Martin's Must-Reads

It’s hard to find a truly funny book ...but this is one. If you love books, trivia contests and witty repartee, then you must read The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman.

In 2001, Geraldine Brooks, one of my favorite authors, published her first novel Year of Wonders. She wrote it after coming across an intriguing finger post in England pointing to the Plague Village.

If you’re looking for a well written, World War II story, more fact than fiction, that illustrates the power of human goodness, then you must read The Ragged Edge of Night by Olivia Hawker.

If you’re looking for a book that sheds light on the amazing work the British code breakers accomplished shortening WWII by two years, then you must read The Rose Code by Kate Quinn.

If you’re interested in the history of flight or love McCullough’s writings, then you must read The Wright Brothers by David McCulllough.

Salman Rushdie’s newest novel Quichotte or in Spanish, Quixote is two stories, one of the author Sam DuChamp or Brother and the other of Ismail Smile, the main character in Brother’s novel.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks is a novel based on the fact of an ancient copy of the Haggadah, a Jewish text that lays out the order of the Passover Seder. This is an extremely precious, illuminated manuscript originally from medieval Spain.

If you’ve ever wanted to become better friends with bees, then you must read Honey and Venom by Andrew Cote.

“January 1839. At first he did not hear the voice behind him. The red sun was glaring in his face as he rode across the center of the world. ‘Mr. Jiang!’ He heard it this time. ‘Jiang Shi-Rong! Wait!”

“Set in Constantinople in the fifteenth century, in a small town in present-day Idaho, and on an interstellar ship decades from now Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story of children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope and - a book.”