The Book Show Joe Donahue

“Absolution,” by National Book Award-winning author Alice McDermott, is the riveting account of women’s lives on the margins of the Vietnam War.  American women and wives have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in “Absolution” they take center stage.

Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels including “A Thousand Acres,” which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and the “Last Hundred Years Trilogy.” Her latest, “A Dangerous Business,” tells the remarkable story of the California gold rush and a pair of sex-worker sleuths who track down the culprit behind a series of disappearances.

Jonathan Lethem is the bestselling author of twelve novels, including “The Fortress of Solitude” and “Motherless Brooklyn,” and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. His newest is “Brooklyn Crime Novel,” a sweeping story of community, crime, and gentrification, tracing more than fifty years of life in one Brooklyn neighborhood.

The new novel, “The Unsettled,” by Ayana Mathis is set in the 1980s and follows three generations of a family divided by a painful past. Ava lives in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia, struggling to care for her son, Toussaint. Her mother, Dutchess, remains in her historically Black hometown of Bonaparte, Alabama, fighting to save her land.

Joe Nesbø is an internationally best-selling author best known for his mystery series featuring his protagonist, Harry Hole. His latest is a twisted, multi-layered, mind-bending spin on the classic horror novel, “The Night House.” By page 8 – a phone has eaten a guy and things get stranger along the way.

“Wellness,” by Nathan Hill, is a poignant and witty novel about marriage, the often-baffling pursuit of health and happiness, and the stories that bind us together. The book brings us from the gritty '90s Chicago art scene to a suburbia of detox diets and home-renovation hysteria.