Newly Published in July

So many good books were published this month. Two of them I have read, Evil Knievel Days by Pauls Toutonghi and Chapman’s Odyssey by Paul Bailey; I would recommend both and I hope to post reviews soon. A third book, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, is on the schedule for one of my book groups. I have not read a bad review of this book and I am looking forward to reading it.

Several well known authors published books this month. Irish author Tana French (Faithful Place) once again takes a supporting character and gives him his own story in Broken Harbor. Carlos Ruiz Zafon returns us to Barcelona and the Cemetery of Forgotten Books with The Prisoner of Heaven. I loved The Shadow of the Wind (it is a great travel book) and missed his second (The Angel’s Game) but I don’t see the books as a conventional trilogy so I don’t think it is necessary to read them in a particular order. Thrity Umrigar (The Weight of Heaven) writes about friendship between women in her new novel The World We Found. I found she had a way of getting into her character’s heads so I expect this new novel to be as good as her others.

I have only read one book by Chris Bohjalian (Secrets of Eden) and while I liked it I didn’t feel compelled to read anything else by him. That may have to change with his newly published The Sandcastle Girls. The novel follows a young American girl who travels to Syria in 1915 to help refugees from the Armenian Genocide – a topic that does not receive enough attention.

Highlighted Books

The Violinist’s Thumb: and Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code by Sam Kean: My mother and I have often talked about the unmapped parts of the genetic code. We believe, among other unknown genes, there is a “backing-up” gene which we lack (me more so then she). I will do almost anything to avoid having to back the car – I just have no sense of where things are. In fact, my friends will do almost anything to avoid being in a car with me that I have to back up. So I was pleased to see this new non-fiction book that looks into our DNA and genetic code in an accessible and reader-friendly way.  Alyce from At Home with Books writes, “Out of everything I have read about DNA, this book gave me the most in-depth understanding of the science in an accessible manner. Had it all just been about the science I would have given up halfway through, but the author helps the reader to see how innovative these discoveries were for their time, and also how ridiculed some of the scientists were for thinking outside the box.”

I did not read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by Irish author John Boyne but I have heard how powerful it was. In his new novel, The Absolutist, Boyne writes about love and friendship in the trenches of World War I. One soldier survives and one is executed on the battlefield on charges of cowardice. Tristam, the survivor, carries letters back to the other soldier’s family. During the course of the novel we see Tristam at seventeen, disgraced and disowned by his family, his military training, and life in the trenches. One of the words that pops up over and over again in various reviews is “nuanced”. Shelf Awareness describes the book as, “A powerful story about love, hate, courage, guilt and war where nothing is simple and everything might not be as it seems.” And The Boston Bibliophile writes, “The Absolutist is not a happy book and it doesn’t have a happy ending, but it’s haunting and eloquent and beautiful nonetheless. Boyne asks some tough questions and doesn’t always answer them the way you think he will.’ This book sounds like a difficult read but one that may be well worth the effort.

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