Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com.
“Held,” by Anne Michaels (Knopf, 2024)
“Held,” by Anne Michaels (Knopf, 2024)
It’s rare that I read a book in one day, but Held’s writing grabbed me and held on. A poetic treatise on love and loss and memory; how we connect through generations and time; how love endures. Michaels is fearless in facing longing and ghosts and mysteries. “Who can deny the reality of starlight? Yet the stars that give us their light do not exist. Who can say for certain that those who no longer exist, our dead, do not also reach us?” I’m sure I didn’t absorb all Michaels wished to convey to me (yes, it feels that personal), but I am sure this is a master work, a pool I’ll wish to slip into again. I loved this book. (Print version recommended over audio.) Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. –– 4 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker
“Shelterwood,” by Lisa Wingate (Ballantine Books, 2024)
This work of historical fiction illuminates the system of rapacious guardianship of orphaned Indigenous children, who are (sometimes unwitting) heirs to property allotments in Oklahoma and the potential wealth from the oil beneath. Greedy guardians then deceitfully steal the children’s property and gain that wealth for themselves. Two separate storylines, one set in the early and the other in the late 20th century, unwind in alternating chapters, leading us through adventure, misfortune, dogged survival and mystery. The threads merge in a surprising scene near the end. Fans of “Killers of the Flower Moon” might find some parallels to this novel at first glance, but this is a different kind of story in the end. — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
“Magic Hour,” by Kristin Hannah (Random House, 2007)
In a small Pacific Northwest town, a young girl is discovered hiding high up in a tree with a wolf cub in her arms. She is terrified of people,
“Magic Hour,” by Kristin Hannah (Random House, 2007)
behaves like a wild animal and is unable to communicate through words or language. The townspeople and media clamor to uncover her identity, and find out whether she was raised by wolves, or perhaps by someone cruel and sinister. A local psychiatrist’s efforts to find out what happened to this child, and perhaps her mother, requires the girl to learn a language she barely remembers in order to solve her own mystery. An earlier novel from the prolific storyteller Hannah, “Magic Hour” is part suspense, part cliché-filled romance, yet fully captivating with characters so vivid and heartbreaking that it kept me up reading late into the night. –– 3½ stars (out of 4); Karen Hartman, Westminster
“Tales from Shakespeare,” by Charles and Mary Lamb (Puffin Books; reissue edition 2010)
First published in 1807 by siblings Charles and Mary Lamb, this volume of 20 of the master’s most familiar tales has been a mainstay ever since. I recently got it for a young actor friend who has embarked on a theatrical career. The authors created it “for the use of young persons while retaining as much Shakespearean language as possible.” Forget the insipid, watered-down adaptations from modern interpretations. These have much of the action, the punch, the literary value of the originals. The story behind the authors is equally fascinating. Both Charles and Mary suffered from extreme emotional illnesses, and Mary, in fact, murdered her mother. They recovered to become respected literary figures in their own right. — 4 stars (out of 4); Bonnie McCune, Denver (bonniemccune.com)