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
“A Case of Mice and Murder”
By Sally Smith
Raven Books, 336 Pages, $28.99 (hardcover)
It’s cozy season, so we recommend relaxing in front of a fireplace with the launch of this charming new crime series. Set in 1901, with a main character who’s a reluctant sleuth, this one is full of crumpets, tea and London’s hidden legal world.
“On Earth As It Is Beneath”
By Ana Paula Maia
Charco Press, 112 Pages, $17.95 (paperback)
No one mines the dark banality of us humans quite like Ana Paula Maia. One of the best Brazilian writers working today, this kinetic tale is set at a penal colony in the Brazilian outback in its waning days.
Nonfiction
“Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity”
By Paul Kingsworth
Thesis, 368 pages, $32 (hardcover)
Kingsworth is a deep thinker, a beautiful writer, and a man deeply worried about just how much territory — in our own brains and spirits — we’ve ceded to the technology that now seems to run our lives.
“Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum”
By Antonia Hylton
Legacy Lit, 368 pages, $19.99 (paperback)
Crownsville, Maryland, a short 30-minute drive from Baltimore, was the site of a segregated asylum that closed its doors in 2004. Weaving archival research with the stories of former patients and caregivers, this book is a meditation on slavery’s enduring legacy in our mental health system.
Children
“Legendary Frybread Drive-In”
Edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Heartdrum, 352 Pages, $19.99
This is an interconnected collection of short stories written by 17 indigenous writers. The central conceit is that each story involves a magical drive-in — Sandy June’s — that serves up legendary fry-bread, as well as the opportunity for deep human connection. (Teens/Young Adult)
“Cat Nap”
By Brian Lies
Greenwillow, 48 Pages, $19.99
It’s an old story — cats chase mice. But Caldecott Honor-Winning Artist Brian Lies puts a new spin on it. When Kitten wakes up from an afternoon nap to chase a mouse, the pursuit takes them into a poster on the wall, which becomes a portal through time, space, and art. (Picture Book)
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.