This week, we feature a gripping mystery by the rivers of rural Minnesota and a baseball great’s definitive biography that could categorically reclaim his reputation.
Fiction
‘The River We Remember’
By William Kent Krueger
It’s Memorial Day 1958 in a rural town in Minnesota. Folks are gathered to remember and celebrate the sons of past wars, but then a discovery devastates the event. The nearly naked body of a wealthy, but not particularly liked landowner, Jimmy Quinn, is found floating in the Alabaster River. Leading the investigation is Brody Dern, who carries his own demons from his war-torn years. All evidence points to another war veteran, Noah Bluestone, as the perpetrator. Prepare to be hooked by this riveting tale.
Atria Books, 2023, 432 pages
Nonfiction
‘The Dance Cure: The Surprising Science to Being Smarter, Stronger, Happier’
By Peter Lovatt
Can dancing make us smarter, stronger, and happier? Former professional dancer and now a dance psychologist, Mr. Lovatt has found that dancing can help transform lives, reduce depression, and even enhance the self-esteem in teenagers. The author helpfully addresses the self-consciousness that keeps so many people off the dance floor, and in the book’s longest chapter, he demonstrates the positive effects of dance on the brain and how it benefits people from Parkinson’s patients to rugby players.
HarperOne, 2021, 208 pages
Memoir
‘See You On Down the Road: A Retirement Journal’
By Leon Hale
Writers never really retire. They leave the day job and collect their pension, but most labor on during retirement. The drive to create remains. At 93, Leon Hale walked away from his weekly Houston Chronicle column. After loafing a month or so, he began writing a journal of his retirement experience. This book is the result. It reads like an extended Hale column: folksy, down-to-earth, and focused on everyday occurrences and Hale’s reaction to them. These qualities made Hale’s columns popular.
Winedale Publishing, 2021, 256 pages
Sports
‘Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty’
By Charles Leerhsen
There is argument that Ty Cobb was the greatest player to ever grace the baseball diamond. Revered and feared by fellow players, he retired as the game’s great and was first to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. His reputation, however, has been tarnished, primarily by a biographical hit piece in 1961. Relentlessly researched in an effort to reclaim the Georgia Peach’s reputation, this book has become his definitive biography, proving it’s easier to destroy a reputation than build one.
Simon and Schuster, 2016, 472 pages
Classics
‘Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres’
By Henry Adams
Descended from two presidents, acclaimed historian Henry Adams here explores the great fortress in Brittany dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel and the Gothic cathedrals of the 13th century, focusing on the most beautiful of them all, Notre Dame de Chartres. Published in 1904, this study includes Adams’s astute critical reflections on medieval art, architecture, and literature; meditations on history, philosophy, and religion; and insights into his own life and personality as well.
Independently Published, 2021, 250 pages
For Kids
‘The Velveteen Rabbit’
By Margery Williams and William Nicholson
Timeless and heartwarming, this classic belongs in every child’s library. In it, a simple and lovely toy rabbit enters a young boy’s life as a Christmas present. More complex than many children’s books, the story contains themes beyond the simple love of a toy, including the capacity to face changes in life and self-actualization. Grab the tissues.
Doubleday, 1991, 33 pages
