Word’s pick: “Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania” by Erik Larson
Possibly his best yet! This gripping new nonfiction from Larson (“The Devil in the White City”) chronicles the final, fatal voyage of the Lusitania. Alternating between accounts of the German U-boat captain who sank the ship, the daily lives of passengers aboard it, newly revealed British secret intelligence data, and details of President Woodrow Wilson’s private life, Larson creates a shocking narrative that reveals how Winston Churchill may have deliberately let it all happen. I couldn’t put it down.
— Ashanti White-Wallace, Word [126 Franklin St. at Milton Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096, www.wordbrooklyn.com].
Greenlight Bookstore’s pick: “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck
I’ve been thinking about this book a lot lately. I’ve read it twice, both times while on long drives. What I like about Steinbeck is that he was always trying to be a better writer and that his books are always different. This one is epic, generational, and explores family relations by using some of his own family history. Steinbeck even appears as a little boy in the story. If you’re looking for a book to get lost in this June, this is a great book for losing yourself.
— Jess Pane, 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: “Leaving Orbit: Notes from the Last Days of American Spaceflight” by Margaret Lazarus Dean
The space program was once so much a part of how we saw ourselves as Americans, its future so seemingly limitless, that it would have been inconceivable that someday we would shut it down and walk away, turning Cape Canaveral over to the alligators. Margaret Lazarus Dean is too young to know what it was like to watch Alan Shepard, Gus Grisson, and John Glenn blast off into space, but she gets it — what it was like and what has been lost — in a wonderful, elegiac, human way.
— Ezra Goldstein, Community Bookstore [43 Seventh Ave. between Carroll Street and Garfield Place in Park Slope, (718) 783–3075, www.commu
