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Weike Wang’s Rental House, Callum Robinson’s Ingrained: The Making of a Craftsman, and Pat Barker’s The Voyage Home 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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Fiction
1. Rental House by Weike Wang
(Riverhead)
7 Rave • 2 Positive
Read an excerpt from Rental House here
“Rueful and tender … Wang is an exquisite practitioner of deadpan, and her dialogue is full of laugh-aloud zingers. But she also uses humorous insights to pierce the outer shell and plunge into themes of loneliness and despair … Throughout Wang’s three works of fiction, one discerns the same singular wit and interrogation of mores about gender, ethnicity and income disparity. But here she is at her most poignant and penetrating.”
–Leigh Haber (The Los Angeles Times)
2. Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd
(Atlantic Monthly Press)
7 Rave • 3 Positive • 2 Mixed • 1 Pan
“Boyd used this generic template masterly in his purest spy novel to date, Restless, in which the ordinary life of Eva, its hero, is transformed and upended by her recruitment as an agent. Gabriel’s Moon is equally sure-footed, comfortably managing at once to deliver all the pleasures of the genre while also subtly undercutting and questioning them … Boyd takes such obvious, infectious pleasure in telling his story, bounding along just in front of the reader, scattering clues and red herrings. I’m not sure that there’s a more reliably entertaining novelist working today.”
–Alex Preston (The Observer)
3. The Voyage Home by Pat Barker
(Doubleday)
7 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Mixed
“Has a scope and power that rest on the foundation of five decades of serious, probing work. Barker can be blistering about male arrogance and brutality toward women, but her core subject is the human capacity for violence … Has a decidedly creepy atmosphere that’s new for Barker and yet distinctively her own, with the macabre mix of nursery rhymes repurposed to malevolent effect.”
–Wendy Smith (The Boston Globe)
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Nonfiction
1. Ingrained: The Making of a Craftsman by Callum Robinson
(Ecco)
4 Rave • 1 Positive
“By the end of the first chapter, it’s clear that Robinson doesn’t just have a way with wood, he has a way with words too … It’s an autobiography which could just as easily be categorized as nature writing, so keenly observed is the author’s passion for woodlands and the creatures (and people) who rely on them … a must-read for any woodworker, craftsperson or artist on the highs and lows of being a creative in the modern world. But its appeal goes further. Humorous and heartfelt, and at times achingly sad and sorrowful, it’s a compelling tale that combines nature writing and memoir in a deeply personal and memorable way.”
–Stephen Finch (The Scotsman)
2. Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman by Patrick Hutchison
(St. Martin’s Press)
1 Rave • 3 Positive
“[A] charming, funny account … looking back, Hutchison wouldn’t have changed a thing about the experience — and in this equally motivating and relatable book, that earnest commitment to learning and the thrill that accompanies even the tiniest achievement shows on nearly every page.”
–Alexis Burling (The Washington Post)
3. Giant Love: Edna Ferber, Her Best-Selling Novel of Texas, and the Making of a Classic American Film by Julie Gilbert
(Pantheon)
2 Rave • 1 Positive
“A vivid portrait of the woman who produced a landmark novel that inspired a film that has become essential to modern cinema … Beautifully rendered.”
–Paul Alexander (The Washington Post)
