6
FROM THE SHELF
AUGUST 18�25, 2021
CHECKING OUT THE
WORLD OF BOOKS
Float away from your front
porch or armchair with
these 6 new paperbacks
By Moira Macdonald
The Seattle Times
T
ime again for a paperback
roundup! Here are six new
ones, all guaranteed to take you
somewhere far from your arm-
chair or front porch.
”TRANSCENDENT
KINGDOM”BY YAA GYASI
(Vintage, $16)
The author of “Homegoing”
returns with the tale of a graduate
neuroscience student from an
immigrant evangelical family.
”THE CITY WE BECAME”
BY N.K. JEMISIN
(Orbit, $17.99)
Jemison won three Hugo
Awards in a row for her “Broken
Earth” trilogy; now the acclaimed
science fi ction/fantasy author
launches a new Great Cities
series, examining the idea of a
city’s soul. Her fi rst book “unfolds
in present-day New York City,
with its crosstown bus delays,
hot garbage reek and all its other
mundane problems — plus one
large, looming supernatural one,”
wrote New York Times reviewer
Amal El-Mohtar.
”VESPER FLIGHTS” BY
HELEN MACDONALD
(Grove Atlantic, $17)
Macdonald, author of the
bestselling “H Is for Hawk” (and
no relation), here collects 41
new and previously published
essays about nature. “For all
its elegiac sentences and gray
moods, ‘Vesper Flights’ is a book
of tremendous purpose,” wrote
Washington Post reviewer Jake
Cline. “Throughout these essays,
Macdonald revisits the idea that
as a writer it is her responsibility
to take stock of what’s happening
to the natural world and to convey
the value of the living things
within it.”
”AGENT SONYA: THE SPY
NEXT DOOR” BY BEN
MACINTYRE
(Crown, $18)
In 1930, a pregnant young
wife — a German expatriate
in Shanghai — accepted an
off er to become a Communist
spy; over the next decade, she
raised her children and became
a colonel in the Red Army, spy-
ing in the Soviet Union, Switzer-
land, London and rural Oxford-
shire, England.
Penguin Random House/TNS
”THE KINGDOM” BY JO
NESBO
(Vintage Crime, $17)
The prolifi c Norwegian
crime author is best known for
the Harry Hole series, but this
one’s a stand-alone, involv-
ing brothers Roy and Carl. The
book “puts all the murky, violent
twists on brotherly love that
you’d expect from this leading
exponent of Nordic noir,” wrote
t
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i
d
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b
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1 printe re buy with a boo
(on if you a ticipate
r
to pa
book
Kirkus Reviews, which named it
one of the best mystery/thrillers
of 2020.
”FORTUNE FAVORS THE
DEAD” BY STEPHEN
SPOTSWOOD
(Vintage Crime, $16)
One more mystery: I discov-
ered this zippy series opener,
set in 1940s New York, last
spring and devoured every
word, falling hard for Willowjean
“Will” Parker, a former circus
knife thrower (!) turned assistant
to famous New York detective
Lillian Pentecost. It’s great, jazzy
fun — Spotswood has a knack
for the sort of phrase you’d hear
in an exceptionally smart fi lm
noir — and you’ll want to get
this one read (and reread) be-
fore the sequel, “Murder Under
Her Skin,” arrives in December.
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