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
“Land of Milk & Honey”
By C. Pam Zhang
Riverhead Books, 240 pages, $28 (hardcover)
In a dystopian near-future, smog-drenched agriculture is dying and life has lost its vitality, until a chef takes a job at a luxurious secluded resort where the elite still have access to real ingredients. As the richness of life comes back to her, the implications go far beyond the plate. This book feels too close to home, and utterly original.
“The Prospectors”
By Ariel Djanikian
William Morrow Books, 384 pages, $30 (hardcover)
An immersive family saga set against the stunning and brutal landscape of the Yukon gold rush, this beautiful novel presses us to interrogate how we can, and can’t, make up for the sins of our fathers.
Nonfiction
“A Man of Two Faces”
By Viet Thahn Nguyen
Grove Hardcover, 400 pages, $28 (hardcover)
Nguyen is a brilliant and fierce thinker, and always worth reading. This book is his version of a memoir — covering the emotional terrain of his life as a Vietnamese refugee, the split fabric of his American identity, the creation of his own adult family. And asking, in an essential way, what is we need to remember, and what it is we need to forget.
“Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged A Nation”
By Tiya Miles
Norton, 192 pages, $22 (hardcover)
A beautiful history of 19th and early 20th century women who were shaped by their experiences in nature. From Harriet Tubman to Louisa May Alcott to an indigenous basketball team in Montana, this book exalts the ability of the outdoors to inspire independence, strength, and a self of self.
Children
“Remember Us”
By Jacqueline Woodson
Nancy Paulsen Books, 192 pages, $18.99 (hardcover)
Remember Us introduces us to Sage in the summer before 7th grade. Houses in her Bushwick neighborhood keep burning down, and she doesn’t quite know where she belongs in the context of friends new and old. How do we go about growing up in a confusing world? Middle Grades
(10 – 13 years)
“Rosie Runs”
By Marika Maijala, translated by Mia Spangenberg,
Elsewhere Editions, 56 pages, $19.95
A curious Finnish racing dog spends her days circling the track for speed, until she breaks free to race through the wide, wondrous world outside the gates. A rich reminder to all of us to take in the endless detail of the vibrant world that surrounds us! Picture Book (Ages 3 – 7 years)
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.