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.
Filmmaker Justin Schein looks at wealth and inequality through the very real story of his late father.
For 35 years, the late Deborah Brodie, aka Bubbie Cookie, amassed a collection of over 200 Jewish ritual objects, which she used to teach her Hebrew school students with special needs.
Conceived by Columbia resident Benjamin Kintisch, "Life Review: The Hospice Musical" offers a thought-provoking and occasionally amusing perspective on mortality.
Steve Hofstetter, who will perform at Soundstage next week, recently made headlines for his social media post ridiculing some fans' warnings about Charm City's safety.