You Want a Short, Powerful Book

Like to read a book before the TV show or want to disconnect

Hi friends,

I have exciting news: We are just two weeks out from the start of our annual Summer Reading Bingo Game. It’s the biggest time of year for readers — so start warming up (stretches, deep breathing, requesting books from the library, etc.). If you have an idea for what should be on the Bingo card or would like to contribute a prize (thanks to everyone who has already donated!), let me know. 

For those of you with kids (or who just like cool stuff), an astronaut on the International Space Station will read Good Night Moon on Wednesday at 7 pm EST to celebrate the classic book’s 75th anniversary. You can RSVP to watch the live stream (from space!) here.

And, now, what to read if…

You’re Looking for a Short — But Powerful — Book

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Sometimes you want a short book that can be enjoyed in just a sitting or two — especially as the weather gets warmer and our schedules get busier. Patricia Engel’s Infinite Country is just 200 pages, but it packs an outsized emotional wallop.

In the opening pages of Infinite Country, fifteen-year-old Talia escapes from a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia. Her father, 200 miles away in Bogota, has a plane ticket to the United States waiting for her — if she can get there before the plane departs. The trip represents Talia’s opportunity, perhaps her only chance, to reunite with her mom and two siblings. Engel alternates between following the teenager as she attempts to make it to Bogota and documenting how the family came to be separated across borders.

It's a lyrical, beautifully written book that explores both the human impact of immigration policy and Andean myths. Engel, the daughter of Colombian immigrants, brings to light the lives of people we don’t often see in novels, and we’re all better for it.

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You Like to Read a Book Before Watching the Show (or Movie) Pt. 2

Mr. and Mrs. American Pie by Juliet McDaniel

I was delighted to read that Apple TV+ greenlit a TV show based on Mr. and Mrs. American Pie, an under-the-radar gem of a novel by Juliet McDaniel. (Sidebar: The show will star Kristen Wiig and Allison Janney and is being produced by Laura Dern — three of my favorite women in Hollywood.) 

Mr. and Mrs. American Pie follows aspiring Palm Spring socialite Maxine Simmons in 1969. After finding out her husband is leaving her for his 20-year-old secretary, Maxine spirals and ends up floating in her pool with the Thanksgiving turkey. While licking her wounds in Scottsdale, Arizona, Maxine meets Robert, a closeted bar owner, and Charles and Dawn Bronski, neglected children in her apartment complex. After learning of a pageant that will crown the nation’s best wife and mother, Maxine decides to enter the contest, with Robert and the children pretending to be her family.

It’s a charming, funny, warm read about the importance of the families we make for ourselves. In between funny scenes, McDaniel incorporates some sharp commentary about racism and homophobia in 1970s America. The best part of this novel, though, is the characters. Maxine, Robert, Charles and Dawn have stayed with me since I read the book nearly five years ago. 

Reminder Rec: The last read the book before you see the movie I recommended was Jane Harper’s The Dry.

You Want to Disconnect 

The Quiet Zone by Stephen Kurczy

I am an email addict. I check it constantly to make sure I don’t miss anything important — such as my Google alert for Old Navy Dollar Flip Flop Day. The constant notifications are sometimes too much, and I need to turn my phone to airplane mode. If you dream of disconnecting, The Quiet Zone, journalist Stephen Kurczy’s examination of a town in West Virginia where Wi-Fi is banned, is for you.

Kurczy embedded in Green Bank, West Virginia, a small town that is simultaneously technologically advanced and stuck in the past. It’s home to one of the world’s most innovative telescopes, which astronomers use to seek life on other planets. Any interference from nearby devices — Wi-Fi routers, smartphones, even microwaves — could affect their research, so their use is outlawed. While in the Appalachian town, Kurczy meets with the scientists at the observatory, visits the site of the hospital Patch Adams has been promising to build for years and spends time with the Neo-Nazis planning a comeback, the librarian who works against them, as well as a group of “electrosensitives,” people who believe they are allergic to Wi-Fi and love the peace the Quiet Zone offers them.

Green Bank has been the subject of several profiles in recent years, as reporters parachute in and write reports depicting the town as a disconnected Twin Peaks, full of quirky oddball characters, stuck in the past. Kurzky shows that there’s much more to the town than that one-dimensional depiction. As author Mark Sundeen said, The Quiet Zone “reveals that simplicity is far more complicated, far weirder and wonderous, than the self-proclaimed #simplelife.” 

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That’s it for me today. You can catch up on last week’s recs here and my Q&A with Julia Spencer-Fleming here.

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What to Read If is a free weekly book recommendation newsletter. Need a rec? Want to gush about a book? Reply to this email, leave a comment or find me on Twitter @elizabethheld.

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