Surprising Recommendations

Last night while watching the PBS News Hour, Peg Michel and I both viewed a bit from two respected book critics about the best books of 2022. Want to read works that the literary ‘experts’ loved? Well, here’s a few snipets of what they said:

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan–not surprising, really. One either likes Jennifer Egan or not. I appreciate her writing skills and just wish I had the mind that could enjoy them!!

Trust by Herman Diaz–again, a masterful piece of writing from an author who displays, as does Jennifer Egan, his ability to write in multiple voices to tell a story that doesn’t matter as much as the ‘telling’ does.

If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery–this book tells the story of a Jamacian familty that flees violence in Kingston to resettle in Miami. Sound familiar? While set in the 1970’s, this story promises to be grippingly relevant today.

And finally, here is a book for animal lovers that features the pandemic. It’s called The Year of the Puppy: How Dogs Become Themselves by Alexandra Horowitz. The book reviewers notice a trend this past year in writing not so much ABOUT the a pandemic itself, but about life DURING the pandemic. Of course, we all know that pet adoptions rose dramatically in 2020 and 2021. Horowitz, who studies dogs in her Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College, seized on the opportunity to interest people in puppy development. These insightful and heart warming stories about her ‘pandemic’ puppy Quiddity will lift anyone’s spirits, dog lover or not.