Five hot new books for August
My picks for August's best new books will distract you from the summer heat. In Time's Mouth three generations of women with the ability to travel back to previous times in their lives, struggle to escape their legacies of trauma. Rosie the Riveter meets A League of Their Own in Jennifer Chiaverini's lively and illuminating novel Canary Girls about the "munitionettes." In The Keeper of Hidden Books Zofia fights to save her friend and preserve her culture and community using literature. When a skeleton is unearthed in a small, close-knit community, an unforgettable cast of characters closely guard a secret in The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. A family’s search for their missing father leads them to question everything they know about him and one another in Happiness Falls.
1. Time's Mouth by Edan Lepucki
"In Lepucki's latest novel, three generations of women, all with the remarkable ability to travel back to previous times in their lives, struggle to escape the legacies of trauma inflicted upon them by their mothers. Ursa is the spiritual leader of a commune of women in the Santa Cruz Mountains who cultivate cannabis and bask in the energy generated by her monthly "transports" from the eastern wing of their remote cabin.
"Cold and narcissistic, Ursa is obsessed with harnessing her "gift," to the extent that she ignores everything else, even her son Ray. Ursa is oblivious to Ray's growing closeness with Cherry, an orphan whose paternity throws Ursa into a rage. When Cherry becomes pregnant with Opal, she and Ray leave the Mamas but cannot escape the grip of the women's terrible powers. As a teen, Opal travels to her own past to learn why her mother abandoned her and Ray." –Library Journal
"For fans of Matrix and The Girls, Time’s Mouth is a mesmerizing and confident novel about power, desire, and the depths of our bonds." —Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
"Stunningly original and deeply human, Time's Mouth is one of those books that's impossible not to love. It's a little magical, a little emotional, but most of all a meditation on loss and longing and the search for meaning in an inexplicable universe. I'm an Edan Lepucki fan, and this is her best book yet." --Janelle Brown, author of I'll Be You
2. Canary Girls by Jennifer Chiaverini
Rosie the Riveter meets A League of Their Own in New York Times bestselling novelist Jennifer Chiaverini's lively and illuminating novel about the "munitionettes." They built bombs in Britain's arsenals during World War I. These women risked their lives for the war effort and discovered camaraderie and courage on the soccer pitch.
Early in the Great War thousands of women built weapons to support their country. They worked grueling hours handling explosives with little protective gear. Former housemaid, April Tipton, 19, takes a job at the Thornshire Arsenal near London. Her friend Marjorie told her about the high wages and good meals. April works in the Danger Building filling shells.
The boss's wife, Helen Purcell, is deeply troubled by reports that Danger Building workers suffer from serious, unexplained illnesses. One common symptom, the lurid yellow hue of their skin, earns them the nickname "canary girls." She suspects there's a connection between the canary girls' maladies and the chemicals they handle. Helen joins the arsenal administration as their staunchest, though often unappreciated, advocate.
Lucy Dempsey is the wife of Daniel Dempsey, Olympic gold medalist and star forward of Tottenham Hotspur. She works at the arsenal to do her bit to hasten the end of the war. When her coworkers learn Lucy is a footballer's wife, they invite her to join the arsenal ladies' football club.
The football pitch is the one place where class distinctions and fears for their men fall away. As the war grinds on and tragedy takes its toll, the Canary Girls persist despite the dangers. They are proud to serve, determined to outlive the war and rejoice in victory and peace.
3. The Keeper of Hidden Books by Madeline Martin
Zofia has always found comfort books and her best friend Jania. As Hitler's forces loot and destroy Warsaw, Zofia realizes books and her friend need to be saved. She jumps to action to save her friend and salvage whatever books she can from the wreckage. Zofia hides books away and starts a clandestine book club. She and her dearest friend never surrender their love of reading, even when Janina is forced into the ghetto.
The closer Warsaw creeps toward liberation, the more dangerous life becomes for the women and their families. They realize escape may not be possible for everyone. Zofia must fight to save her friend and preserve her culture and community using the only weapon they have left - literature.
“The Keeper of Hidden Books is a timely novel based on the brave librarians of Warsaw during the German Occupation of WWII who risked their lives to save books and Polish culture from being erased from history. Madeline Martin’s impeccable research leaps off every page in this powerfully absorbing story of resilience, enduring friendship and a love of literature and the arts. An inspiring novel you don’t want to miss!”–Eliza Knight, author of
“Readers will be on the edge of their seats as they are transported…with Madeline Martin's vivid and inspiring characters.” —Kelly Rimmer, author of The Warsaw Orphan
4. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
"National Book Award winner McBride (Deacon King Kong) tells a vibrant tale of Chicken Hill, a working-class neighborhood of Jewish, Black, and European immigrant families in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, where the 1972 discovery of a human skeleton unearths events that took place several decades earlier. In 1925, Moshe Ludlow owns the town's first integrated dance hall and theater with his wife, Chona, a beautiful woman who's undeterred by her polio-related disability and driven by her deep Jewish faith. Chona also runs the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, where she extends kindness and indefinite credit to her Jewish and Black customers alike.
"When Nate and Addie Tamblin, friends and employees of the Ludlows who are Black, approach the couple for help keeping their nephew, Dodo, from becoming a ward of the state, Chona doesn't hesitate to open her home to hide the boy from the authorities. As the racist white "good Christians" from down the hill begin to interfere, claiming to be worried about Dodo's welfare, a two-fold tragedy occurs that brings the community together to exact justice, which leads to the dead body discovered years later.
"McBride's pages burst with life, whether in descriptions of Moshe's dance hall, where folks get down to Chick Webb's 'gorgeous, stomping, low-down, rip-roaring, heart-racing jazz,' or a fortune teller who dances and cries out to God before registering her premonitions on a typewriter. This endlessly rich saga highlights the different ways in which people look out for one another." –Publishers Weekly
5. Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
When a father goes missing, his family’s search leads them to question everything they know about him and one another. This is both a riveting page-turner and a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis from the award-winning author of Miracle Creek.
Korean American college student Mia Parkson and her twin brother, John, are spending the COVID lockdown at their parents' house. One morning, their autistic 14-year-old brother, Eugene, races home alone from a hike with their father. Eugene's clothes are spattered with blood. Where is their father? Eugene is nonverbal so he can't tell them what happened.
Mia and her family help authorities sift through clues. She finds her father's analytical notes that posit that the experience of happiness is relative to an expected outcome. Mia begins to wonder whether her father is subjecting them all to an elaborate social experiment.
Meanwhile, the family begins to wonder if they have underestimated Eugene's intelligence and ability to communicate. This revelation dovetails with Mia's own thoughts on how factors including race, language and emotion impact people's interpretation of information and ability to relate to one another.
“A brilliant, satisfying, compassionate mystery that is as much about language and storytelling as it is about a missing father. I loved this book.”—Gabrielle Zevin author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
“This is a story with so many twists and turns I was riveted through the last page.”—Jodi Picoult author of Mad Honey
