July 2023 Must Reads
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
Best-selling author Jonathan Eig pens an “exhaustively researched” biography of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. Eig provides readers with an intimate view of King, who “demanded peaceful protest” but was “rarely at peace with himself.”
“King” provides a new look at his determination to fight for justice. Eig follows MLK from “the classroom to the pulpits to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis.”
The book is based on hundreds of interviews with those who knew King, recently released FBI documents and thousands of items, including personal letters and unaired television footage. King saw a “moral rot” at the core of American life, but Eig writes: “He also insisted we ‘never lose infinite hope’. He never did.”
Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
New York City in the 1970s is teeming with crime and overflowing trash in this “darkly funny tale.” Ray Carney is trying to keep on the straight-and-narrow, but his partner in crime is a constant presence. With Harlem burning “block by block,” Carney enlists Pepper to investigate a fire. They end up battling those who are violent and “utterly corrupted.”
The Librarianist by Patrick Dewitt
Retired librarian Bob Comet meets a confused elderly woman and returns her to the senior center, where he decides to volunteer. There his story of the Second World War, true love and the purpose of a librarian’s vocation are revealed. The book “celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life.”
The Air Raid Book Club by Annie Lyons
A story of making connections through books set against the bombing of London during World War II. While running a bookshop during the Blitz, with bombs whistling overhead, Gertie Bingham takes in a refugee. They decide to start an “air raid book club” that brings together neighbors and bookstore customers. The lively discussions bolster spirits in the most trying times.
Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena
Who took 9-year-old Avery Wooler? That’s the crux of this mystery novel set in a “safe neighborhood.” William Wooler, whose affair has just ended, returns home to find his daughter unexpectedly home from school. He becomes angry. Hours later she’s declared missing. The neighborhood becomes unhinged. But is he the only one hiding a lie?
