It’s truly rare these days when I enter the world of a book so completely that I just don’t want it to end. Some of that is because I read books concurrently — usually three or four books at a time — and so I’m closing one and returning to the others.
Some of it’s because I read so much for work that I’m reading for comprehension as much as for pleasure...so I’m at a kind of remove as I read. And some of it’s because truly immersive reading is a singular experience that has as much to do with place and time as prose.
But that was exactly how I felt each time I returned to Arturo Perez-Reverte’s “What We Become.”
It’s not like the other novels I’ve recommended in this crime series this summer. They were stylish police procedurals with unusually compelling characters.
But the con man and the woman he’s obsessed with at the center of Perez-Reverte’s novel are so human, so conflicted and flawed and interesting that I simply didn’t want to leave their orbit when the novel was finished.
And something else happened in this novel that’s refreshing for me. Perez-Reverte schooled me in classic and modern tango, in high-stakes chess and in some obscure European history in such an effortless way that I barely registered it. I was that caught up in the plot.
Arturo Perez-Reverte is well known in Europe for his war coverage as a journalist and for his historical fiction. And now that I've found him, I’m reading everything he’s written.
Elin Hilderbrand — known as the "Queen of Summer" — is back with another beachy tale of family secrets and intrigue (and tasty period details), set on Nantucket during the turbulent summer of 1969.
"The Scar: A Personal History of Depression and Recovery" by Mary Cregan "The Edge of Every Day: Sketches of Schizophrenia" by Marin Sardy "Little Panic: Dispatches from an Anxious Life" by Amanda Stern
One in five Americans has some experience with mental illness every year — and these three new memoirs dig into that experience, whether it's the author's own illness or that of a loved one.
Journalists David Wolman and Julian Smith chronicle the history of Hawaii's cattle trade and profile a number of "paniolos" — every bit as tenacious and resourceful as their mainland cohorts.
Chanelle Benz's debut novel follows a woman digging into the death of her father, a celebrated African American writer who abandoned his family — and died in a mysterious accident not long after.
Author Massoud Hayoun has Moroccan, Egyptian and Tunisian heritage — and is also Jewish. He weaves in his family history with the politics that shaped their lives, including European oppression.
The collection of 32 mostly previously published essays by New Yorker TV Critic Emily Nussbaum includes a new consideration of the question: "What should we do with the art of terrible men?"
Mary Beth Keane's novel opens in 1973 New York and follows two rookie cops and their families over four decades. Her closely observed domestic tale transforms into something deep and universal.
The debut novel from NPR's own Linda Holmes follows a suddenly widowed (and not all that grief-stricken) woman and her new lodger — a former major league ballplayer who's lost his ability to pitch.
