Book Smarts — February 2021

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

Migrations

“Migrations: A Novel” (Hardcover)

By Charlotte McConaghy, Flatiron Books
272 pages, $26.99

Leaving behind everything but her research gear, Franny Stone arrives in Greenland with a singular purpose: to follow the last Arctic terns in the world on what might be their final migration to Antarctica.

These Ghosts

“These Ghosts Are Family: A Novel” (Paperback)

By Maisy Card, Simon & Schuster
204 pages, $17

New in paperback, “These Ghosts are Family” is a “beguiling…vividly drawn, and compelling” (BookPage, starred review) portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret.

Nonfiction

“Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art” (Hardcover)

By James Nestor, Riverhead Books
304 pages, $28

Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, “Breath” turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head.

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Beowulf

“Beowulf: A New Translation” (Paperback)

Translated by Maria Dahvana Headley
MCD x FSG Originals, 176 pages, $15

Headley’s ‘Beowulf’ is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English.

Young Adult

Wondrous Rex

“Wondrous Rex” (Hardcover)

By Patricia MacLachlan
Katherine Tegen Books, 96 pages, $15.99

Grace desperately wants to write, but thinks she has nothing to say. When
Rex, a dog who can read, write, and has the uncanny ability to pull up just the right quote from the internet, shows up, things change, and Grace finds her voice. Early Reader/Middle Grade (Ages 8-12)

Gut Check

“Gut Check” (Paperback)

By Eric Kester, Square Fish
304 pages, $9.99

A darkly comic high-school drama about brotherhood, body image, concussions, and toxic masculinity, “Gut Check” explores the struggle of grappling with uncomfortable truths. (Ages 14-18)

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Emma Snyder, owner of The Ivy Bookshop, offers recommendations for must-read titles for adults and children.