Word’s pick: “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” by Karen Joy Fowler
As a social experiment, Rosemary’s parents raise her alongside a chimp named Fern. Rosemary grows up feeling like Fern is her twin sister and is devastated when Fern becomes violent and is taken away. Rosemary is affected by the experiment and has constant feelings of abandonment throughout her life. It is a highly unusual and engaging novel — and the best book I read in 2015.
— Anna Will, Word [126 Franklin St. at Milton Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096, www.wordbrooklyn.com].
Greenlight Bookstore’s pick: “The Turner House” by Angela Flournoy
The Turner family home, on the east side of Detroit, still stands. It is vacant and the family’s 13 children must decide what happens to their former home. Their mother has moved to the suburbs to live with the eldest child while the youngest child has been evicted from her apartment and returns to the vacant house. “The Turner House” takes up questions of physical, emotional, and cultural inheritance.
— Jarrod Annis, Greenlight Bookstore [686 Fulton St. between S. Elliott Place and S. Portland Avenue in Fort Greene, (718) 246–0200, www.greenlightbookstore.com].
Community Bookstore’s pick: “Vanishing Point” by David Markson
Sophocles was killed by a grape. T.S. Eliot had a fear of cows. Elie Wiesel’s advance on “Night” was $100. David Markson’s “Vanishing Point” is an assemblage of facts, figures, quotes, and conjectures, orchestrated by the protagonist “author,” who just wants to be left out. Part novel, part catalogue of historical profundity and punditry, Markson’s penultimate book is an ode to the archived interests of a life lived through literature.
— Hal Hlavinka, Community Bookstore [43 Seventh Ave. between Carroll Street and Garfield Place in Park Slope, (718) 783–3075, www.communitybookstore.net].
