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
“Godwin”
By Joseph O’Neill
Pantheon, 277 pages, $28
On the surface, this is a novel about a trans-Atlantic adventure undertaken by Mark Wolfe and his half-brother Geoff, as they search the world for Godwin, a teenage soccer prodigy from Africa. The novel presses on the nature of identity — and of personal dreams — in an atomized age, in the shadow of commerce, and within the structures of vestigial colonialism.
“Tell Me Everything”
By Elizabeth Strout
Random House, 326 pages, $30
Strout’s newest novel is such a gift for loyal readers! Meditative and generous, it weaves together all her beloved characters — Olive Kitteridge, the Burgess Boys, Lucy Barton — in a story that is both a murder mystery and a nuanced reflection on storytelling and love. The structure is masterful, and the impact is deeply moving.
Nonfiction
“We’re Alone”
By Edwidge Danticat
Graywolf Press, 137 pages, $26
A slim collection of essays from the brilliant writer and thinker, Edwidge Danticat, We’re Alone ranges from personal narrative to reportage to reflections on her literary heroes. In an essential way, this book is a reckoning with the complexities of catastrophe and resilience, collectively and personally, and the ways that language and stories can reorient and bind.
“Diplomats at War: Friendship and Betrayal on the Brink of the Vietnam Conflict”
By Charles Truehart
368 pages
A fascinating memoir-meets-history book about American diplomacy in Vietnam in the early 1960s. In 1961, Ambassador Fritz Nolting and his deputy and close, longtime friend Bill Truehart arrive in Vietnam. Two years later, a coup to oust Vietnam’s President Diem has a seismic and tragic impact on the world and their friendship.
Children
“When Sea Becomes Sky”
By Gillian McDunn
Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 288 pages, $8.99
Bex and Davey have always spent their summers wandering the salt marsh on their island home, but their special place — where they’re at their best as brother and sister — is threatened by both drought and development. As they try to save the place they love, they also begin to learn that change is inevitable, and the question is how we rise to meet it. (Ages 8-12)
“Show Up and Vote”
By Ani Di Franco, Illustrated by Rachelle Baker
Rise x Penguin Workshop, 48 pages, $18.99
Singer Ani Di Franco walks us through a young girl accompanying her mother to the polls as she learns about the power, responsiblity, and inspiring nature of engaged citizenship. Lyrical language and bright, lush illustration make this a wonderful way to talk about election season with our youngest citizens. (Ages 2-5)
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.
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.