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
“The Yellow Bird Sings” (Paperback)
By Jennifer Rosner
Flatiron Books, 304 pages, $16.99
When Nazi soldiers round up the Jews in their Polish town, Róza and her 5-year-old daughter, Shira, seek shelter in a neighbor’s barn. But when their haven is threatened, Roza must decide whether Shira is safer with them together or apart.
“The Beekeeper of Aleppo” (Paperback)
By Christy Lefteri
Ballantine Books, 352 pages, $17
Nuri and Afra live a simple life, rich in family and community in the hills of the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo. But when war comes, they must leave their home. Afra has lost her sight, leaving Nuri to serve as a navigator through grief as well as their journey through Turkey and Greece.
Nonfiction
“A Little Devil in America” (Hardcover)
By Hanif Adurraqib
320 pages, $22
Hanif Adurraqib is a brilliant poet, cultural critic and music writer. In his most recent work, he delivers a series of essays reflecting on the history and cultural influence of black performance in America, layering the personal with the political and the visceral.
“We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence” (Hardcover)
By Becky Cooper
512 pages, $21
Forty years after Jane Britton, an ambitious young graduate student in Harvard’s anthropology department, was found bludgeoned to death, Becky Cooper, an undergraduate, began to investigate Jane’s story.
Children
“The Rock From the Sky” (Hardcover)
By Jon Klassen
Candlewick, 96 pages, $18.99
“The Rock From the Sky” is a delightful story that tackles the workings of friendship, fate and shared futuristic visions. For early readers (4-7)
“The Kingdom Of Back” (Paperback)
By Marie Lu
Penguin Books, 336 pages, $11.99
Born with a gift for music, Nannerl Mozart dreams of being remembered forever, a wish which is unlikely to come true. As Nannerl’s hopes dim, the talents of her younger brother, Wolfgang, only seem to shine brighter. Then, one day a stranger from a magical land offers to fulfill her wish. But at what cost? For young adults (Ages 13-18)
The BCO, founded in 1984, will perform the works of Frank Zappa, Beethoven, Mason Bates and Karena Ingram.
Led by local Israel-American cellist Amit Peled, the Mount Vernon Virtuosi aims to inspire people beyond musical enjoyment.
Container vegetable gardening is a terrific option for people with limited space and/or time. Rebecca Brown and Norman Cohen share some tips.
Filmmaker Justin Schein looks at wealth and inequality through the very real story of his late father.