We came, we read, we gushed.
The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir by Griffin Dunne (Penguin Press). Reviewed by Diane Kiesel. “As the 1970s fade into the 80s, Griffin and his baby sister, Dominique, launch their own acting careers and love to party. Each Friday, Dominique’s acting class — including then-fledgling actors George Clooney and Timothy Hutton — gathers until the wee hours in the Dunne back yard as part of the ‘Friday Afternoon Club.’ Then, in what hits the family like an atomic blast, Dominique — only 22 and on the cusp of true stardom — is strangled to the point of brain death by a boyfriend she’d tried to dump. The family is forced to pull the plug. When her killer, John Sweeney, a sous chef at Ma Maison, walks away from the crime with a slap on the wrist, it becomes the signature event that divides the book into a stark Before and After.”
In the Service of the Shogun: The Real Story of William Adams by Frederik Cryns (Reaktion Books). Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski. “This timely study arrives on the heels of the 2024 FX series ‘Shogun,’ whose historical accuracy Cryns supervised. In this first full biography of Adams based on original Dutch, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese sources, Cryns considers the entirety of the man’s life, both in his early years and during the perilous voyages that washed him ashore in Japan. While Clavell used six months of Adams’ life for his novel featuring the fictional John Blackthorne, Cryns makes clear that ‘the other 55 years are worth studying too.’”
Whale Fall: A Novel by Elizabeth O’Connor (Pantheon). Reviewed by Carrie Callaghan. “This slim novel passes quickly, like flashes of a bird seen between the blades of marsh grasses. Manod is restrained, letting the tales and images around her speak for her, so her inner life feels both removed and expansive. As the whale slowly deteriorates on the shore, eaten by birds and ultimately hacked apart by humans, Manod tries to find her own footing in life. She is coming of age in a place that has little sympathy for dreams, and certainly not those of women.”
A Gentleman and a Thief: The Daring Jewel Heists of a Jazz Age Rogue by Dean Jobb (Algonquin Books). Reviewed by Diane Kiesel. “Barry’s irresistible story is told in Dean Jobb’s A Gentleman and a Thief. Much like in the author’s prior book, The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream, which was the page-turning chronicle of a Victorian-era physician who just happened to be a serial killer, Jobb once again plunges into a real-life, forgotten tale of an audacious criminal and emerges with a story that supports the cliché that truth is stranger than fiction.”
Bomb Island: A Novel by Stephen Hundley (Hub City Press). Reviewed by Willem Marx. “As the book begins, Fish’s cloistered life is less than Edenic. The maturing tiger mauls him, yet Whisper won’t hear of getting rid of it; teens in the mainland town of Royals have begun to take notice of Fish and torment him; and Reef and Nutzo, two male role models — and the only other remaining commune members — are ready to leave. Change is afoot, but Fish is caught in a teenage paralysis that’s all the more crushing for the fact that, having never lived among anyone his own age, he doesn’t know what it means to be a child, let alone how to no longer be one.”
Cursed Boys and Broken Hearts by Adam Sass (Viking Books for Young Readers). Reviewed by Nick Havey. “Cursed Boys and Broken Hearts is a certified stunner from this point on. It has everything: fairytale elements (including the aforementioned wish-granting rose), Oh, no, there’s only one more bed conundrums, exes for days, helpful elders, and, yes, magic spells. Sass deftly hits every beat and more, weaving in Grant’s incredibly self-aware mental-health journey and personal growth. He’s sure of himself even though he suspects he’s been hexed, reminding readers (like this one) going through a breakup that they’re ‘more than just an obstacle on the way to someone else’s happy ending.’”
Nicked by M.T. Anderson (Pantheon). Reviewed by Marcie Geffner. “The initial negotiations for Tyun’s services, followed by the voyage to Lycia and the gang’s multiple botched attempts to locate and steal the actual body of the actual Saint Nicholas, provide plenty of opportunities for hijinks and heroics. Buckets of piss, barbarians, singing nuns, goats, sheep, secrets, tall tales, murder, loyalty, betrayal, plunder, pleasure, and so much more — it’s all here.”
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