Enjoy these four recommendations from our friends at Bookish, Fort Smith, Arkansas’s only independently owned bookstore.
The Faraway World
by Patricia Engel
Engel’s collection of short stories is as much about how pasts influence the present as it is about the characters on which each story centers. While characters are thrown into monumental life events, they are forced to reckon with the ghosts of their pasts and the choices that brought them to their apex. The joy of this collection is the way the characters respond. While stories often end with a gut-punch, they are wholly more optimistic and hopeful than one might expect.
White Horse
by Erika Wurth
Erika Wurth’s debut novel is a wild ride! Kari, the main character, enjoys heavy metal and dive bars. Kari is thirty-five years old and either taking care of her sick father or nursing a beer at her favorite bar, White Horse. When she finds a bracelet belonging to her missing mother, it unlocks realms that Kari was not prepared for. When Kari begins to see the ghost of her mother, among others, her past becomes something she can no longer run away from.
Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America
by Cody Keenan
Cody Keenan was the chief speechwriter for Obama’s second term, and his candor and thoughtfulness as he reflects on this specific week and a half is inspiring. If you enjoy watching fast-paced television shows like The West Wing, Keenan’s experience will keep you on the edge of your seat. Through sleepless nights and constant self-doubt, this young speechwriter grapples with the right words to use in the midst of Supreme Court decisions, hate crimes, and a eulogy that touched the hearts of many.
We Deserve Monuments
by Jas Hammonds
This YA novel is winning well deserved awards left and right. When seventeen-year-old Avery has to move from DC to Bardell, Georgia to take care of her grandmother, she resists as long as she can. While she meets great friends and more-than-friends along the way, Avery is forced to make a decision that topples those friendships while uncovering the dark secrets of her family’s past. There is something hiding behind every corner, but the heart of the novel is what you’d expect from a small southern town.
