Children’s Book Roundup: January 2020
Three nonfiction books caught our attention this month. Each one appeals to slightly different ages and interests, but they all provide a closer look at our wondrous world. In Under the Southern Cross (Candlewick), author-illustrator Frané Lessac delivers a stunning picture-book tour of Australia at night, from the Wheel of…
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman
In chapter three of Anne of Green Gables, the lovable red-haired protagonist tries to pass herself off as “Cordelia,” the name she most admires. Unfortunately, this bid for self-reinvention by the orphan-aesthete doesn’t get too far with her future guardian, Marilla Cuthbert. So Miss Shirley, the firecracker of Avonlea, tries…
Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition
Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition
House of Stone
The Most Dangerous Branch
Run Me to Earth: A Novel
Combining the emotional resonance of Home Fire with the ambition and innovation of Asymmetry, Little Gods is a lyrical and thought-provoking debut novel that explores the complex web of grief, memory, time, physics, history, and selfhood in the immigrant experience, and the complicated bond between daughters and mothers. Author Meng…
The Gimmicks: A Novel
One of my fondest childhood memories is of eating sliced apples with my siblings at bedtime while our mother read to us. Our favorite story was “Poohsticks,” from The House at Pooh Corner, where Eeyore floats downriver and is mistaken for a stick. We also loved the Jennings books by…
Cesare: A Novel of War-Torn Berlin
Cesare: A Novel of War-Torn Berlin
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Jan Brett
With more than 40 million copies of her books in print, including The Snowy Nap, Annie and the Wild Animals, and Trouble with Trolls, bestselling children’s author/illustrator Jan Brett clearly knows a thing or two about what kids love to read. Today, Brett discusses her latest work, The Tale of…
An Interview with James R. Doty
In his book, Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart, James R. Doty takes us in search of ourselves by sharing his own story of emerging from a troubled childhood to eventually helming the Center for Compassion…
Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump’s War on the World’s Most Powerful Office
Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump’s War on the World’s Most Powerful Office
An Evening with Tochi Onyebuchi
Join us for an exciting collaboration between Loyalty Bookstores and Petworth Neighborhood Library for an evening with author Tochi Onyebuchi, held at the Petworth Library for his latest release, Riot Baby. Rooted in foundational loss and the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is both a global dystopian…
The Scent of Buenos Aires: Stories
The Scent of Buenos Aires: Stories
As an epic poet, I’ve made a point of reading epic poetry, and while such poems all have the qualities of encapsulating the literary, philosophical, historical, and moral worlds in which their composers lived, few are as ambitious or encapsulating as Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. Spenser, like many of…
Big Week
The Heavens
The Blaze: A Novel
Recently, near the end of the semester, some petty theft occurred on my floor at the University of Baltimore. Being relaxed and naïve, I’d left my office door unlocked since the classroom was just around the corner, and someone chose to steal my black suit — or symbiote suit, if…
Coventry: Essays
Carrie Callaghan in Conversation with Tayla Burney
Callaghan, an editor and contributor with the Washington Independent Review of Books, follows her fictional portrait of Dutch artist Judith Leyster, A Light of Her Own, with this compelling story of a bold female journalist working during the 1930s. Starting with local California events and widening her range to Hawaii…
Jennifer Chiaverini: I delve into a lot of history and biography when I’m researching a new novel, but when I read for pleasure, I prefer historical fiction. Yet I’d never limit myself to a single genre, not when there are so many wonderful books of all kinds just waiting to…
Oligarchy: A Novel
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne
A former editor at the Atlantic Monthly, Tennessee expat Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne recently published her first novel, Holding on to Nothing, which Lauren Groff calls “a resonant song of the South, all whiskey, bluegrass, Dolly Parton, tobacco fields, and women who know better but still fall for the lowdown men…
Is This YOUR Year to Get Published?
Have you finally finished writing that book but aren’t sure what to do with it? Register for the 2020 Washington Writers Conference at the Early-Bird rate ($295) and pitch your project to three literary agents! You’ll also meet publishing pros, hear from authors, learn about marketing (it’s a big world…
The History of Rock & Roll, Volume II: 1964-1977: The Beatles, The Stones, and the Rise of Classic Rock
Not Another “Most Anticipated Books of 2020” List!
By now, I’m pretty sure you’ve seen at least 10 “Most Anticipated Books of 2020” lists, if not more. As readers, we barely made it to the end of 2019 before we got inundated with word of all the wonderful new books coming our way in 2020. If you’re like…
J.T. Ellison in Conversation with Alma Katsu
Join us in welcoming J.T. Ellison in conversation with Alma Katsu discussing Ellison’s new novel, Good Girls Lie! The follow up to Ellison's critically acclaimed standalone novels Lie to Me and Tear Me Apart, Good Girls Lie is a dark psychological thriller. This event is free and open for all…
Night Theater: A Novel
How to Leave
Rising out of Hatred
Richard III: The Self-Made King
Richard III: The Self-Made King
Samuel D. Kassow’s highly applauded Who Will Write Our History came out in 2007, following a long silence in the publication of Holocaust history. It tells the story of how the Polish historian Emanuel Ringelblum created the Oyneg Shabes scholarly group to capture and preserve the experiences of those trapped…
DiVerse Gaithersburg Poetry Reading and Open Mic
DiVerse Gaithersburg Poetry Reading and Open Mic provides an opportunity for metro area (Maryland, Virginia, and DC) poets to share their work with the community. In addition to featured poets, there will be a chance for attendees to share a poem of their own at the open mic. Poetry readings…
All readers are armchair travelers. Books take us places we’ve never been and often have no chance of visiting. Moreover, they can enhance our actual travel. I’ve written before about how travel writing, or just books set in places we are visiting, can add new dimensions to the experience. But…
A Lush and Seething Hell: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror
A Lush and Seething Hell: Two Tales of Cosmic Horror
The Black Cathedral: A Novel
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Jami Attenberg
Fans of bestselling author Jami Attenberg have long loved her witty, compassionate, dysfunctional-character-filled novels, from All Grown Up and The Melting Season to The Middlesteins. They’ll likely adore her new work, All This Could Be Yours, too, which Parade describes as “Big Little Lies meets ‘Succession’ in the scorching heat…
East City Bookshop welcomes author Liz Moore with her latest book, Long Bright River, a riveting suspense novel set against a vivid neighborhood in Philadelphia rocked by the opioid crisis. Dennis Lehane calls the book “a remarkable, profoundly moving novel…a riveting mystery, perfectly paced. I loved every page of it.”…
Ordinary Girls: A Memoir
Novel Houses: Twenty Famous Fictional Dwellings
Novel Houses: Twenty Famous Fictional Dwellings
Welcome to a new year, a new decade. This is the time of year when you’ve got experts, coaches, fitness trainers, and your next-door neighbor telling you what you should change to make your life more productive, happier, healthier, and more balanced. Eat fiber, they say. Meditate, they tell you.…
Love’s Letters Lost (and Found)
The vagaries of love were on full display last week when Princeton University Library unveiled the largest trove of unpublished writings of the Nobel Prize-winning poet T.S. Eliot after a 50-year embargo. The 1,131 letters were the gift of Emily Hale, a speech and drama teacher and talented amateur actress…
Suicidal
Glass and Gavel
The Common Reader is a writing scholarship opportunity for all members of the National English Honor Society. This year the chosen book is A Place for Us by Fatima Mirza. The Linganore NEHS is hosting two book talks at the Curious Iguana bookstore which are open to all readers. The…
Quichotte: A Novel
Well, 2020 has arrived, and my book-reviewing schedule is filling up with my favorite genre — romance! In between celebrating the holidays and entertaining sickish kids (while trying to stay healthy myself), I read these favorites last month. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for this year! *****…
7 Best-Reviewed Books in December 2019
A Bitter Feast: A Novel by Deborah Crombie (William Morrow). Reviewed by Drew Gallagher. “No watches appear in A Bitter Feast, but with much of the action taking place in and around a country pub, there are plot thickeners and soup thickeners. The place provides an idyllic, innocent setting far…
Creatures: A Novel
5 Most Popular Posts: December 2019
K.L. Romo’s review of The One That Got Away: A Novel by Melissa Pimentel (St. Martin’s Press). “In this lighthearted reimagining of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Melissa Pimentel tells the story of a passionate romance that dwindles into lost love. Back from college one summer, Ruby Atlas meets a handsome bartender…
A couple weeks ago, I contributed to a piece that ran in this publication called “The Best Book I Read All Year Was…” My pick was Madeline Miller’s Circe, which has been beckoning to me from my to-be-read pile since Madeline signed it for me at the 2018 Gaithersburg Book…
A Small Door Set in Concrete: One Woman’s Story of Challenging Borders in Israel/Palestine
A Small Door Set in Concrete: One Woman’s Story of Challenging Borders in Israel/Palestine
10 Reading Resolutions for the New Year
“Keep it up. Reading is my intellectual lifeblood, and I'm pretty happy with my approach: gulping down more than 60 books this year. So I don't have much to change. I want to drink deeply at the trough, with deep draughts of literary fiction from writers who challenge me; sips…
You know those spare shekels gathering dust on top of your dresser? Donate ‘em to the Independent and they’ll help us continue publishing the quality reviews and features you’ve come to expect! Giving is simple — and tax-deductible. Here’s how: Make a one-time (or recurring) donation via PayPal or credit…
999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
Our Super-Early-Bird Rate Expires TONIGHT
The 2020 Washington Writers Conference, our biggest yet, will feature: Face-to-face pitch sessions with literary agents Panels featuring noted authors and publishing pros A roomier, more expansive meeting space Happy hour, networking sessions, book sales, and more Don't miss this chance to save money, take your writing to the next…
In my extremely strong opinion, the worst thing you can say to someone experiencing a paralyzing fear of the blank page is, “Don't get it right, just get it written.” (I'll pause here for a collective groan.) It's an axiom that most writing students receive at least once in their…
All That’s Bright and Gone: A Novel
All That’s Bright and Gone: A Novel
Dear Writers and Writers at Heart, Before you firm up any New Year’s resolutions, and before our pricing goes up on January 1st, I’d like to once again invite you to our Washington Writers Conference on May 8-9, 2020. We want your unique voice to one day become that worn…
That $50 won’t score you tickets to “Dear Evan Hansen,” but it’ll score us a stack of padded mailers for shipping books to reviewers! Giving is simple — and tax-deductible! Here’s how: Make a one-time (or recurring) donation via PayPal or credit card by clicking here. Send a check to…
Thanks a Lot Mr. Kibblewhite
A senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America and author of The Business of America Is Lobbying, Drutman combines history, democratic theory, and cutting-edge political science research to argue that the main reason for the current political deadlock is the two-party system. While in the past the…
The Western Wind
The Strenuous Life: Theodore Roosevelt and the Making of the American Athlete
The Strenuous Life: Theodore Roosevelt and the Making of the American Athlete
Nope, $25 probably won’t fill a writer’s gas tank. But it will pay her for one of those insightful reviews you’ve enjoyed all year! Giving is easy — and tax-deductible! Here’s how: Make a one-time (or recurring) donation via PayPal or credit card by clicking here. Send a check to…
Did Santa slip a couple fivers in your stocking this year? Share them with the Independent, and they’ll cover the cost of mailing three books to reviewers! Giving is simple — and tax-deductible. Here’s how: Make a one-time (or recurring) donation via PayPal or credit card by clicking here. Send…
Author Tracey S. Phillips describes herself as a serial artist. And why not? She plays and teaches piano; has tried painting, jewelry-making, furniture redesigning, and drawing; and was even a fashion model in college. Now she writes books filled with dark secrets, sociopathic killers, and strong women. In her debut…
Older Brother: A Novel
Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers
Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin’s Most Dangerous Hackers
As a parent, I engaged in no deceptions about Santa Claus. My kids probably realized there is no Santa the same time I did; that is, at about 8 years old. A parent doesn’t have to actively deceive their child. A child is capable of wonder without lies. But think…
Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung
If you love hygge — the Danish practice of embracing the cold, dark winter by making it as cozy as possible — you’ll swoon over Icelanders’ blissfully simple Christmas Eve ritual: jólabókaflóð, or “Yule Book Flood,” during which family and friends exchange new books and then spend the evening reading…
Holy cow, Santa is due in a few hours! If you forgot to get something for your favorite scribe, consider registering them for the 2020 Washington Writers Conference! With our Super-Early-Bird rate of $269 (which ends New Year’s Eve), they’ll enjoy: Four face-to-face pitch sessions with literary agents A chance…
Enjoy live music in the café with DC’s Blue Dot Jazz Troupe and get a feel of their blues, funk, Afro-Cuban, and pop blend! Make your reservations HERE! And have a look at our dinner menu, literary cocktails, and over 20 craft beers HERE! About the Blue Dot Jazz Troupe:…
Once Upon a Time in France
Every once in a while, a young person enters the arena and demonstrates peak performance and staying power that astounds the multitudes. In her early 20s, as a recording artist and then on Broadway, Barbra Streisand emerged as the premier female singer/performer in the world. By 26, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook…
Today is our son’s eighth birthday — hooray! — and this week brings his favorite holiday, too. Dash loves everything Christmas: putting up the tree, crowding the house with decorations, counting down the Advent calendar — Harry Potter this year! We camp out by the Christmas tree some nights. And…
An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good
An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good
A Hard Rain
Who Says You’re Dead?: Medical & Ethical Dilemmas for the Curious & Concerned
Who Says You’re Dead?: Medical & Ethical Dilemmas for the Curious & Concerned
Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here are three such titles, suggested by David Bruce Smith, founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation: Scoundrel Time by Lillian Hellman. In gripping detail, the activist/playwright recounts her surreal — and fraught — experience of being hauled…
Labyrinth: A Novel
Not Another “Get Rich Quick” Scheme
In a recent column, I addressed the black cloud that hovers over most writers: the fear of rejection. I pointed out that some of the world’s most famous — and eventually richest — authors (Jack London, Jack Kerouac, George Orwell, Sylvia Plath, Mario Puzo, and Alex Haley, to name a…
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Stephen Harrigan
Along with being a longtime contributor to Texas Monthly magazine, Stephen Harrigan is also an author, historian, and screenwriter whose novels include The Gates of the Alamo, Remember Ben Clayton, and A Friend of Mr. Lincoln. His new book is the nonfiction Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas, which…
Storytime & Singalong With Bearsong
Join us and the DC area's favorite storytellers and troubador, Bearsong, for a half-hour of singalongs and stories for little ones! At Loyalty Bookstores, 827 Upshur St., NW, Washington, DC. Click here for info. Want more people at your event? Spotlight it! Find details HERE.
Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler’s Hidden Soldiers in America
Citizen 865: The Hunt for Hitler’s Hidden Soldiers in America
“The Best Book I Read All Year Was…”
The Guardians by John Grisham. “As finely interwoven a plot as he’s ever pulled together, with his trademark humor and snide (and true) comments about lawyers and the criminal justice system, all enhanced by the fact that it’s based on a true story and advances public awareness of the important…
The Capital of Basketball: A History of DC Area High School Hoops
The Capital of Basketball: A History of DC Area High School Hoops
An Interview with Elizabeth Knapp and Nathan Leslie
As a writer, I’m fascinated with how other writers choose the title of their works, particularly when it comes to poetry and short stories, since collections’ titles often mirror their cornerstone piece. What makes a poem or a story jump to the front of the line? What hints at deeper…
Sophie Littlefield/Sofia Grant: When I teach genre-fiction writing, I like to ask my students what book they recently loved. In that environment, there seems to be little pressure to try to impress each other with the weighty substance or intellectual density of our TBR piles, and I’ve often followed these…
Crises of Democracy
Children’s Book Roundup: December 2019
If you’re still in the early stages of your holiday shopping, fret not! These gift books published by Candlewick and Candlewick Studio may be the perfect fit for someone on your list: Young lovers of wildlife will find plenty to explore in conservation biologist Martin Jenkins’ Under Threat: An Album…
The Rise of Andrew Jackson
A Busboys and Poetry event! For two hours, audiences can expect a diverse chorus of voices and a vast array of professional spoken-word performers, open-mic rookies, musicians and a different host every week. Expect to be moved, expect a packed house, expect the unexpected, but above all, come with an…
The Big Fella
It was the standard answer every time my kids needed a novel for English class. “We don’t have to buy that,” I’d say. “We have it…somewhere.” The girls would roll their eyes. They knew that if by some chance I did find The Scarlet Letter, it would be the wrong…
A Treason of Thorns
No matter how long ago you were in college, your professors pop up in your life again without warning. As it has slowly dawned on me that I'll never read all the nonfiction books I’ve accumulated to read at some later date, I remembered a lesson from one of my…
The Devils Came in from the Country
The Devils Came in from the Country
Our Daytime Fiction Book Group meets on the second Friday of each month. No need to sign up! This month's book is Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen. At One More Page Books, 200 N. Westmoreland St., Arlington, VA. Click here for info. Want more people at your event? Spotlight it!…
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with David M. Rubenstein
Along with being a co-founder of the highly successful private-investment firm the Carlyle Group, David M. Rubenstein is a leader in patriotic philanthropy. His transformative gifts have helped restore countless iconic structures, among them the Washington Monument, Monticello, Mount Vernon, the Iwo Jima Memorial, and the Kennedy Center. His abiding…
Waters of the World: The Story of the Scientists Who Unraveled the Mysteries of Our Oceans, Atmosphere, and Ice Sheets and Made the Planet Whole
An Interview with Randi Hutter Epstein
In her book Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just about Everything, physician/author Randi Hutter Epstein, writer in residence with the Program for Humanities in Medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine, tells the stories of people affected adversely by hormones. As she points out, what…
A Castle in Wartime: One Family, Their Missing Sons, and the Fight to Defeat the Nazis
A Castle in Wartime: One Family, Their Missing Sons, and the Fight to Defeat the Nazis
The holidays are here! That means it’s time to think about the perfect gifts for the people you love (and maybe even for yourself). Research shows that experiences are more meaningful than things; they stay longer in our memories and shape who we are. So give that special writer in…
The Deserter: A Novel
A Saturday afternoon during finals week at the University of Maryland, College Park. Outside, it already feels like vacation. Inside, in a converted classroom on the third floor of Tawes Hall, the air is filled with soft sounds: the swoosh-scrape of a paper cutter; the gentle rumble of a Gutenberg-style…
We Need More Reviewers of Color
Publishers Weekly’s recently released 2019 Publishing Industry Salary Survey revealed that 84% of those working in publishing are white. A related article refers to the remaining respondents as “non-whites,” which pretty much tells you who assigned, wrote, edited, and copy-edited the piece, handily illustrating just how truly white the publishing…
Nathan J. Robinson in Conversation with Pete Davis
Join us in welcoming editor-in-chief of Current Affairs Nathan J. Robinson as he discusses his new book, Why You Should Be a Socialist, a primer on Democratic Socialism for those who are extremely skeptical of it. Robinson will be in conversation with Pete Davis. At Solid State Books, 600 H…
Charlie Company’s Journey Home
Charlie Company’s Journey Home
Don’t Hide the Madness
When the Winds of Changes Shift
“It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny…” – Simone de Beauvoir, The Coming of Age I report with sadness that “Ralphie’s Bookmobile” has jumped the curb at the corner of Mom…
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
Romance Roundup: December 2019
This year has been an incredible one for romance novels, and I’ve been lucky to share some of my favorites with you. As I look ahead to 2020 — and open packages of new titles already arriving on my doorstep — I’m excited to see what the coming decade brings…
Chef Bricia Lopez in Converstion with Pati Jinich
East City Bookshop welcomes chef Bricia Lopez with her cookbook Oaxaca, a colorful celebration of Oaxacan cuisine from the landmark Oaxacan restaurant in Los Angeles. Bricia will be joined by award-winning chef, cookbook author, and television host Pati Jinich. Our partners Global Knives and ScanPan USA are offering gifts to…
Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream
7 Best-Reviewed Books in November 2019
Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel by Bernardine Evaristo (Black Cat). Reviewed by Robert Allen Papinchak. “Superlatives pale in the shadow of the monumental achievement of Girl, Woman, Other. Few adjectives suffice. It’s hard not to overpraise this brilliant novel. Evaristo’s verbal acrobatics do things language shouldn’t be able to do.…
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Karen Abbott
A New York Times bestselling author of such works as Sin in the Second City and Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, Karen Abbott has also written for the Wall Street Journal, Smithsonian Magazine, the Washington Post, and other publications. Her new book is The Ghosts of Eden Park, which NPR says,…
A Bitter Feast: A Novel
Of the more than 200 objects documenting J.D. Salinger’s personal and professional life now on display at the New York Public Library — manuscripts bearing his revisions, his 1948 Royal typewriter, the notebooks he used to record his thoughts — perhaps the most poignant has nothing to do with writing.…
5 Most Popular Posts: November 2019
51 Favorite Books of 2019. “Who are we to declare certain books ‘the best’? Instead, we offer here, in no particular order, some of our most-loved titles of the year.” Sally Shivnan’s review of The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia (Amazon Crossing). “A magical-realism romp from Mexico, Sofía Segovia’s…
On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey
On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey
Whether you’re a reader, a writer, or both, you’re part of the Independent community. So this Giving Tuesday, please help us continue publishing the quality reviews, author Q&As, features, and podcasts you’ve come to expect! Making a tax-deductible donation is simple: Click here to donate via PayPal or credit card.…
I’ve written before, in this column, about Thomas Jefferson. The general tenor of those earlier pieces is that the mythologized version of Jefferson is racist, and we need to face up to that reality. Which is to say that further study of the life of Jefferson is necessary. He remains…
Face It: A Memoir
Book Talk + Signing with Domenica Marchetti
Join Old Town Books for a holiday baking talk + book signing with Domenica Marchetti! Domenica will join us at Boxwood on S. Royal Street to discuss homemade holiday hostess gifts and her book, Ciao Biscotti. Hear about her favorite recipes, techniques, ingredients, and more. The event will conclude with…
Dear America
Carry Her Home
Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home
Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home
A YouTube Conversation with Evan Thomas
During the Dallas Bar Foundation's recent “Evening With” fundraiser, author/attorney Talmage Boston spoke with bestselling author Evan Thomas about Thomas’ latest book, First: Sandra Day O’Connor, which Walter Isaacson called “the biography for our time.” Watch the interview here. (And click here to read Boston’s review of First.) Like what…
Celebrating Black Friday and Cyber Monday from your couch? Support us at the same time! If you’re headed to Amazon, enter it via any linked book on our site (or by clicking here), and the nonprofit Independent will get a portion of the proceeds from whatever you buy. You DO…
For me, writing a poem is neither an act of rebellion nor an act of conformity; neither a healing balm nor an open wound; neither prayer nor blasphemy. Writing a poem is an attempt at solitude. I want, somehow, without the certitude of knowing how or the mysticism of faith,…
Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation
Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation
A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma
A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with S.C. Gwynne
Pulitzer Prize-nominated author S.C. Gwynne has written multiple books, including the New York Times bestselling Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History and Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson. His…
MahoganyBooks is excited to be hosting four very special local authors for a Meet & Greet event on November 30, 2019, Small Business Saturday. We welcome local teen authors Jocktavious Holmes (Ballou HS), London Jones (Anacostia HS), Japan Spells (Anacostia HS), and Anaya Hardy (Ballou HS) to MahoganyBooks to discuss…
What Is Missing: A Novel
An Interview with Tara Laskowski
There isn’t a short-story writer who hasn’t heard of Tara Laskowski. As the editor of SmokeLong Quarterly for 10 years, she was responsible for publishing some of the most remarkable contemporary flash fiction found online. She published two critically acclaimed story collections of her own — Bystanders and Modern Manners…
Every reader has an origin story — a specific moment when they knew books would forever be as linked to them as the limbs on their bodies. For some, it might have been the one book their parents read to them every night. It might have been the book a…
Full Throttle: Stories
The Heavens: A Novel by Sandra Newman (Grove Press). Reviewed by Elena Mikalsen. “The Heavens blends elements of speculative, historical, and literary fiction with mastery. I enjoyed Newman’s humor, eccentric descriptions, and period dialogue. The most impressive aspect of the novel, however, is the author’s ability to portray the fluidity…
Inventing American Tradition
Ghost Riders
In this powerful book, Karakatsanis, a former public defender, issues a passionate challenge to our society's profoundly racist justice system and the legal profession's role in perpetuating it. Founder of the Civil Rights Corps, an organization designed to bring systemic civil rights cases on behalf of impoverished people in the…
Dad’s Maybe Book
Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here are three such titles, suggested by David Bruce Smith, founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation: The Winds of War: A Novel by Herman Wouk. This sweeping narrative — along with its sequel, War and Remembrance —…
Our Wild Calling: How Connecting with Animals Can Transform Our Lives — and Save Theirs
Our Wild Calling: How Connecting with Animals Can Transform Our Lives — and Save Theirs
Dragons never lived, but the appeal of their mythology is easy to understand. Giant, reptilian creatures jealously guarding dark caves filled with gold jewelry and silver coins and glinting red rubies. They came by their treasure in the same fashion wealth is often historically accumulated: by force and theft and…
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer has long been known as a premier chronicler of foreign lands. His 15 books include Video Night in Kathmandu, Falling Off the Map, and Cuba and the Night, to name just a few. Recently, he set his sights on the Land of the Rising Sun in A Beginner's…
Grand Union: Stories
Michael Scott Moore in Conversation with Danuta Hinc
Journalist and author Michael Scott Moore joins fellow writer Danuta Hinc to discuss his memoir, The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast. This event, sponsored by the Center for Literary and Comparative Studies through a Beyond the Classroom grant, is free and open to…
My Penguin Year: Life Among the Emperors
My Penguin Year: Life Among the Emperors
An Interview with Ronald Epstein
Ronald Epstein has devoted his life to making healthcare in America better by making healthcare providers better — teaching fellow physicians to connect with the people they care for while keeping themselves curious and open. His book, Attending: Medicine, Mindfulness, and Humanity, addresses the multifaceted issue of provider wellness for…
The Revolution Will Be Romanticized
I’m spending my weekend surrounded by other women at a hotel in Houston, and I admit the scene is a bit of a spectacle. It’s hard to bring together more than 300 women without it being that way, but maybe more so when the group is made up of writers.…
Children’s Book Roundup: November 2019
Animals take center stage for this roundup of children’s books, starting with Anxious Charlie to the Rescue, written and illustrated by Terry Milne (Candlewick). Charlie (who’s as adorable as he is anxious) follows the same routine every day, fearful that any change will have terrible results. But a friend in…
Betrayal in Berlin: The True Story of the Cold War’s Most Audacious Espionage Operation
Betrayal in Berlin: The True Story of the Cold War’s Most Audacious Espionage Operation
Why Religion?
Coldwater Canyon: A Novel
For the Birds: Protecting Wildlife through the Naturalist Gaze
For the Birds: Protecting Wildlife through the Naturalist Gaze
In Junkyard Planet, Minter, a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion, traced the often-surprising path of the trash we simply throw “away.” His new book is an equally revealing investigation of what happens to all the still usable items we clean out. Once they’re donated, they might end up anywhere, from thrift…
Most novelists view themselves as “storytellers.” As a retired journalist and student of history, I’ve become the teller of stories of real-life people, through both novels and nonfiction. Unfortunately, for many real-life characters, there are too many gaps in their stories to support a traditional biography. This fate often befalls…
The one time that my DC-based grandparents were briefly apart during their courtship, in September 1916, they corresponded through numerous, lengthy letters. It helped that, at the time, there was twice-daily mail delivery even to rural Bluemont, Virginia, where my grandmother was staying. In one of those letters, my grandfather…
The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
Nothing to See Here: A Novel
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Paul Tough
Inspired, in part, by his bestselling How Children Succeed, Paul Tough’s new book, The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes Or Breaks Us, explores the pivotal period when young people enter the world of higher learning. Forbes calls the work “a comprehensive, moving account of the inequalities that block…
It’s National Novel Writing Month — or NaNoWriMo — and you can almost hear writers toiling away, trying to pen an entire book in just 30 days. Are you one of them? Hundreds of thousands of writers participate in NaNoWriMo, and its energy is infectious. But what happens in December…
Steve Vogel's Betrayal in Berlin: The True Story of the Cold War's Most Audacious Espionage Operation centers around “Operation Gold,” the CIA's plan to build a 1,500-foot tunnel into the German city’s Soviet sector to tap critically important phone lines. But it also tells the intertwined tales of George Blake,…
The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians
The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians
Lampedusa: A Novel
MoonLit DC: Bookmaking with Instinct
Bookmaking with Instinct is an immersive workshop experience that will provide a foundational understanding for the bookmaking process and how to make the most out of what you have on hand. Participants will be surprised what they are able to produce in two hours. Led by Ink Press Productions founder…
I was just about to enjoy my first glass of wine when a woman strode up to me with great purpose, holding something high in the air like the Statue of Liberty's torch. “Is this really you?” she asked, staring hard. It was then that I noticed her torch was…
A Light of Her Own
The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter
The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter
The Book of Eating: Adventures in Professional Gluttony
The Book of Eating: Adventures in Professional Gluttony
Who knew I was a “cozy” fan? I didn’t. At least, not until I read several of Jon Land’s Murder, She Wrote novels. What sets these books apart from cozy mysteries is that they’re actually “cozy thrillers.” I love stories in which a female protagonist is rocking it (especially when…
Baijiu, literally meaning white or clear liquor, has been brewed in China at least since the 1200s and has long occupied a central role in Chinese culture. Though it outsells vodka and whiskey combined, this grain alcohol is only now becoming available in the U.S. and Europe. To prepare Western…
Murder, Inc.: The CIA Under John F. Kennedy
Murder, Inc.: The CIA Under John F. Kennedy
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Lisa Howorth
Mississippi writer and bookstore owner Lisa Howorth published her debut novel, Flying Shoes, in 2014. She recently released her second novel, Summerlings, which John Grisham calls “a story rich in local color, humor, outrageous characters, and with a wicked plot.” Here, Howorth discusses her sophomore effort with FM89.3 WYPL’s Stephen…
Passionate Spirit: The Life of Alma Mahler
Passionate Spirit: The Life of Alma Mahler
Rana Awdish, M.D., discovered the power and importance of compassion and communication while lying in a bed in her own hospital. Her book, In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope, chronicles Awdish’s ordeal of almost bleeding to death following a pregnancy loss. Her…
Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel
7 Best-Reviewed Books in October 2019
Imaginary Friend: A Novel by Stephen Chbosky (Grand Central Publishing). Reviewed by Robert Allen Papinchak. “With Imaginary Friend, Stephen Chbosky has written another classic, setting a new high watermark for fantasy horror. It is the greatest story ever told of love and salvation in which a little child shall save…
War at Sea: A Shipwrecked History from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century
War at Sea: A Shipwrecked History from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century
The basement of unspeakable horrors in The Road. The vicious vampires in I Am Legend. Crossing through the dark Lincoln Tunnel in The Stand. The sadness and resignation of the people in the last section of The Bone Clocks. These images all haunted me long after I turned the final…
5 Most Popular Posts: October 2019
Adele Annesi’s review of A Kitchen in the Corner of the House by Ambai (Archipelago Books). “In a society where women’s voices are hushed by tradition everywhere except, perhaps, the kitchen, Ambai has crafted stories as diverse and savory as the dishes created in this space — one like many…
Warlight
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Rion Amilcar Scott in Conversation with Emily Mitchell
Please join us Wednesday, November 6, from 12-1 p.m., in Tawes 2115 as we celebrate Rion Amilcar Scott’s new collection of short stories, The World Doesn’t Require You, winner of the Pen/Robert W. Bingham Prize. Rion will be joined by Emily Mitchell, author of Viral: Stories, to discuss the new…
Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick
Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick
Romance Roundup: November 2019
The Hallmark Channel has already begun the countdown to Christmas, which means the holidays are just around the corner — whether I’m ready or not. (I’m not.) This year, like most years, I will be gifting books to my friends and loved ones, including some of the terrific romance novels…
In my last column, I dwelled on what most writers fear: Rejection. I used as examples some of the world’s most successful authors (Jack London, Jack Kerouac, George Orwell, Sylvia Plath, Mario Puzo, John le Carré, Alex Haley, Tony Hillerman, to name a few), whose work initially garnered more rejection…
She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Ignite a Movement
She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Ignite a Movement
Eager for one more scary story before the world moves onto all things Yuletide in the coming days? Peruse these past reviews of tales that go bump in the night: Growing Things and Other Stories by Paul Tremblay (William Morrow). Reviewed by Clifford Garstang. “The unexplained is clearly on display…
The Dragon Lady: A Novel
Not given to viewing ghost stories as anything other than entertainment, it must be a narrative of some repute, like “Get Out” or early Stephen King, to draw my attention, to suspend my disbelief. But I recently made an arrangement with the Independent’s own Dorothy Reno, whose opinion I respect,…
Authors on Audio: John Grisham on “The Guardians” and His Process
When renowned author John Grisham last spoke with fellow author/attorney Talmage Boston, it was to discuss his lauded middle-grade Theodore Boone series. He returns now to talk about his latest adult bestseller, The Guardians, which the Associated Press says is “a suspenseful thriller mixed with powerful themes such as false…
Meet Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky
Award-winning poets — published in outlets such as the Paris Review and the New Yorker — before teaming up as astrologers under the name Astro Poets, Dimitrov and Lasky have been dispensing advice, sharing jokes and auguries, and tapping into the stars since late November 2016. Their first book offers…
Riane Konc has written satire for the New Yorker, New York Times, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Electric Lit, Mad Magazine, and countless other publications. From pop-culture hot takes to parenting advice, from “Emily Dickinson’s Patreon” to “FBI Secrets That James Comey Knows,” no topic is off limits. Her new book, Build…
A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump
A Guest of the Reich: The Story of American Heiress Gertrude Legendre’s Dramatic Captivity and Escape from Nazi Germany
But, Tell Me, Where Do the Children Play?
My husband gave me Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me for Christmas last year. When Coates published his piece on mass incarceration in the Atlantic in 2015, it took me a month to finish, to slowly come to grips with his thesis. His style includes careful examination of history…
War of the Wolf
Noura Erakat in Conversation with Yousef Munayyer
Justice in the Question of Palestine is often framed as a question of law. Yet none of the Israel-Palestinian conflict's most vexing challenges have been resolved by judicial intervention. Occupation law has failed to stem Israel's settlement enterprise. Laws of war have permitted killing and destruction during Israel's military offensives…
A Dream Called Home
Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here are three such titles, suggested by David Bruce Smith, founder of the Grateful American™ Foundation: Maggie-Now by Betty Smith. From the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn comes this story of a young woman struggling…
Find Me: A Novel
Celebrate Halloween a little early! Come to Drag Queen Storytime wearing your costume and collect some candy. Led by the DC Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group dedicated to community service and spreading joy, this event will feature read-alouds of inclusive picture books. Learn more about the DC Sisters. All…
When the Plums Are Ripe: A Novel
When the Plums Are Ripe: A Novel
8 More Autumn Novels to Watch For
Hi everybody! This is the second part of my “crime fiction fall 2019 books by DC-area authors” list, and you know what? It really needs a catchier title. I’ll think about that for next year but, in the meantime, check out these wonderful books below. (You can read part one…
For those who wonder how John Grisham keeps coming up with his compelling characters and spellbinding plots, the answer can be found in the author’s note at the end of his books. There, he discloses that he learns of real people and the things that have actually happened to them…
Country: A Novel
10 Coming-of-Age Novels from around the World
In White Nights and Other Stories, Dostoevsky defines what it means to “come of age”: “For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build…
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with William Kent Krueger
Edgar Award-winning author William Kent Krueger pens the popular Cork O’Connor mystery series. But his newest novel, This Tender Land, is a standalone tale of Native-American children forced into a boarding school in 1930s Minnesota. The New York Journal of Books called the story “long, sprawling, and utterly captivating.” Krueger…
An Interview with Angel Luis Colón
Writing about cultural identity, says crime writer and podcaster Angel Luis Colón, often feels like skipping through a minefield. Even the well-meaning can fall back on a clumsy stereotype or embrace a loaded term. Not many realize that an understanding of identity involves a close reading of the history of…
The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer and Care
Meet the (Small) Press: Orson’s Publishing
The motto of Orson’s Publishing is “gutsy fiction for gutsy readers.” Says founder and editor Garrett Dennert, it stems from his interest in supporting work that takes risks. “What I don’t want is fiction that phones it in, that adheres to a formula or puts forward ‘types’ of characters,” he…
Meet John Copenhaver, Sherry Harris, and Tara Laskowski
Meet three DC-area mystery authors as they interview each other, answer your questions, and sign books! JOHN COPENHAVER is the recipient of an Artist Fellowship from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities for four consecutive years. In 2015, he launched and continues to maintain a crime fiction column…
Cruel to Be Kind: The Life and Music of Nick Lowe
Cruel to Be Kind: The Life and Music of Nick Lowe
Children’s Book Roundup: October 2019
Cool autumn nights. Time to pull the blankets close and snooze…but wait. Not every pair of young eyelids is heavy when parents declare, “Bedtime!” You can bridge the gap between wide awake and drowsy with these recent picture books, perfect for snuggly nighttime reads: Young minds produce an endless stream…
You can pick up any English translation of Le Petit Prince and experience, for the most part, a fable about learning to live well and love well. Assuming the various parables of the story are decoded, and the ending isn’t overly dwelt upon, you’re invited to cast an eye on…
Frederick Douglass
Stavridis devoted more than thirty years to the U.S. Navy, serving as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and retiring as a four-star admiral. In this follow-up to his bestselling Sea Power, he sifts more than 2,500 years of maritime history to present the ten most exemplary naval leaders of all…
Good and Mad
“Don’t become a writer…it’s a terrible life…” – Nelson Algren to young woman starting an MFA More than 30 years ago, back in the fall of 1988 — possessed by literary fever after my first encounter with Winesburg, Ohio — I drove 370 miles from Baltimore into the Blue Ridge…
The Man Who Saw Everything: A Novel
The Man Who Saw Everything: A Novel
Hitler’s Last Plot: The 139 VIP Hostages Selected for Death in the Final Days of World War II
Hitler’s Last Plot: The 139 VIP Hostages Selected for Death in the Final Days of World War II
October 2019 Exemplars: Poetry Reviews by Grace Cavalieri
Dear Readers, This is my last “Exemplars.” I’ve loved reading poetry books each and every day for my monthly column and reviewing poetry for more than seven years for the Independent. Thank you (and them) for being with me. ~ Grace Cavalieri Things come and go Then let them –…
Blending stunning photography with informative and poignant text, River of Redemption offers the opportunity to reinvent our role in urban ecology and to redeem our relationship with this national river and watersheds nationwide. This amazing title is the culmination of seven years of photography and research. Krista Schlyer portrays life…
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Trish Hall
A former longtime senior editor and op-ed editor for the New York Times, Trish Hall knows a thing or two about getting others to see your point of view. In her new book, Writing to Persuade: How to Bring People Over to Your Side, she shares her insights into doing…
Old Bones: A Novel
An Interview with Stephen Sartarelli
Twenty-five books ago, Andrea Camilleri, already a well-known Italian author, decided that in his retirement he would write a detective series. He set the books in his childhood home of Porto Empedocle in Sicily. He named his protagonist Inspector Montalbano as an homage to a well-known Spanish mystery writer and…
A Single Thread: A Novel
Our Future Remembrance of Things Past
Although we struggle to find common ground sometimes, my son and I share one intellectual resignation: that our civilization is near collapse. This grim awareness tends to paralyze us in some ways. But, as a writer, as a moral being in the industrialized world, I must offer my cry to…
Make It Scream, Make It Burn: Essays
Make It Scream, Make It Burn: Essays
This event is in collaboration with IA&A at Hillyer. What makes a cult artist? Whether pioneering in their craft, fiercely and undeniably unique, or critically divisive, cult artists come in all shapes and guises. Some gain instant fame, others instant notoriety, and more still remain anonymous until a chance change…
The Clockmaker’s Daughter
Boomer1
Need another reason to root for the Washington Nationals in the MLB Playoffs? Of course not, but here’s one, anyway. All-Star relief pitcher Sean Doolittle doesn’t just play ball during away games. He makes a point of visiting an indie bookstore in each city he travels to and then recaps…
White Hot Silence: A Novel
Suicide Woods: Stories
MahoganyBooks welcomes DC resident, social justice advocate, and author Christine Platt for a Meet & Greet book signing showcasing her Ana & Andrew children's book series. “A believer in the power of storytelling as a tool for social change, Christine’s work centers on teaching diversity, equity, and inclusion through culturally-responsive…
Often, I am unsure while watching anime, playing video games, or reading comic books, whether I’m secretly writing poems or secretly avoiding writing poems. Writers can be marvelous myth-makers about their own process, and I am no exception. Maybe I’m simply justifying, after the fact, a constellation of activities that…
The Ghost Ships of Archangel: The Arctic Voyage that Defied the Nazis
The Ghost Ships of Archangel: The Arctic Voyage that Defied the Nazis
Savage Gods
Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Brock Clarke
Chair of the English department at Bowdoin College and author of multiple works of fiction — including The Price of the Haircut and The Happiest People in the World — Brock Clarke just published a new novel, Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe?, which the Independent called a “madcap story of…
A Fist or a Heart
I’m sad to say that this will be the last “Write Side Up.” Ending my column was a difficult decision to make, but it’s time. I’ve enjoyed being part of the Independent family — it’s a very welcoming, laidback place to hang out a shingle. And since this is my…
The Last Train to London: A Novel
The Last Train to London: A Novel
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