6
FEBRUARY 9�16, 2022
FROM THE SHELF
CHECKING OUT THE
WORLD OF BOOKS
Feeling a post-holiday slump? Get back on
track with these brand-new paperbacks
By Moira Macdonald
The Seattle Times
S
till winter? Check. Still pandemic?
Check. Need a new book? Check,
check, check. Visit a local indie bookstore
— they’re probably having a post-holiday
slump too — and pick up a new paperback,
maybe one of these brand-new ones.
‘THE SWALLOWED MAN’
by Edward Carey
Author and visual artist Carey (“Little”)
in this novel takes on the tale of Pinocchio,
but from a decidedly diff erent angle: An Ital-
ian woodcutter, searching for the wooden
puppet who came to life and ran away, is
swallowed by a giant fi sh; the book takes
place within that belly’s “watery purgatory.”
“Fans of [Carey’s] macabre yet oddly sat-
isfying visual work will have much to enjoy
here,” wrote Washington Post reviewer Eric
Nguyen, adding, “This isn’t the ‘Pinocchio’
of your childhood. Instead, Carey has writ-
ten something more cerebral, an existential
fairy tale for adults told by an old artist
considering the tragedy of life.”
‘LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I MEAN’
by Joan Didion
Arriving in paperback just weeks after
Didion’s death in December 2021, this
volume collects 12 of her essays, previ-
ously published between 1968 and 2000,
on topics ranging from Martha Stewart
to Hemingway to the act of writing itself.
“What’s particularly salient is her trade-
mark farsightedness, which is especially
striking decades later,” wrote NPR review-
er Heller McAlpin. “But however welcome,
there’s a wistfulness to this book, for it is
impossible to read without wishing Didion
were weighing in on how the center still
cannot hold and things continue to fall
apart in the 21st century.”
‘THE BLACK CHURCH: THIS IS
OUR STORY, THIS IS OUR SONG’
by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Black History Month is upon us and
this New York Times bestseller (with an
accompanying PBS series) would make for
timely reading. Gates covers fi ve centuries
of Christianity in Black America, examining
the history of the Black church and its in-
tersection with slavery, oppression, music,
politics and more. “In Gates’ telling, the
Black church, too, shines bright even as
the nation itself moves uncertainly through
the gloaming,” wrote New York Times re-
viewer Jon Meacham, “seeking justice on
earth — as it is in heaven.”
‘MANTEL PIECES: ROYAL BODIES
AND OTHER WRITING FROM THE
LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS’
by Hilary Mantel
You wonder how many years Mantel
was saving up that title pun? In any case,
this one should be a treat for the throngs
who loved the British author’s bestselling
(and Man Booker Prize-winning) “Wolf Hall”
trilogy about the rise and fall of Thomas
Cromwell. It’s a collection spanning three
decades of writing, on Tudor England and
numerous other topics. Reviewer Elizabeth
Lowry in The Guardian noted, “Ferocious,
witty and unapologetic, these essays
remind us how dangerous it is to go about
in the world, as she writes in ‘Royal Bodies,’
‘unfortifi ed by irony, uninformed by history.’”
‘BLOOD GROVE’
by Walter Mosley
The 14th installment in Mosley’s splen-
did Easy Rawlins mystery series is set
in 1969 California. Easy, who fi nally now
has his own small detective agency, is
approached by a young Vietnam vet who
isn’t sure if he’s a murderer. “Like his infl u-
ences Hammett, Chandler and Himes,
Mosley wants readers to be immersed in
the chaos of evil,” wrote Washington Post
reviewer Maureen Corrigan. “The ability to
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simultaneously keep us readers in confu-
sion and in thrall marks Mosley — winner
of the National Book Foundation’s 2020
Medal for Distinguished Contribution to
American Letters — as a mystery master.”
‘THE FIVE WOUNDS’
by Kirstin Valdez Quade
Quade’s debut novel, shortlisted for
the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Ex-
cellence in Fiction, takes place during a
year in a small New Mexico town, as mul-
tiple generations of a family converge.
“In this modern interpretation of the fi ve
wounds Jesus suff ered on the Cross —
perhaps a metaphor for the emotional
wounds of childhood that continue into
adulthood — Quade has created a world
bristling with compassion and human-
ity,” wrote New York Times reviewer
Alexandra Chang.
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