Book Reviews

Esi Edugyan’s new novel mashes up two unlikely story lines—it’s part Jules Verne adventure and part heart-breaking escaped slave narrative. The heart of the story is devoted friendship and the complicated meaning of freedom. This month’s book review is Washington Black.

Face to face encounters with the wild are an everyday occurrence in Wasatch and Summit counties. How we think about those encounters is at the heart of the new book Reimagining a Place for the Wild edited by Leslie Miller.

Walking the trash cans out to the curb last week, I was dive-bombed by a hawk. This creature left no doubt that she was on the attack and that I was her target. Terrified, I jumped under a tree while she hovered above. This was a stunningly beautiful, immense bird, and I had to acknowledge that in that moment, she was in control.

Whether you visit the library weekly, with toddlers in tow for story time, or you haven’t set foot in a library in who knows how long, Susan Orlean’s The Library Book will captivate and enthrall you. Set against the backdrop of the devastating Los Angeles Central Library fire in 1986, Orlean’s non-fiction narrative explores all kinds of things from the essential role of libraries in today’s world to the cultural history of Los Angeles.  Summit County Library’s Youth Services Librarian, Kirsten Nilsson has this month’s book review.

A great theme in Western life is the relationship between man and Nature, or man and the untamed wild. That’s a strong theme in this month’s book review of American Wolf

American Wolf explores this theme of man and Nature through the life of one extraordinary Yellowstone wolf known as 06 for the year she was born. We know the facts of her life, thanks to the Yellowstone Wolf Project and its founder, biologist Doug Smith. From his helicopter, he tracks the park’s collared wolves, marking the range of each pack through the seasons.

You could say that Us Against You is a sports story about a hockey town and its team and you wouldn't be wrong, but it is about so much more.

Since his debut novel A Man Called Ove, written and published in 2014, Fredrik Backman cranked out one a year -   the last two being Beartown and Us Against You.

What do all those federal agencies do, and why do we need them? Michael Lewis’ recent book, The Fifth Risk explains. 

Earlier this year, parts of the federal government were shut down and their employees furloughed. It may have been hard for the average person to detect the range of services lost or damage done. Michael Lewis’ recent book, The Fifth Risk presents a timely discussion about the valuable, often unseen work that federal employees perform.

Between the years 1921 and 1924 at least 24 Osage Indians had been murdered and local officials did nothing to capture and punish the perpetrators. Newspapers across the country referred to this period as the "Osage Reign of Terror".

This month's review is of Killers of the Flower Moon: Oil, Money, Murder, and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann.

Every now and then a book comes along that is both universally pertinent and utterly timely. The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantu manages to be both timeless and urgent at once.

Determined to leave a home, more dysfunctional than she even realizes, and get a formal eduction is the mission on which Tara Westover embarks. Here's this month's book review of Educated by Tara Westover.

On the October New York Times Bestseller list, two memoirs made the top 10; In Pieces by Sally Field, age 72 and Educated; a Memoir by Tara Westover, age 31.

One might doubt a person could accumulate enough interesting life experiences in 30 years to compile a memoir. In this case, one would be wrong.