 Falls Road in Baltimore, offers recommendations for must-read titles for adults and children.
Fiction
“Wandering Stars”
By Tommy Orange, Knopf,
336 pages, $29 (hardcover)
Tommy Orange, author of the remarkable debut novel There, There, returns with a heartbreaking and beautiful follow-up, tracing three generations of a Native American family from the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 through enrollment at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
“Help Wanted!”
By Adelle Waldman
WW Norton, 288 pages, $28.99 (hardcover)
This funny, acutely observed, deeply humane novel, tells the story of the warehouse team in a big box store in a small town in upstate New York as they strategize to rid themselves of a toxic boss. Waldman, a Baltimore native, delivers the best depiction of the world of retail that I’ve ever read.
Nonfiction
“Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change”
By Ben Austen
Flatiron Books, 336 pages, $29.99 (hardcover)
Correction is gripping narrative nonfiction that explores an essential question — What does incarceration seek to accomplish? — by attentively telling the stories of two men as they come up for parole. This book is honest, challenging and necessary in a country that locks up a quarter of the world’s incarcerated population.
“Making it in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the USA (and How it Got That Way)”
By Rachel Slade
Pantheon, 352 pages, $28 (hardcover)
Ben and Whitney Waxman are idealists out of Portland, Maine with a seemingly simple goal: To produce an ethically made sweatshirt in the United States. Can they do it?
Children
“Quiet Night, My Astronaut: The First Days (and Nights) of the War in Ukraine”
By Oksana Lushchevska, Illustrations by Kateryna Stepanishcheva
Tilbury House Publishers, 40 pages, $18.99 (hardcover)
With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, a girl’s life is turned upside down, but she clings to the idea of a guardian astronaut watching over her. With vivid illustrations, Quiet Night, My Astronaut tells a beautiful and haunting tale of life on the front lines.
“Lunar New Year Love Story”
By Gene Luen Yang, Illustrations by Leuyen Pham
MacMillan, 352 pages, $17.99 (paperback)
This graphic novel for young adults weaves traditions of Valentine’s Day together with Lunar New Year as it tells the story of Val, a young Vietnamese-American woman on a quest for love.
You’ve probably heard the term thrown around, but do you really understand what makes a plant native? Rebecca Brown and Norman Cohen explain.
The seven-part series -- based on the novel of the same name by Baltimore author Laura Lippman -- stars Academy Award-winning actress Natalie Portman and was filmed in Pikesville and other parts of Baltimore.
The battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar reflects a deeper fissure in the rap industry, writes scholar Jonathan Branfman.
The bottom line is that people working in hybrid environments feel the most engaged at work, writes Candice White of the Ignite Career Center.