You’ve Got the Back-to-School Blues, Part 5
Plus: A giveaway and a final Bingo reminder
Hi friends,
Hope you’re doing well. Despite The Engagement Discussed Around The World, I’m continuing the tradition of featuring a Back-to-School edition after Labor Day. I’m trusting that Taylor and Travis will give us many, many conversation starters over the next few years. (That said, here are books for your favorite English and gym teachers, plus a football romance for good measure.)
Giveaway Alert: Judith Newcomb Stiles has generously offered to give free audio copies of her book Hush Little Fire (narrated, in part, by her daughter Julia Stiles, of “10 Things I Hate About You” fame) to ten readers of this newsletter. I’m listening to it now and, so far, it’s a delicious mix of murder mystery and family saga set on Cape Cod. Enter by adding the book to your Goodreads shelf and commenting below with the name of one of your favorite beach-set books.
Reminder: Summer Reading Bingo cards are due Friday. Everyone who submits a card will be entered in a raffle for a $75 gift card to either Bookshop.org or Libro.FM. Get your card here and submit it here.
And, now, what to read if …
You Majored in History
History Lessons by Zoe Wallbrook
I, like Daphne Ouverture, the heroine of History Lessons, majored in history, but she went on to earn a PhD in French Colonialism. As the book opens, she’s teaching at the elite Harrison University, working on her next book and preferring nights out with her friends over bad dates.
That all changes, though, when she receives a weird text message from Sam Taylor, a professor and one of the university’s rising stars, the night before he’s found dead. As if that wasn’t creepy enough, the killer believes Daphne has something incriminating and begins stalking her. Convinced the police aren’t taking the case seriously, Daphne decides to put her skills to use — after all, aren’t historians detectives of the past?
History Lessons is one of those books that I felt like was written for me. In addition to the well-plotted mystery and fully developed sleuth, it featured “Drag Race” jokes, nerdy history references and a slow-burn romance between Daphne and a cop-turned-bookstore-owner. Chef’s kiss.
You’ve Typed a Lot of Term Papers
Olivetti by Allie Millington
Olivetti, a middle-grade novel, is one of the most inventive books I’ve read in ages — it’s narrated, in part, by a typewriter. Olivetti used to be at the center of the Brindle family. Beatrice used to spend hours a day with him, while her children fought to type their stories too.
Now, though, he sits on a shelf alone. Until one day, Beatrice grabs Olivetti. He’s initially excited — until she leaves him at Heartland Pawn Shop. Then, Beatrice disappears. Desperate for any sign of his missing mom, 12-year-old Ernest steals Olivetti from the shop. When Olivetti learns Beatrice has disappeared, he breaks “typewriterly code” and retypes the stories kept inside him.
As Ernest and Olivetti use the clues they find in Beatrice’s re-typed passages to retrace her movements, the preteen is forced to finally face the “Everything That Happened”1 his family has spent years trying to ignore.
I love Olivetti, the book and the character, so much. It’s tender and heartfelt, without ever crossing into saccharine. Kate DiCamillo fans — of all ages — won’t want to miss this one. (One note: It’s a children’s book, but it gets pretty sad. You might read it before handing it off to a kid. I can also give some content warnings if you email me.)
You Spent a Lot of Time in the Physics Lab, Part 2
Phantom Orbit by David Ignatius
As I noted last year, when recommending Ali Hazelwood’s Love, Theoretically, “Physics was one of my worst classes in high school. The concepts, combined with the math, never quite clicked.” The opposite is true for Ivan Volkov, the main character of Phantom Orbit, David Ignatius’s latest international spy novel. He’s a Russian astrophysicist trained in China who makes a discovery that transforms space warfare — and earns the attention of both authoritarian governments.
In the book’s opening pages, set as Russia is invading Ukraine in 2022, Ivan sends a warning to the CIA, saying, “Satellites are your enemies, especially your own…Hidden codes can make time stop and turn north into south…If you are smart, you will find me.” From there, Ignatius takes readers on a decades-long journey spanning China, the U.S and the Soviet Union/Russia and bringing together intelligence agencies from all three countries.
Ignatius is the longtime Washington Post foreign affairs columnist, considered one of the most well-sourced intelligence reporters in the game. His expertise shines through the book, which came out as space has become an increasingly contested domain. It’s a complex, thought-provoking novel — with shifting geopolitical alliances and a fair amount of physics — that also keeps readers flipping pages late into the night.
Somehow, this is my fifth annual Back-to-School edition. You can catch up on previous editions here, here, here and here.
If you want a content warning about the Everything That Happened, let me know.
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You sold Olivetti to me with the Kate DiCamillo comp. I'm going to read it first then hold onto it for my daughter-- thanks!
Oooh, Olivetti sounds like so much fun. Thanks for that rec! In the last few years, I've been collecting novels with non-human narrators. Adding this to my list!
Have you read 'The Pages' by Hugo Hamilton? It's a novel narrated by a book. It's a really moving, sometimes dark, beautifully written novel about the lives touched by a book saved from the book burning in Berlin in May 1933. It has multiple timelines, a prickly (compliment) heroine... I loved it.