Welcome back to Summerville Reads. This week, there are four incredible brand-new releases. Visit Main Street Reads, Summerville’s independent bookstore, your local library or “shop small” from your couch at a special page we built just for the Summerville Reads selections at bookshop.org/lists/summerville-reads-as-seen-in-the-summerville-journal-scene.
Featured fiction – autographed
“The Morningside” by Tea Obreht (ISBN 9781984855503, Random House, $29/304 p.)
NOTE: Main Street Reads does have a limited number of signed copies.
You may know Tea for her New York Times bestseller “The Tiger’s Wife.” She’s back with this gorgeous tale:
Silvia and her mother are forced from their ancestral home and end up in Island City, where they live in the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower.
Silvia feels displaced in her new life; her mother has been secretive about their family’s past. And the once-vibrant city where she lives is now half-underwater. Silvia knows almost nothing about where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she fully understand why she and her mother had to leave. But with her aunt Ena, a person is willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit lacking in Silvia’s lonely and impoverished reality.
Enchanted by Ena’s stories, Silvia sees the world with magical possibilities. She becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman living in the Morningside penthouse, Bezi Duras. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building: She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often returning in the early morning. But Silvia’s mission to unravel the truth about this woman’s life and haunted past may cost her everything.
Inventive and always surprising, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell – and the stories we refuse to tell – to make sense of where we came from and who we might become.
Time-traveling sci-fi
“The Day Tripper” by James Goodhand (ISBN 9780778369646, Mira Books, $28.99/368 p.)
Wow – talk about the right guy in the right place at the wrong time. It’s 1995, and Alex Dean has it all: a spot at Cambridge University next year, the love of an amazing woman named Holly and all the time in the world to make the perfect life. But a brutal encounter with a ghost from his past sees him beaten, battered and almost drowning in the Thames.
The next day, he wakes up in a messy, derelict room he’s never seen before, in grimy clothes he doesn’t recognize, and with no idea how he got there. A glimpse in the mirror tells him he’s suddenly much older and has been living a hard life, his features ravaged by time and poor decisions. He snatches a newspaper and discovers it’s 2010, 15 years since the fight.
After finally drifting off to sleep, Alex wakes the following morning to find it’s now 2019, another nine years later. But the next day, it’s 1999. Never knowing which day is coming, he begins to piece together what happens in his life after that fateful night by the river.
But what exactly is going on? Why does his life look nothing like he thought it would? What about Cambridge and Holly? Alex must navigate the years to learn that small actions have an untold impact. And that might be all he needs to save himself.
Shelby Van Pelt, the New York Times bestselling author of “Remarkably Bright Creatures” sums up this book perfectly: “This had me pulling for Alex through all of his mixed-up days. James Goodhand brings a fun, fresh voice to the time travel genre in this gem of a novel. I loved it.”
Non-fiction
“Life: My Story Through History” by Pope Francis, Aubrey Botsford, Translator (ISBN 9780063387522, HarperOne, $28.99/240 p.)
For the first time, Pope Francis tells the story of his life as he looks back on world events that have changed history – from his early years during World War II in 1939 to today’s turmoil.
An incredible personal journey, “Life” is part autobiography, part eyewitness history – the story of a man and a world in challenging times. He recalls his life through memories and observations of the most significant occurrences of the past eight decades.
The book opens with three-year-old Jorge in the kitchen with his mother in Argentina as World War II breaks out, and he goes on to witness multiple events: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the moon landing in 1969, and even the 1986 World Cup in which Maradona scored the unforgettable “hand of God” goal.
Pope Francis lends intimate insights of a pastor reflecting on the Nazi extermination of the Jews, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the 2001 terrorist attack on America, the economic recession of 2008, the Covid pandemic, the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI, and the subsequent conclave that christened him Pontiff.
He recounts these world-changing moments with the compassion that distinguishes him and offers messages on major crises confronting us today, including social inequalities, climate change, international war, weapons, discrimination, and the battles over social and cultural issues. This is a well-rounded read for anyone interested in the history of the last century by one who’s been there through much of it.
Young readers
“Dog Man: The Silent Shredder” by Dav Pilkey (ISBN 9781338896435, Scholastic $14.99/224 p.)
Yep, that crazy canine superhero returns in this page-turning and hilarious twelfth graphic novel in the No. 1 worldwide bestselling series by award-winning author and illustrator Dav Pilkey.
After being dunked in tomato juice when Dog Man is sprayed by a skunk (yuck), the stink is gone but the scarlet color remains.
Now exiled, our superhero must struggle to save the same citizens who’ve shunned him. Will the ends justify the means for Petey, who’s reluctantly pulled back into a life of crime to help Dog Man? And who will step forward when an all-new, never-before-seen villain unleashes an army of A.I. robots?
The book display is out now, and if you pick it up at Main Street Reads, you’ll also receive a free bonus.
