Daniel Kehlmann’s The Director, Amanda Hess’ Second Life, and Florence Knapp’s The Names all feature among the best reviewed books of the week.
Brought to you by Book Marks, Lit Hub’s home for book reviews.
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1. The Names by Florence Knapp
(Pamela Dorman Books)
11 Rave
“The sort of novel that’s bound to create discussion about the events happening, what they mean and how they relate to one another. It has an ending that’s definitive but also leaves plenty of room for interpretation. And it is guaranteed to make readers reflect about their own lives … Knapp [has a] gift for insightful, homespun metaphors … A simple, seemingly unadorned style but insights…pop up frequently. Her choices reassure us that she understands people, which helps The Names transcend a premise that could come off as gimmicky.”
–Chris Hewitt (The Star Tribune)
2. The Director by Daniel Kehlmann
(Summit Books)
6 Rave • 3 Positive
“Taut, unflinching … Sharply observed … Arresting … Kehlmann’s mystery forcefully animates the cost—artistic and moral—of collaboration.”
–Lauren LeBlanc (The Boston Globe)
3. Old School Indian by Aaron John Curtis
(Zando)
5 Rave
“Sharply comic and touching … The evolving relationship between the narrator and the anti-hero he observes and interferes with gives the novel its considerable power.”
–Margaret Quamme (Booklist)
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1. Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land by Rachel Cockerell
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
6 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Multi-voiced, and with a legion of different perspectives, the resulting book is wonderfully vital and idiosyncratic, a model of how history writing can be made fresh … But if this book is not a perfectly structured whole, the sum of its parts adds up to an innovative and immediate account of a story that has world-historical significance.”
–Lucy Hughes-Hallett (The Guardian)
2. Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age by Amanda Hess
(Doubleday)
5 Rave • 4 Positive
“Spot-on and brutally funny … As a member of the particularly online elite, Hess herself is also an expert of sorts, one I’ll gladly follow into the dense digital jungle. Yet she also smartly paints herself as just another willing victim of the internet … Hess does all of this without sharing a drop of advice—hallelujah. Instead, she escorts readers on a wry tour of the buffet of options available to desperate new parents.”
–Hillary Kelly (The Atlantic)
3. The Peepshow: The Murders at Rillington Place by Kate Summerscale
(Penguin Press)
3 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Remarkable … Bleak, uncompromising … Summerscale restores the dignity of Christie’s victims by telling their stories in the round as best she can … A vivid portrait of a bitterly divided society … Powerful.”
–Erica Wagner (The Financial Times)