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Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times by Gregory Cowles, Senior Editor, Books.
A couple of years ago, the song of the summer for me was Jason Isbell’s sweet-sad “If We Were Vampires,”
with its perfect blend of romance and mortality: “It’s knowing that
this can’t go on forever / Likely one of us will have to spend some days
alone.” (That line becomes next-level excellent when you realize that
the haunting backup vocals are provided by Isbell’s wife, Amanda
Shires.) This summer, I’m getting a similarly poignant shiver from the
novella “Walt Kaplan Is Broke,” which closes Peter Orner’s terrific new
story collection “Maggie Brown & Others” and features a coronary
patient taking stock of his long, mostly happy marriage: “I’m afraid of
dying because I love my wife.” There’s a lot of affection in that story,
and in all of Orner’s characteristically generous work, and you could
do worse than settling in with his book this week.
More
recommended fiction: Denise Mina’s latest propulsive mystery,
“Conviction.” Neal Stephenson’s mind-bending saga “Fall; Or, Dodge in
Hell” (it’s the rare sff novel that treats all three of those initials
equally). Domenica Ruta’s end-of-world portrait, “Last Day.” And Jill
Ciment’s lovely, sly “The Body in Question,” about sequestered jurors on
a murder trial embarking on an affair. There’s just no escaping love
and death.
Source: New York Times
