Book Review

Brandon Hobson, a member of the Cherokee Nation Tribe, lives in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and teaches writing. His novel Where the Dead Sit Talking was a finalist for the National Book Awards. It’s a coming of age story set in rural Oklahoma in the late 1980s.

Award-winning author Neal Shusterman wrote the new Young Adult novel Dry in collaboration with his son. In it, they’ve turned a drought-plagued Southern California into a dystopian region when access to the Colorado River is entirely cut off, and made this a thrill-ride of a novel.

Marine, Public Servant, Kansan, written by Dennis Garcia, tells the story of Dennis’s cousin, Ernie Garcia. The child of immigrants, Ernie was born in the barrio in Garden City in the mid-20th century. He had a career in the military, worked for Senator Bob Dole—who wrote the foreword to this book—and held the esteemed position of sergeant-at-arms for the U.S. Senate, rising through the ranks of government to travel worldwide as a congressional delegate.

The first thing to know about Kate DiCamillo’s middle-grade novels is this: They’re not just for kids.  DiCamillo – the author of Because of Winn-Dixie and two Newbery Medal winners, The Tale of Despereaux and Flora and Ulysses – creates unforgettable characters that tug at your emotions no matter your age. 

I reviewed Bryan Stevenson’s well-known book Just Mercy on this station in March of 2015. I explained that Just Mercy is a gripping and painful narrative of challenging the judicial system in an Alabama that’s very deeply entrenched in court-sanctioned prejudice. What I didn’t focus on is Stevenson’s hope and the extensive lesson in civics he delivers.

Sarah Smarsh’s debut book Heartland, a memoir of growing up in a working class/poor family in south central Kansas, has just been long listed for this year’s National Book Award for non-fiction. Born in 1980, the daughter of a teenage mother, Smarsh uses her own experience to show us the divide between the middle-class and the working poor. She incisively cuts through our assumptions about a mother who works three jobs that are hard on her body; about a farmer or laborer harmed by government policies--or lack thereof--all burdened by the emotional toll of making ends meet.

This commentary originally aired February 19, 2018.  

Inspired by the noir novels of James M. Cain, Laura Lippman assiduously delivers a masterpiece of the form in her steamy novel Sunburn. An alleged secret stash of cash from a questionable insurance settlement, apparently amoral characters, and ulterior motives all mixed up because of a fervid love affair simmer over a steady flame, until everything combusts.

The new book by The Atlantic correspondent James Fallows and his wife, linguist and writer Deborah Fallows, titled Our Towns, is a compelling look at local communities and how they function--for better or worse-- in a time of national political dysfunction.