by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian
I’m starting to see lists of the most-anticipated books
coming out this spring. Some of them you
can request now; for others, you’ll have to wait a bit. Here are a few of the highlights:
One sure bet is the
new Erik Larson book, Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. Larson
is the author of Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts, both
bestselling nonfiction books that got stellar reviews. This May marks the 100th
anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania.
It’s a familiar story of World War I, but Larson is said to have brought
his detailed research and thriller-style writing to once again bring a moment
of history to life. “Dead Wake” comes
out March 10.
Short story collections aren’t often popular in our library,
but Western stories are. The book Crow Fair: Stories by Thomas McGuane is a collection of Montana short stories. Publishers Weekly describes them as “ironic
echoes of the Old West.” This book comes out March 3.
Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro moved to England from Japan when he
was five. His most famous works are The Remains of the Day, made into a movie starring Emma Thompson and Anthony
Hopkins, and Never Let Me Go. He is
known for writing fiction that varies widely in genre and subject. His newest, Buried Giant, is fable-like and
set in fifth century England. The
reviews are tremendously mixed, with some praising the novel as magical and
unforgettable, and others panning it as tedious and lacking in subtlety. This book was released March 3.
Toni Morrison has a new novel coming out April 21. God Help the Child is a story about how
childhood trauma shapes and misshapes the lives of adults. Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved in 1988.
The reviews for The Fifth Gospel are fantastic. Author Ian Caldwell had a bestseller ten
years ago with The Rule of Four. He
has reportedly been researching for this new novel for the intervening ten
years. Although it sounds like The Da
Vinci Code, The Fifth Gospel is supposed to be much smarter and just as
difficult to put down. The curator of a
mysterious upcoming exhibit at the Vatican museums is murdered, and the reason
seems to involve a controversial relic and the Diatesseron, a compilation of
the four Gospels that was created in A.D. 150.
This book will drop March 3.
Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life was a bestseller and a
staple of the best of 2013 book lists.
Her new companion novel is called A God in Ruins. This time she follows the younger brother of
Ursula Todd, the main character of Life After Life. Teddy survives the war, something he never
expected to do, and faces a future he didn’t expect to have. No word on whether he lives his life over and
over. This book comes out May 5.
I know many of you are eagerly anticipating the sequel to
the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird. I can promise that we will be getting Go Set a Watchman even if it
isn’t in the library catalog yet – and it might be listed by the time you read
this in the paper. That book will be
published July 14. What astonishing news
in the world of books!
Our adult winter reading program runs until the end of
March. If you read a great or awful book
between now and then, sign up for our program, write a very short review, and
let us all know whether you recommend a book or not. Winter is the perfect time
to get away in a book!
