{"id":232179,"date":"2024-01-19T04:53:53","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T09:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/?p=232179"},"modified":"2024-01-29T07:21:55","modified_gmt":"2024-01-29T12:21:55","slug":"what-should-you-read-next-here-are-the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-week-1-19-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/what-should-you-read-next-here-are-the-best-reviewed-books-of-the-week-1-19-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Book<\/a><\/p>\n

Marie-Helene Bertino\u2019s Beautyland<\/em>, Susan Muaddi Darraj\u2019s Behind You Is the Sea<\/em>, and Rebecca Boyle\u2019s Our Moon\u00a0<\/em>all\u00a0feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week.<\/p>\n

Brought to you by Book Marks<\/a>, Lit Hub\u2019s home for book reviews.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Fiction<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Beautyland<\/a><\/p>\n

1. Beautyland<\/em><\/a> by Marie-Helene Bertino
\n(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)<\/strong><\/p>\n

9 Rave<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026astonishing \u2026 Never mind the fault in our stars\u2026this is a book that exults in them \u2026 An ineffable sadness and sense of resignation hang over Beautyland<\/em>, which refuses to give in to sentimentality or serendipity or the idea of everything working out for a reason. It\u2019s the second novel I\u2019ve reviewed in six months that invokes Thornton Wilder\u2019s Our Town<\/em>, the first being, more obsessively, Ann Patchett\u2019s best-selling Tom Lake<\/em>. Adina is cast not as Emily, like Patchett\u2019s heroine, but as the narrator, which feels deeply significant. Being an alien here might just be a metaphor for the difficult blessing of feeling enough apart from the thrum of life on Earth to report on its goings-on: to tell a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Alexandra Jacobs (The New York Times<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Behind<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Behind You Is the Sea<\/em><\/a> by Susan Muaddi Darraj
\n(HarperVia)<\/strong><\/p>\n

5 Rave \u2022 1 Positive
\nRead Susan Muaddi Darraj\u2019s\u00a0essay on finding inspiration in the lives of\u00a0ordinary\u00a0<\/strong>Palestinians\u00a0here<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cSusan Muaddi Darraj\u2019s powerful debut novel-in-stories, Behind You Is the Sea<\/em>, depicts multiple immigrant Palestinian families in Baltimore, whose lives intertwine in unexpected ways. Darraj uses a kaleidoscopic point of view, dropping the reader into a character\u2019s life at a pivotal moment, then switching to another character later in time, providing a multifaceted look at their community \u2026 Other stories illuminate the difficulties of living in diaspora, from making a living, adjusting to a different culture, experiencing racism and classism and navigating generational conflicts over changing values \u2026 moments of insight and empathy limn Darraj\u2019s novel, shining through the sadness and tension of her characters\u2019 lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013May-lee Chai (The Star Tribune<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Lea<\/a><\/p>\n

3. Ilium<\/em><\/a> by Lea Carpenter
\n(Knopf)<\/strong><\/p>\n

5 Rave \u2022 1 Pan<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Carpenter knows how to dish out the dread that a spy story needs, what makes Ilium<\/em> intriguing are the characters \u2026 This is the sort of moral ambiguity that seems to fascinate Carpenter, the way living a double life and every day making your cover, that critical and deeply embedded lie, feels real to everyone around you. It\u2019s also what makes Ilium<\/em> such an unexpectedly moving novel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Chris Bohjalian (The New York Times Book Review<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

**<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nonfiction<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Manjula<\/a><\/p>\n

1. The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History<\/em><\/a> by Manjula Martin
\n(Pantheon)<\/strong><\/p>\n

4 Rave \u2022 2 Positive \u2022 1 Mixed
\nRead an excerpt from The Last Fire Season<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPowerful \u2026 Grounded\u2026surprising \u2026 She braids together strands of various histories\u2014a personal one, along with the larger story of humans and fire\u2014all set against the background of the summer and fall of 2020, when both the pandemic and wildfires were raging \u2026 The range of this book coaxes us to confront our own failures of imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Jennifer Szalai (The New York Times<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Rebecca<\/p>\n

2. Our Moon: How Earth\u2019s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are<\/em><\/a> by Rebecca Boyle<\/strong><\/p>\n

3 Rave \u2022 3 Positive
\nRead Rebecca Boyle\u2019s essay, \u201cMotherhood and the Moon,\u201d here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBoyle walks the reader through a history of both Earth and humanity, from the formation of our planet and the evolution of life to the development of civilization, religion, philosophy and, eventually, science \u2026 Boyle, whose graceful writing is as lulling as a bedtime story, paints the moon as more than just a driver of physical phenomena \u2026 Boyle finds the moon in places I would never think to look. And she has convinced me that though our connection to it is ever-changing, the moon perseveres as a source of knowledge, wonder and influence\u2014and is anything but dull \u2026 Timely \u2026 Makes the moon feel closer than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Katrina Miller (The New York Times Book Review<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"Benjamin<\/p>\n

3. Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science<\/em><\/a> by Benjamin Breen
\n(Grand Central)<\/strong><\/p>\n

3 Rave<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBreen blends fleet-footed biography with an accessible analysis of mid-20th-century research into \u2018psychedelic\u2019 experiences \u2026 Breen artfully weaves Mead\u2019s biography with fascinating details of the sprawling psychedelics scene (producers of the TV show Flipper took acid). The result is a riveting exploration of a shadowy episode in 20th-century history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Publishers Weekly<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marie-Helene Bertino\u2019s Beautyland, Susan Muaddi Darraj\u2019s Behind You Is the Sea, and Rebecca Boyle\u2019s Our Moon\u00a0all\u00a0feature among the Best Reviewed Books of the Week. Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub\u2019s home for book reviews. * Fiction 1. Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 9 Rave \u201c\u2026astonishing \u2026 Never mind the fault […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":873,"featured_media":232180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43069,6,43070,43135],"tags":[15654,13821,33508],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Ilium.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rKFr-YoP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithub.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}