The Distinctly Competent District Councillor

THE DISTINCTLY COMPETENT DISTRICT COUNCILLOR by Jonas Jonasson is a quick read (144 pages) which will have readers laughing and smiling even as Jonasson satirizes multinational conglomerates and their impact on small towns. The newly elected mayor, Julia Back, of a small Swedish town, Halstaholm, is intent on improving future prospects for her constituents and she spearheads a campaign to attract investment by a German mattress manufacturer. Her local task force (including a ten-year-old boy) quickly devise a number of surprising ways (e.g., starting a German language school) to convince the owner, Konrad Kaltenbacher Jr., and his two young daughters that Halstaholm is German-friendly. They are up against a tight timeframe and some unethical competition from consultants pushing for a rival location, however. Let the contest begin! Jonasson said that he “felt the urge to write something that might give us hope … about friendship between people from different nations.” Booklist called THE DISTINCTLY COMPETENT DISTRICT COUNCILLOR a “warm-hearted satire” and The Mail on Sunday described it as “a shot of serotonin in book form.” Enjoy!!

Return to Sender by Stephanie Parente

RETURN TO SENDER by Stephanie Parente is a debut novel which succeeds and surprises on many fronts. While mainly a rom com, it explores aspects of identity, friendship, and grief, offering humorous sidenotes and road trip adventure with appealing characters. The most endearing is fourteen-year-old Phoebe who has recently lost her father and is living with her twenty-six-year-old sister, Violet, a teacher. Parente is described as “passionate about writing messy characters falling in love,” and she begins the story with a rebellious Phoebe opening and reading a stranger’s love letter. That leads to their finding and convincing Dex, a troubled young man, to return the letter to its intended recipient, named Catalina. Along the way, the trio visits several highlights (e.g., Yogi Bear statue, Coney Island, a gay bar in Chicago) and experience moments of self-reflection (“The sort of unremarkable night that maybe once would have been easily forgotten, but now I knew to hold onto it with both hands. What a privilege it was to be bored and boring. We were alive at the same time, on opposite sides of the couch. I could have lived in this moment with him forever.”). Violet often focuses on naming three good things and is relentless in trying to stay positive (although her musings about being a guardian can feel repetitive). As readers might expect, there are several romantic scenes as well. RETURN TO SENDER received a starred review from Publishers Weekly (“a zany road trip provides a path to recovery”).

Wisdom Corner by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

WISDOM CORNER by David Heska Wanbli Weiden is the second book, following award-winning Winter Counts, to feature Virgil Wounded Horse, his girlfriend Marie, nephew Nathan, and mentor Jerome Iron Shell who live on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Virgil is trying to move away from his past as a vigilante, but there are still aspects of violence in this novel as he tries to solve a murder, confront a rival gang, and deal with a devious politician. The action keeps coming, but this text also adheres to Weiden’s agreement with the view that crime fiction is “the new literature of resistance.” He deftly weaves in background information about Native American history, like life at the infamous Native boarding schools and “how the children there were compelled to abandon their Indigenous traditions, languages, and spirituality.” As another example, I particularly liked his recounting of the origin of football’s forward pass, involving Pop Warner, Jim Thorpe, and the Carlisle Indian School football team. The author’s note includes several recommended titles for further reading. Both S. A. Cosby (“a raw yet moving journey”) and William Kent Krueger (“riveting thriller that will surprise you to the very end”) have praised this compelling mystery.

The audio book of WISDOM CORNER is narrated by Shane Ghostkeeper who does an excellent job of relaying the action and differentiating the characters. In a recent Bookpage cover story, Weiden says, “I'm hoping that readers will leave the novel with a better understanding of the broken criminal justice system on reservations as well as a sense of life as a Native American in the 21st century.” He succeeds. Learn more about his thinking on this topic in Weiden's New York Times essay, “This 19th-Century Law Helps Shape Criminal Justice in Indian Country.”

The Story Keeper by Kelly Rimmer

THE STORY KEEPER by Kelly Rimmer is sure to be a popular choice with readers of mysteries and historic fiction. Just released, it is an upcoming Indie Next pick and also number one for July’s LibraryReads selections. Set in Australia, this novel cleverly provides a book within a book story, using a dual timeline and suspenseful gothic undertones.  Fiona’s daughters are starting their adult lives when her husband asks for a divorce and pushes her out of their shared architectural business. Desperate for a project and purpose, she returns to the family estate named Wurimbirra, intent on restoring it. But her mother, who lives nearby, actively discourages her from changing anything and several local residents insist the house is haunted. After some strange happenings, Fiona even starts to question her decision and turns to a book, called The Midnight Estate, for diversion. Readers can share in deciphering that tale of marital abuse and escape which has some surprising parallels with Fiona’s life and contains its own mysteries and adventure. Booklist recommends THE STORY KEEPER for those “who enjoy secret-filled family sagas by Kate Morton and Lucinda Riley.”

Cleanup on Aisle Five by Ann Larson

CLEANUP ON AISLE FIVE by Ann Larson is an eye-opening tale of “Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register.” We have all stood in line at the supermarket check-out, often frustrated with the wait and the poor quality of packing. Larson encourages readers to take another perspective by relating her own COVID-era experiences as a worker and those of her colleagues. She certainly made me feel more compassionate towards the frontline supermarket employees, standing in place for hours on end and repetitively swiping products past a scanner. Yet, it is worth pointing out that Larson takes an activist perspective and writes, “it was as an outsider that I saw how the supermarket as an institution is a window into larger social divisions and injustices.” She notes, for example, that “many grocery workers are food insecure” and “being perpetually too tired to cook was one of the ironies of working at the supermarket.” And her statistics on dental care, tooth pain, and missing teeth (“One-quarter of adults in the United States over the age of 65 are missing all of their teeth and our country has one of the highest rates of toothlessness in the world”) are surprising and class related. CLEANUP ON AISLE FIVE received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. This book deserves attention and could join others (e.g., Evicted, Nickel and Dimed, Maid, or even How May I Help You?) which have been part of our curriculum as students learn to appreciate the struggles of their neighbors. Extensive source notes (approximately fifteen percent of the text) are included.

Lightning Beneath the Sea by James M. Tabor

LIGHTNING BENEATH THE SEA by James M. Tabor is a fascinating read about “The Race to Wire the World and the Dawn of the Information Age.” Tabor, an award-winning and widely published author, chronicles events surrounding efforts to lay the first transatlantic cable. Most of this activity takes place in the mid-1800s and while the technology is interesting in itself (e.g., the need to develop a salt water cable and a way to safely lay it across the ocean floor) so are the various players, including Samuel Morse, and financiers of the day. I was astounded to learn that Cyrus Field and the group who formed the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company in 1854 “committed $1.5 million ($57 million [in today’s dollars]) to start the project. That came from just five men and amounted to about 4% of the American government's total spending then.” For more than a decade, they battled some amazing obstacles, including weather issues, which adds to the tension of this tale of remarkable resilience. LIGHTNING BENEATH THE SEA received a starred review from Publishers Weekly (“epic maritime adventure, as well as a riveting study of technological progress”) and The Wall Street Journal described it as “full of drama and excitement.” Enjoy!

An Infinite Love Story by Chanel Cleeton

Suspenseful and with a surprising ending, AN INFINITE LOVE STORY by Chanel Cleeton (The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes) is a work of historical fiction and set in the 1960s. The emphasis is on the nascent space program and the lives of test pilots, early astronauts and their families. Cleeton begins with the facts that divorces in the United States at that time were 2.9 for every 1,000 marriages; while “there were thirty-nine married astronauts in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs. Twenty of those marriages ultimately ended in divorce.” And, then she shifts to fiction and the news of a missing spaceship in 1968. Employing frequent flashbacks, she introduces readers to the main characters: Vivian, an aspiring journalist, and Joe, a fighter pilot who has dreams of travelling in space. The most memorable element of this book is the devotion which Viv and Joe have for each other. For the most part, that is beautifully written, but it becomes somewhat repetitive as Cleeton continually emphasizes the tension: “It must be an extraordinary thing to be loved by a man who felt things so deeply, so passionately, that he devoted his life to a vocation with such singularity. Or was his love for flying, for his dreams of space, so great that there was room for little else?” Still, AN INFINITE LOVE STORY not only conveys the love between two people, the historical events and details also invoke many memories of rocket launches and a country’s love affair with space travel in a more hopeful, inspiring time. Discussion questions are included as are references to relevant works like The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe, A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin, Apollo 8 by Jeffrey Kluger, and Rocket Men by Robert Kurson. Publishers Weekly gave AN INFINITE LOVE STORY a starred review, saying, “Readers won’t want to miss this.”