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Here is what the Upper Michigan Today’s All Booked Up book group has been reading. Join Marty for an in-person, in-depth conversation the last Monday of the month at 10:00 in the Dandelion Cottage Room at the Peter White Public Library.
Book descriptions in this article are adapted from publishers' summaries and library catalog records.
"Beasts" By Ingvild Bjerkeland with translation by Rosie Hedger (TNFIC BJERKEL) -- The world has been overrun by hitherto unknown beasts. Society has collapsed: the power is gone, cars are abandoned across the highways, and anyone left is hiding from the terrifying creatures―and one another. Thirteen-year-old Abdi and his five-year-old sister Alva are on the run, their last hope to escape through the forest and to the sea. As they recall the strange events that led to the beasts’ arrival, and how the two of them got to where they were, they must ask themselves who they can trust―and what they will do to survive.
"Flashlight" by Susan Choi (FIC CHOI) -- One summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the breakwater. Her father is carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found on the beach, soaked to the skin, barely alive. Her father is gone. She is ten years old. Louisa is an only child of parents who have severed themselves from the past. Her father, Serk, is Korean, but was born and raised in Japan; he lost touch with his family when they bought into the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to North Korea. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her Midwestern family after a reckless adventure in her youth. And then there is Tobias, Anne's illegitimate son, whose reappearance in their lives will have astonishing consequences. But now it is just Anne and Louisa, Louisa and Anne, adrift and facing the challenges of ordinary life in the wake of great loss. United, separated, and also repelled by their mutual grief, they attempt to move on. But they cannot escape the echoes of that night. What really happened to Louisa's father? "Marsha: The Joyful Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson" by Tourmaline (921 JOHNSON)--"Thank god the revolution has begun, honey." Rumor has it that after Marsha P. Johnson threw the first brick in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, she picked up a shard of broken mirror to fix her makeup. Marsha, a legendary Black transgender activist, embodied both the beauty and the struggle of the early gay rights movement. Her work sparked the progress we see today, yet there has never been a definitive record of her life. Until now. Written with sparkling prose, Tourmaline's richly researched biography Marsha finally brings this iconic figure to life, in full color.
"Hemlock" by Melissa Faliveno (FIC FALIVEN) -- Sam, finally sober and stable with a cat and a long-term boyfriend in Brooklyn, returns alone to Hemlock, her family's deteriorating cabin deep in the Wisconsin Northwoods. But a quick, practical trip takes a turn for the worse when the rot and creak of the forest starts to creep in around the edges of Sam's mind. It starts, as it always does, with a beer. As Sam dips back into the murky waters of dependency, the inexplicable begins to arrive at her door and her body takes on a strange new shape. As the borders of reality begin to blur, she senses she is battling something sinister--whether nested in the woods or within herself.
Martin Achatz is the Adult Programming Coordinator at the Peter White Public Library in Marquette.