Wednesday, February 8, 2023

Nevermore: Our Missing Hearts, Paris Orphan, Magnolia Palace, Immune

Reported by Garry

 


Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. In this near future dystopian novel, 20-year-old Bird Gardner has not seen his mother, an acclaimed Chinese American poet and activist, since she vanished eleven years previously. Bird and his father live a quiet existence in a small room just off Harvard Square. One day, Bird receives a letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and he realizes the drawing contains clues as to the whereabouts of his mother. This novel was named a Best Book of 2022 by multiple news organizations and comes highly recommended by our reader.  AH 

The Paris Orphan by Natasha Lester. Jessica May is an American photojournalist who comes to Paris during World War II, and faces an uphill battle as a woman on the front lines. Friendships with other war correspondents and military men help, but the love of an orphaned girl thrust into the arms of the soldiers is what keeps Jessica going. Skip to 2005 and D’Arcy Hallworth has come to a chateau outside of Paris to curate a collection of World War II photographs – an assignment that will upend everything she thinks she knows about her family. This historical fiction is loosely based on true events, was heavily researched and is an absolute page-turner. Our reader said that she couldn’t put it down.  WJ

 

The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis. Romance, murder, high art and a true-life famous family all come together in this historical novel. In 1920, Lillian Carter, down-on-her-luck former model, starts working with the Frick family heiress and slowly but surely becomes entangled in the messy life of the family – affairs, stolen jewels, and high drama, culminating in a possible murder. Fifty years later, English model Veronica Weber chances upon a series of hidden messages in the Frick mansion (now a museum), a discovery that sets off a whirlwind adventure that could finally unlock the truth behind what really happened in the gilded halls of the opulent manor. Our reader was thrilled with this combination of romance, history, and art.  MH 

Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer is an incredibly engaging, accessible deep dive into the human immune system. Each chapter delves into a different facet of the immune system that is engaged in a never-ending war against bacteria, viruses, fungi, and cancers. Our reader particularly loved the informative, colorful diagrams throughout the book, finding that they really helped clarify and emphasize the descriptions in the text, and found the book to be completely fascinating.  KM

 

Also mentioned:

Hard Times Cotton Mill Girls: Personal Histories of Womanhood and Poverty in the South by Victoria Byerly

Pioneer Girl by Bich Minh Nguyen

The 12-Hour Art Expert: Everything You Need to Know About Art in a Dozen Masterpieces by Noah Charney

The Accidental Veterinarian: Tales from a Pet Practice by Philipp Schott

The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Walking to Wijiji by Bunny Medeiros

The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes

All The Broken Places by John Boyne

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie by Rachel Linden

Tutankhamun's Trumpet: Ancient Egypt in 100 Objects from the Boy-King's Tomb by Toby Wilkinson

She and Her Cat: Stories by Makoto Shinkai

Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America's Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power by Kyle Spencer

The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World by Malcolm Gaskill

Weird Virginia: Your Guide to Virginia's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets by Jeff Bahr, Troy Taylor, and Loren Coleman

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