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This Bookshelf: 2019 Books Links to All Steve Hopkins’ Bookshelves Web Page PDF/epub/Searchable Link to Latest Book Reviews: Book Reviews Blog Links to Current Bookshelf: Pending and Read 2019 Books 2019 Books Links to 465 Books Read or Skipped in 2018 2018 Bookshelf 2018 Bookshelf Links to All Books from 1999 All Books Authors A through All Books Authors A through through 2018 Authors A-G G G Links to All Books from 1999 through 2018 Authors H-M All Books Authors H All Books Authors H through M through M Links to All Books from 1999 All Books Authors N through All Books Authors N through through 2018 Authors N-Z Z Z Book of Books: An ebook of Book of Books books read, reviewed or skipped from 1999 through 2018 This web page lists all books reviewed by Steve Hopkins at http://bkrev.blogspot.com during 2019 as well as books pending (The Shelf of Possibility) or relegated to the Shelf of Reproach or the Shelf of Ennui. You can click on the title of a book or on the picture of any jacket cover to jump to amazon.com where you can purchase a copy of any book on this shelf. Key to Ratings: I love it ***** I like it **** It’s OK *** I don’t like it ** I hate it * Click on Title (Click on Blog Picture to Link to purchase Author(s) Rating Comments Date Purchase at at amazon.com) amazon.com Remus. I don’t read a lot of true crime books, but I’ve enjoyed Karen Abbott’s prior books, so I picked up her latest, The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women The Ghosts of Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Eden Park: The Shocked Jazz-Age America. I had never heard Bootleg King, the of a bootlegger named George Remus who in Women Who 1935 owned more than a third of all the liquor Abbott, Karen 9/24/19 Pursued Him, and **** in the United States. Thanks to Abbott’s fine the Murder That writing, she pulls readers into the world of Shocked Jazz-Age this larger than life character and what the America USA was like during Prohibition. I defy readers to complete these 400+ pages and not at some time find oneself rooting for George Remus, especially when one’s enthusiasm has been enhanced by a few fingers of bourbon. Subscribe. Former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson has written a great account of the disruption of the news media, a book titled, Merchants of Truth: The Merchants of Business of News and the Fight for Facts. She Truth: The understands this business from the inside and Business of News Abramson, Jill 4/19/19 has gained perspective from the outside to and the Fight for **** assess what all this turmoil means for Facts American life. Many people are losing faith and trust in a free press. Readers who value journalism should read this book and then subscribe to another high-quality newspaper in your town or someplace else. Time. Andre Aciman revisits characters from his 2007 novel titled, Call Me By Your Name, decades later in another finely written novel titled, Find Me. The title plays out in multiple ways in the novel, to the pleasure of readers. I was delighted by Aciman’s exploration of time. Here’s one sample, from page 46: “Basically, we don’t know how to think of time, because time couldn’t care less what we think of time, because time is just a wobbly, unreliable metaphor for how we think about life. Because ultimately it isn’t time that is Find Me Aciman, Andre 12/16/19 **** wrong for us, or we for time. If may be life itself that is wrong. … because there is death. Because death, contrary to what everyone tells you, is not part of life. Death is God’s great blunder, and sunset and dawn are how he blushes for shame and asks our forgiveness each and every day.” Here’s another sample from page 104, ‘“And besides, if I give you an hour now, you’ll want a day. And if I give you a day, you’ll want a year. I know your type.”’ Fans of the earlier novel will love the return of Oliver and Elio. As a last grabber for you: Samuel and Miranda meet on a train. Read the novel to find out what happens next. Range. I enjoyed the range of experience represented in the characters in each of the stories in the debut collection by Camille Acker titled, Training School for Negro Girls. The situations, mostly set in the District of Columbia, are recognizable and insightful. I especially enjoyed Mambo Sauce, in which a black woman who moved from Brooklyn interacted with the owners and patrons of a Training School Acker, Camille 3/26/19 neighborhood food joint. The contrast for Negro Girls **** between how Constance and her white boyfriend approached the mambo sauce and the restaurant was perfect. Short stories can leave some readers wanting more exposition, but I found in each of these stories, Acker gets the genre just right: we glimpse into the lives of people we recognize and the ways in which they behave tell us something about human nature. Intensity. Readers who enjoy finely written literary fiction are those most likely to enjoy Elliot Ackerman’s novel titled, Waiting for Eden. Protagonist Eden survived an explosion in Iraq and is at a Texas burn center thanks to the efforts of medical personnel who saved his life. What’s left of Eden weighs 70 pounds, down from his normal 220. Eden’s distinction Waiting for Eden Ackerman, Elliot 1/22/19 ***** is that his were the worst wounds of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that didn’t immediately end in death. Eden’s wife Mary has spent three years at his bedside waiting for him to communicate, heal or die. The narrator is a ghost: Eden’s best friend who died in that blast in Iraq, who is also waiting for Eden to join him in death. These three characters are complex, and Ackerman develops them with depth. From the beginning to the end of the novel, Ackerman maintains an intensity while he develops multiple levels of meaning and explores issues of loyalty, suffering and betrayal. Dominion: The History of England from the Battle of Ackroyd, Peter Unread Shelf of Ennui 2019. Waterloo to Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Hardly Children Adamczyk, Laura Unread Shelf of Ennui 2019. Kingdom. The second novel in the Legacy of Orisha series by Tomi Adeyemi is titled, Children of Virtue and Vengeance. Magic has gone rampant in Orisha with dramatic consequences and changes in which faction dominates. New readers should read the first Children of Virtue installment to avoid total confusion. Fans Adeyemi, Tomi 12/20/19 and Vengeance **** may feel that this novel moves back and forth in ways that may seem unsatisfying, but should keep loyal readers engaged and expecting the next installment. The attempt to unify Orisha has many obstacles, and much of the novel leaves us in a bloody morass as we await what comes next. Abduction. I like to read entertaining mystery novels, especially those that keep me The Coronation Akunin, Boris 3/6/19 guessing long into the narrative. The first **** novel I’ve read by Boris Akunin is titled, The Coronation, and features a recurring protagonist and private investigator, Erast Petrovich Fandorin. The four-year-old son of a Grand Duke has been abducted shortly before the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. Ransom requests for royal jewels, including ones that would be visible at the coronation add to the urgency of finding the boy. Fandorin uses great skills at disguise and assimilation with criminals to try to solve the crime. Akunin develops the characters with skill and keeps the plot momentum at a fast pace. Readers who enjoy mysteries, especially in a historical setting, are those most likely to enjoy this novel. The Hazel Wood Albert, Melissa Unread Shelf of Ennui 2019. Oman. I picked up a copy of Kokha Alharthi’s novel titled, Celestial Bodies, after it won the Man Booker International Prize. This finely written novel draws readers into the Omani culture and the changes to that society over recent decades, through the lens of three sisters. Oman’s history of slavery can Celestial Bodies Alharthi, Jokha 11/14/19 **** be disturbing, but Alharthi uses that history to explore the many ways in which people are bound and constrained. The women in this novel are complex and interesting characters and the society in which they live demands change and extracts love and loss as time passes. Bad Stories Almond, Steve Unread Shelf of Ennui 2019. William Stoner and the Battle for Almond, Steve Unread Shelf of Ennui 2019. the Inner Life Welfare Anwyll, Steve Unread Shelf of Ennui 2019. Domestic. Many novels that present dysfunctional family life offer insight into the complexity of our human condition. In her debut novel titled, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish, Katya Apekina elegantly presents us with a tragic family saga. Mother Marianne goes to a psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt. Teenage The Deeper the daughters Edie and Mae leave life with their Water the Uglier Apekina, Katya 12/9/19 mother in Louisiana and end up in New York the Fish **** with their father, Dennis, a novelist. Through different narrators, we see tragic lives in different ways. As in many families, different children describe their shared experience in radically different ways, as if they were raised in different places.

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