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 Antidote”
By Karen Russell
Knopf, 432 pages, $30
Killing sprees and prairie witches weave together wildly in the near-biblical landscape of 1935 Uz, Nebraska. And while this isn’t technically a retelling of “The Wizard of Oz,” Baum’s ghost lurks undeniably in the story. Russell’s voice and perspective are singular, and what a gift that is.
“Stone Yard Devotional”
By Charlotte Wood
Riverhead, 302 pages, $28
Maybe you can’t go home again, but you can always try. A despairing conservationist seeks to flee the world and hide away in a remote convent in New South Wales, only to find that the world follows. A deeply introspective book about the inhumanity of our time and the humanity required to face it, Stone Yard Devotional was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Nonfiction
“Spell Freedom: The Underground Schools that Built the Civil Rights Movement”
By Elaine Weiss, Atria Books
384 pages, $29.99
Baltimore native and journalist Elaine Weiss tells the fascinating and inspiring story of the Citizenship Schools — a series of secretive classrooms that grew like wildfire across the south in order to train Black southerners to pass the Jim Crow era citizenship tests.
“The Trouble of Color: A Memoir”
By Martha Jones
Basic Books, 336 pages, $30
In The Trouble of Color, Martha Jones, an award-winning historian specializing in race and rights in the 19th century (and a Baltimorean!) turns to memoir in order to investigate her own experiences as a biracial woman.
Children
“Scattergood”
By H.M. Bouwman
Neal Porter Books, 320 pages, $18.99
In 1941 Iowa, 12-year-old Peggy finds her previously calm life upended by the arrival of Jewish refugees at a nearby Quaker hostel, and also by her best friend’s cancer diagnosis. With artfully lyrical prose, Scattergood weaves a bittersweet coming of age story that is as honest as it is hopeful. (Middle grade)
“The Keeper of Stories”
By Caroline Kusin Pritchard, Selina Alko
Simon and Schuster, 40 pages, $19.99
Who doesn’t want to hear uplifting stories these days? When the Jewish Theological Seminary catches fire, it takes an entire community to save and salvage its library’s collection! This extraordinary picture book reminds us that while our community may rely on story, our stories also rely on community.
Rabbi David Wolpe looks at the recent interest in Hollywood productions about King David and why the story is resonating now.
Directed by Johanna Gruenhut, the production is based on of the 1998 novel and 2003 film of the same name.
In "The Future is Peace," Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon say there is still hope for coexistence between Arabs and Jews.
In his new memoir, piano man Marc Shaiman tells a showbiz story shaped by Jewish humor.