Claire Messud’s This Strange Eventful History, Adam Higginbotham’s Challenger, Miranda July’s All Fours, and Hari Kunzru’s Blue Ruin all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.
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1. This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud
(W. W. Norton & Company)
14 Rave • 2 Positive
Read an interview with Claire Messud here
“This monumental novel, which is a work of salvage and salvation … Quilted from scraps of memory treasured in the author’s attic for decades … Regardless of how much Messud may have drawn from biographical details, though, this novel grips our interest only because of how expertly she shapes these incidents for dramatic effect … A novel of such cavernous depth, such relentless exploration, that it can’t help but make one realize how much we know and how little we confess about our own families. I strove to withhold judgment, to exercise a little skeptical decorum, but I couldn’t help finishing each chapter in a flush of awe.”
–Ron Charles (The Washington Post)
2. All Fours by Miranda July
(Riverhead)
7 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed
“About the binary of heterosexual love and the claustrophobia inherent in being a mother in a heteronormative family. More broadly, it’s a book about straddling two worlds … In a move that rejects the traditional arc of the hero’s journey, she never even leaves California. But transformation happens anyway. The narrator rediscovers herself not by driving across state lines, but by standing a shadow’s length away.”
–Jenessa Abrams (The Los Angeles Review of Books)
3. Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru
(Knopf)
6 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Pan
Read an excerpt from Blue Ruin here
“…a lively, ever-intensifying story as Jay weaves in discussions of race, immigration, work, and what it means to earn a living. It’s a darkly ironic tale of two bubbles—an art world divorced from economic reality and a Covid era that segregated us from society. A dark, smart, provocative tale of the perils of art making.”
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1. Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham
(Avid Reader Press)
7 Rave
“Adam Higginbotham provides the most definitive account of the explosion that took the lives of the seven-person crew. He also meticulously explores the missteps and negligence that allowed the tragedy to occur … The pace is so brisk that readers will be surprised when they realize the vivid account of the Challenger launch doesn’t occur until well after halfway through the book … Compelling, comprehensive.”
–Andrew DeMillo (Associated Press)
2. Skies of Thunder: The Deadly World War II Mission Over the Roof of the World by Caroline Alexander
(Viking)
3 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Alexander casts her story as an ‘epic,’ yet it is one in which the actors suffer like Job more often than they fight like Achilles. There are stirring episodes of British sang-froid, ‘American-style glamour’ and remarkable courage among the region’s remote tribal peoples, but it is perseverance that assumes heroic proportions … Alexander adroitly explicates technical concepts—flight mechanics, de-icing, night vision—but is at her best rendering pilots’ fear … Epic.”
–Elizabeth D. Samet (The New York Times Book Review)
3. Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna
(Ecco)
3 Rave • 3 Positive
“Packed with harrowing stories and illuminating revelations … Utilizing a voice that’s often bitingly funny but never insincere, Hanna proves a captivating narrator.”
–Zach Ruskin (The San Francisco Chronicle)
