Us Against You, Butchering Art, Island of the Mad

Here are my latest finds:

1. The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris about the advent of sterile surgery. Definitely a topic I wouldn't chose! Ew. The book is vivid about surgery practices of the nineteenth century and they were gruesome. As in cringe-when-I-read it gruesome. But factual, so therefore fascinating. Surgery had to start somewhere. If you like historical novels, give this one a try. Fitzharris is a fine writer and I always admire an author who can make a topic (like surgery) that I think: "No thank you", to be something that's actually pretty interesting because of the way she tells it.

2. Us Against You by Fredrik Backman, the sequel to Beartown. Some sequels are total letdowns after the first fine book, and I wondered if Backman could keep it up. He can. Adult themes, not for my tween readers, but I'd love to suggest it to a (non-offended!) book club of intelligent readers. Backman is one of the few authors would can make me heartily laugh and get to profound realizations in the same paragraph.

3. Island of the Mad, the next in my favorite detective series starring Mary Russell as a sidekick to Sherlock Holmes. I was waiting for this to arrive at my library because it was just published a few months ago. And Laurie King keeps up her Laurie King self. Bedlam mental hospital! Venice! Fascists! Cole Porter! Sherlock Holmes as Zorro! If King only did a great mystery plot, I'd be hooked. But King has this expansive vocabulary! Like the word "susurrations", which means "a whispering sound" and King uses it to describe the ocean waves. Marvelous.

She plays with the concept of gender identity, so if that makes you nervous, or you have a young reader you don't want to go there yet, now you know.

Happy summer reading!