Books | March 2019

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Fiction

The Island of Sea Women
By Lisa See (Scribner)
Mi-ja and Young-sook are best friends who come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. After they survive hundreds of dives and develop the closest of bonds, forces outside their control will push their friendship to the breaking point.
Sing To It
By Amy Hempel (Scribner)
Fifteen short stories reveal Hempel at her most compassionate and spirited, as she introduces characters, lonely and adrift, searching for connection. In “Greed,” a spurned wife examines her husband’s affair with a glamorous, older married woman. The stories are replete with moments of revelation and thoughtfulness.

Nonfiction

A Fire Story
By Brian Fies (Abrams ComicArts)
On October 9, 2017, wildfires burned through Northern California, resulting in 44 fatalities and the destruction of over 15,000 homes and buildings. Fies’s firsthand account of this tragic event is an unflinching depiction of his personal experiences, including losing his house and every possession he owned.
The Impossible Climb
By Mark Synnott (Dutton)
A 3,000-foot vertical climb up El Capitan in Yosemite, without a rope, has long been considered a “free solo” ascent so far beyond human limits that it was not worth thinking about. When Alex Honnold did it in fewer than four hours, the world gave a collective gasp. The Impossible Climb teaches everyone about pursuing the seemingly impossible.