[title subtitle=”WORDS Sara Putman, owner Bookish][/title]
Enjoy these four must-read books from our friends at Bookish, Fort Smith, Arkansas’s only independently-owned bookstore. Shop hours: Monday 11am-4pm, Tuesday – Friday 10am-6pm and Saturday 10am-4pm. Need curbside delivery? Call 479.434.2917 or email orders@bookishfs.com.
Jack
by Marilynne Robinson
Robinson returns to her mythical town of Gilead, Iowa, for another illuminating novel that forces readers to question religion and our place in the world. In the story, John Ames Boughton, the son of a Presbyterian minister, and Della Miles, who is also the child of a preacher, fall in love. Their fondness for each other is only complicated by the interracial romance that defines it. Robinson highlights the complexity of American life through her characters while they mirror our present day.
Vesper Flights
by Helen Macdonald
Simply put, this is a collection of essays highlighting the human connection to the natural world, but if you’re familiar with Macdonald, you know it is so much more. This collection features some of her best essays and several new ones. While the subject might be watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary or the trials of owning an ostrich farm, Macdonald’s tapestry of part memoir, part nature writing, weaves in themes of memory, loss, love, and time.
The Wrong Family
by Tarryn Fisher
Fisher’s newest suspense thriller is full of twists and turns. When Juno, a retired therapist who wants to live out her days in relative peace, moves in with Winnie and Nigel Crouch, things seem to be as perfect on the inside as they are on the outside. However, bad things happen when you overhear secrets you weren’t supposed to hear. Very quickly, Juno’s retirement becomes a nightmare. Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse for poor Juno, her own wicked and dark secrets are revealed.
Memoirs and Misinformation
by Jim Carrey and Dana Vachon
Labeled semi-autobiographical, this novel by actor Jim Carrey is wildly eccentric. It’s autobiographical in the sense that the main character is a privileged aging actor named Jim Carrey, but that’s where the parallels stop. At its core, it is a satirical look at Hollywood and privilege, but it is a smartly done book with appearances by every actor and actress in Hollywood along with aliens. It is exactly what you would expect from Carrey, pretentious and bombastic, but somehow profound.
