Lock Every Door
by Riley Sager

I am in love with this book. With each new page, a new question is added to the list, and the end rounds up all the loose ends in a satisfying knot. All the characters are not only relatable, but unique, and you end up imagining them into reality. I'd know, I'm kind of in love with Jules (you'll get why once you read the book).
 
 

The Rattled Bones
by S. M. Parker

Amazing book with a gripping story, although I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more without the basic spelling mistakes. That aside, the story is different and unique, and a you'll have a very pleasant time uncovering the mysteries the book has to offer.
 
 

Becoming Bulletproof
by Evy Poumpouras

The author has led an astonishing life: on the NYPD, in the Secret Service, at 9/11, on the presidential security detail for several presidents, and on TV after she retired from all that. There are several useful tips for protecting oneself and one's companions in this self-help memoir but one has to wade through a great deal of obvious common sense exhortation to get to those tips. The book is reasonably organized but wildly overwritten; Poumpouras is evidently many things but not a writer. In addition, her voice is high and chirpy, as she preaches in cliches; the occasional conversational interaction with her husband is a relief.
 
 

Italian Short Stories
by Jhumpa Lahiri, ed.

Lahiri edits, comments on (with a headnote page), and sometimes translates 50 modern Italian short stories, most of them by authors unknown in the U.S. The stories are wonderful works of art, redolent of the country and its values and customs. Lahiri has recently learned the language and has begun to publish her own works in Italian. Brava to her for assembling this eye-opening collection.
 
 

In the Lateness of the World
by Carolyn Forche

Forche's vision of the world and the future is dark, overwhelming, and persuasive. She is a major poetic voice, and her language is memorable. Lasciate ogni Speranza, voi ch’entrate.
 
 

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
by Ocean Vuong

5 stars? 1? This is a beautifully written memoir (the author is elsewhere a poet and, here, a crafter of heart-stopping sentences) that takes the form of a letter to the author's Vietnamese mother, who lived through the war before coming to America. I could not, however, read the book; I had to put it down within the first 50 pages because of deeply disturbing violence toward an animal that was clearly not going to stop with animals.
 
 

Books: A Memoir
by Larry McMurtry

A pleasant amble through a lifelong fascination with books and bookstores (mostly before the new book bookstores and then BN took over) by a man who has written 29 novels himself. This is full of stories about quirky booksellers and the thrill of the hunt and books that cost him a quarter years ago and now . . . well, you know that story. McMurtry is modest, clearly loves books, and has owned hundreds of thousands.
 
 

The Return
by Hisham Matar

Matar tracks his years-long search for news of his father, taken by Libyan "police" to a notorious prison for political dissidents. The book is not easy to read but well worth the mental and emotional effort it takes.
 
 

Fever 1793
by Laurie Halse Anderson

in the begian it was bad, but then it got better and i loved it!
 
 

Norma Jean Baker of Troy
by Anne Carson

Carson is a favorite of mine: a classics professor who writes innovative, allusive fiction in wholly innovative forms. (I usually understand about half of what I'm reading.) Here she takes on Marilyn Monroe / Helen / Persephone / the Iliad (war). Sample: "Oh my darlings, / they tell you you're born with a precious pearl. / Truth is, / It's a disaster to be a girl."