These are the fiction titles that Monitor reviewers like best this month:
The Greatest Possible Good, by Ben Brooks
Ben Brooks explores how far a person should be willing to go to help others in this engaging morality tale. When the patriarch of a privileged English family donates the bulk of the clan’s fortune to charity, it does not sit well with his wife and teenage children – at least, not initially. – Heller McAlpin Read our full review.
Why We Wrote This
Our reviewers’ picks this month include novels about an actor-turned-CIA spy, and a museum worker who falls through a portal into a Matisse painting. The nonfiction topics involve Amelia Earhart’s marriage, brazen thefts of Chinese art, and studying seals.
The Winds From Further West, by Alexander McCall Smith
Alexander McCall Smith’s uplifting novel has been referred to as “a call to arms for a better society.” This philosophical exploration of people, academia, and “cancel culture” follows a University of Edinburgh researcher. After disheartening setbacks, he retreats to the isolated, beautiful Isle of Mull, opening his heart to new beginnings. – Stefanie Milligan
Pariah, by Dan Fesperman
Disgraced American actor Hal reluctantly agrees to help the CIA spy on an Eastern European autocrat. The twist: Mr. Despot loves Hal’s work and has invited him to perform at his presidential palace. What follows is a balancing act – for Hal, beneath the watch of competing agencies and interests, as well as for author Dan Fesperman, as he unspools a tale of a flawed man’s transformation. – Erin Douglass
The Art of Vanishing, by Morgan Pager
This whimsical tale set in Philadelphia finds museum employee Claire entering a portal into a 1917 Henri Matisse painting. There, she falls deeply in love with the artist’s son, Jean. The novel offers a bountiful palette of laughter, wisdom, and affection. – Stefanie Milligan
Slanting Towards the Sea, by Lidija Hilje
Ivona – a late-30s, would-be biologist in a dead-end job – lives on the Croatian coast with her father ever since her divorce. She grapples with lingering feelings for her ex, while navigating the future of her family’s land, the attentions of a new suitor, and a heap of regrets. Amid big feelings come wise questions about duty, potential, and connection. – Erin Douglass
These are the nonfiction titles our reviewers like best this month:
The Place of Tides, by James Rebanks
James Rebanks, an English farmer, writes about how he found renewal during a stay on the Norwegian island of Fjærøy assisting one of the last “duck women.” Anna Måsøy not only provides a haven for nesting eider ducks, but also imparts life lessons. – Heller McAlpin Read our full review.
Monopoly X, by Philip Orbanes
Written by a former board-game designer, this deep dive into Monopoly’s role in World War II bursts with resistance fighters, ingenious rescues, and perilous close calls. There’s a lot to track; still, the book ably showcases the tenacity of people who assisted Allied soldiers and freed prisoners of war. – Erin Douglass
A Year With the Seals, by Alix Morris
Science writer Alix Morris spends time with conservationists who have helped seal populations thrive, commercial fishers who blame the marine mammals for diminishing their catches, and surfers and swimmers who complain that seals attract sharks. Her insightful account captures the complexities of human intervention in the natural world. – Barbara Spindel
The Aviator and the Showman, by Laurie Gwen Shapiro
Laurie Gwen Shapiro’s sprawling, cinematic account focuses on the marriage of aviator Amelia Earhart and publisher George Putnam. The author pierces Earhart’s mythic image by illuminating not only her bravery but also her recklessness; Earhart’s less well-known husband is portrayed as a publicity-obsessed con man. – Barbara Spindel
The Great Chinese Art Heist, by Ralph Pezzullo
In the last 15 years, several European art museums have fallen prey to carefully planned raids of Chinese antiquities. Almost none of the stolen pieces have been recovered. Ralph Pezzullo traces these robberies to the end of the Second Opium War in 1860 and the destructive looting of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing by British and French troops. But who is stealing these treasures, and where are they going? – Terry W. Hartle
