The end of winter is nearly in sight, but there are still plenty of chilly days ahead where the greatest comfort can be found with a hot drink and a new book. Here are eight releases to add to your reading list.
Books to warm a cold winter’s night.
All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker
Whitaker’s new novel kicks off on a breathless note: The lovable Joseph “Patch” Macauley, a one-eyed 13-year-old who thinks he’s a pirate, rescues a classmate from certain death but ends up getting abducted by a serial killer. From there, the story ripples out, spanning decades and perspectives, to consider how one moment transforms the lives of a little boy and the people who love him.
Mr. Churchill in the White House: The Untold Story of a Prime Minister and Two Presidents by Robert Schmuhl
The robust library of books about Winston Churchill grows by one with this look at the extended times that he spent as a guest in the White House, beginning in 1941. While his four visits during World War II and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency hold the most obvious dramatic interest, Schmuhl, a professor of American studies and journalism at Notre Dame, also recounts visits when Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman had the keys to the White House.
Swimming Pretty: The Untold Story of Women in Water by Vicki Valosik with Michelle Brafman
Valosik, a masters synchronised swimmer and writing instructor, delves into the history of a sport that has long been seen as more beautiful than athletic. Her book shows that it is both. Valosik traces the roots of the sport (now called “artistic swimming”) to 18th-century Red Cross water pageants and shows its evolution - naturally Esther Williams played a part - to an Olympic sport, now in its 40th year as part of the Games.
Shanghai by Joseph Kanon
The author of Los Alamos and The Good German takes readers to pre-World War II Shanghai in this atmospheric suspense tale. After his father is shot by Nazis, former resistance fighter Daniel Lohr flees Berlin for China, where he is taken in by his uncle, who runs a successful casino. Daniel soon finds himself caught up in a criminal underworld, a whirlwind romance - and then the war starts.
Everyone Knows But You: A Tale of Murder on the Maine Coast by Thomas E. Ricks
Celebrated journalist and military historian Ricks tries his hand at a new genre in this crime novel. It’s set in Maine, where a grieving FBI agent named Ryan Tepia is restarting his life. When a fisherman’s corpse shows up on federal land, Tepia is pulled into a case involving drugs, rare fish and the tensions between Maine’s white and Native American communities.
You Are Here by David Nicholls
Nicholls, the British writer whose novels include One Day, a long-running bestseller that was adapted into both a feature film and a Netflix series, returns with the story of two heartbroken strangers, Michael and Marnie, who get to know each other on a long, multiday walk through the English countryside. That a romance develops is not entirely surprising, but Nicholls is a master of hard-won love stories, and this one doesn’t disappoint.
At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning With China by Edward Wong
Wong’s memoir traces the journey of his father, who came of age under Mao, as well as the arc of the author’s own relationship to China, where he lived and worked while reporting for The New York Times. In telling this personal story about family memory, exile and return, the book also takes in the breadth of the country’s evolution during the 20th century.
The Love of My Afterlife by Kirsty Greenwood
Delphie is not having a great day. The lonely Londoner was eating a suspicious looking microwaveable hamburger when she began to choke and lost consciousness. Now she’s stuck in an afterlife holding area that looks like a laundromat. The one silver lining? There’s an extremely attractive man there, and he could be her ticket back to the land of the living.
The Washington Post
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