Need a delightful volume of short stories? Or some background lore on your favorite (well, my favorite) baseball movie? Or a snappy heist for a sunny afternoon? These titles, and more, are part of this month's crop of brand-new paperbacks, all highly recommended. Happy reading!
"Counterfeit" by Kirstin Chen (William Morrow, $18.99). Should you be in need of a beach read, here's a great choice: Chen's novel, a New York Times bestseller last year, follows Ava Wong, a Stanford graduate and frustrated stay-at-home mom who gets drawn into the seductive (and lucrative) world of fake designer handbags. Kirkus Reviews called it "clever, sharp, and slyly funny ... a delightfully different caper novel with a 'Gone Girl' — style plot twist."
"You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty" by Akwaeke Emezi (Atria, $17). This New York Times Notable Book of 2022, from the author of "Freshwater" and the bestselling "The Death of Vivek Oji," is about a young widow who is surprised by the return of love and passion to her life. NYT reviewer R.O. Kwon called it "an unabashed ode to living with, and despite, pain and mortality," adding, "I love this book's understanding of how tightly grief can tangle itself with elation, and how loss might elicit possession."
"Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks" by Patrick Radden Keefe (Anchor, $18). Just try to resist that title. Keefe, author of two remarkable longform nonfiction books ("Empire of Pain," about the Sackler family's role in the opioid crisis, and "Say Nothing," about the conflict in Northern Ireland), here collects a dozen stellar examples from his magazine writing, on subjects ranging from wine forgery to arms dealing to reality-TV producing. Each of them, wrote an NPR reviewer, demonstrates Keefe's impeccable storytelling: "compulsively readable, imbued with narrative tension that's never overwrought or melodramatic."
"Tracy Flick Can't Win" by Tom Perrotta (Scribner, $17). Perrotta's novel "Election" (made into an excellent film) turns 25 this year, so it's appropriate to revisit his most famous character. Reviewing it last year, I wrote that the book is "populated with middle-aged people disappointed in what life has brought — and yet, 'Tracy Flick Can't Win' is an oddly uplifting read. Perrotta's great gift is that he lets his love for his characters, flaws and all, shine through, and Tracy emerges as a much richer, more sympathetic character than in the earlier book; she has grown, as has her creator." And yes, there's a movie coming, with Reese Witherspoon reprising her role.
"The Church of Baseball: The Making of 'Bull Durham'" by Ron Shelton (Knopf, $18). I can think of a lot of worse ways to spend a summer weekend than re-watching the classic 1988 baseball movie "Bull Durham" (now, good heavens, 35 years old) and then reading this book by its writer/director. I devoured "The Church of Baseball" when it came out last year; Shelton, a former minor league baseball player, is as good a storyteller on the page as he is on the screen, and both the movie and the book are delightful odes to sport, art, romance, and the passing of time.
"The Angel of Rome and Other Stories" by Jess Walter (HarperCollins, $18.99). Spokane, Washington-based author Walter, whose previous work includes "Beautiful Ruins" and most recently the historical novel "Cold Millions," here presents an assortment of 12 short works. Kirkus Reviews, in a starred review, called the collection "a glorious addition to (Walter's) oeuvre, with a much brighter mood than its gloomy predecessor," and concluded, "Prepare for delight."
"Solito: A Memoir" by Javier Zamora (Random House, $18). A prizewinner and a New York Times bestseller, poet Zamora's book describes his migration — alone — from El Salvador to the U.S. at the age of 9, to be reunited with his parents. Washington Post reviewer Steven V. Roberts notes that the book is "more than a story about immigration, it is a coming-of-age tale about a 9-year-old whose journey toward maturity — another mythic land — was compressed into one season ... Whatever it's labeled, however, this is a valuable book. It puts a human face, a child's face, on all those anonymous immigrants we only see on the news as pawns in a political game."
