August Preview

I didn’t get much reading done this past week as life was busy, but I did finish the audiobook of Michael Koryta’s 2014 crime thriller “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” which is about a boy who witnessed a murder and is on the run from the killers. Instead of a witness protection program, the boy is placed “off the grid” into a wilderness survival program for troubled teens, which is run by an expert in the remote Beartooth Mountains of Montana. But it’s not long before the ruthless bad guys find out where the boy is, and try to flush him out by starting a major wildfire.

Oh there are some scary scenes in this, and the Blackwell Brothers are two murderous brutes. I liked the survivalist aspects of the book and the chase up the mountain to the fire lookout tower and beyond. There’s some suspenseful action and twists along the way. The characters, too, are quite well realized and interesting to follow, especially the man who runs the wilderness program and his wife who try to save the boy, along with the girl who mans the desolate fire tower and excels as a firefighter. My only quibble with the story was that the plot seemed a bit unbelievable in spots — particularly that these killers were so concerned about this one boy witness while leaving themselves open to other witnesses along the way. The killers were brutes who didn’t exactly hide themselves — I’d hope law enforcement would be on to them sooner! For all of our sakes.

Meanwhile it’s August and I’m hanging on to summer for as long as I possibly can. I wasn’t sure there would be much notable fiction out this month, but indeed there is. First off, Eowyn Ivey’s second novel “To the Bright Edge of the World” is on my radar as I’m a sucker for expedition / adventure kinds of books set in the 1800s. This one is about a war hero’s expedition with a small band of men up the Wolverine River into Alaska’s northern interior with the intent of collecting data for future enterprises. Oh I can tell it’s going to be a harrowing journey. Publishers’ Weekly says the novel is an “entrancing, occasionally chilling depiction of turn-of-the-century Alaska,” which captures its “beauty and brutality, not just preserving history, but keeping it alive.” Count me in for this one, especially since I missed Ivey’s popular debut novel “The Snow Child” from 2012, which I still hope to devour in the future.

Next up I’m eyeballing Tim Murphy’s debut novel “Christodora” since it’s been receiving a lot praise for vividly recapturing New York in the 1980s and ‘90s during the AIDS epidemic. Amazon calls it a “spellbinding” novel that revolves around an East Village apartment building (the Christodora) whose tenants (particularly a bohemian family) bear witness to the ever changing city through the decades. Author Hanya Yanagihara says it’s an “impassioned, big-hearted, and ultimately hopeful chronicle of a changing New York that authoritatively evokes the despair and panic in the city at the height of the plague.” I’m no New Yorker but from the praise I’ve read about it, the “Christodora” seems worth checking out.

Another New York novel out this month — Jacqueline Woodson’s “Another Brooklyn” looks enticing to me as well. Publishers’ Weekly says “Woodson…combines grit and beauty in a series of stunning vignettes, painting a vivid mural of what it was like to grow up African-American in Brooklyn during the 1970s.” Woodson, who won the National Book Award for her memoir-in-verse book “Brown Girl Dreaming,” apparently has a spare but beautiful poetic writing style, which I’m looking forward to in this coming-of-age story about four best friends in Brooklyn. I have not explored Woodson’s many young adult and children’s books in years past, but I’ve heard such impressive things. It’s about time I checked out her work.

And because the Olympics are about to start I likely can’t pass up Giuseppe Catozzella’s Italian bestselling novel “Don’t Tell Me You’re Afraid” based on the real life story of 21-year-old Olympic runner Samia Yusuf Omar of Somali who competed in the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and set off on a grueling migrant journey across Africa and the Mediterranean Sea in 2012, with her sights on freedom and competing in the London Games. Ugh, I hear this novel is truly heartbreaking and tough to read in sections as Samia travels as an exiled refuge through Ethiopia, Sudan, and Libya. Kirkus Reviews says “The first-person narrative … gives the story a spirit and urgency that readers won’t easily forget. Catozzella’s novel is both an intimate portrait of a heroic young woman and a disturbing look at the horrors many migrants face today.” I’m afraid about it already…

If that’s too much for you, you might want to pick up a totally escape read such as Jay McInerney’s novel “Bright, Precious Days” about a marriage tested by an affair — and New York during the looming days of the economic collapse. I met McInerney at BEA this year, which was pretty cool after liking his debut novel “Bright Lights, Big City” so many years ago. He was a star author back then, remember? I also read his novels “Brightness Falls” and “The Good Life” both of which feature the same characters (Russell and Corrine Calloway) as does this latest novel. Oh theirs is a pretty juicy marriage, one of true love that at times hits the rocks. How can I stop now? I must see the Calloways through. If not them, then I’ll likely plunge into Rae Meadows’s new novel “I Will Send Rain” about a woman fighting for her family’s survival in the early years of the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma. This book’s storms are sure to leave dirt and sand in your mouth. I hear it’s the real deal.

As for movies in August, I couldn’t find much that I really want to see. Of course, there’s the new Meryl Streep movie, highlighting the life of “Florence Foster Jenkins” — an American heiress who wanted to become an opera singer despite having a terrible singing voice. Granted, I’m a bit curious about the history of Florence who I didn’t know about before this, but I’m not sure about the movie. I do think the movie “Anthropoid,” based on the true WWII mission to assassinate SS General Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect of the Final Solution, seems compelling. I don’t recall knowing much about this top-secret plot in history, but the trailer for this movie looks quite hair-raising, and the real-life outcome affected things in Europe forever, so count me in.

Speaking of movies, I finally saw “Me Before You,” the adaptation of Jojo Moyes’s 2012 novel about a quadriplegic man and the woman who becomes his caretaker, which came out earlier this year. Despite my apprehensions and doubts about seeing the movie, I thought it followed the novel quite well and hit the right notes of the book without being too fluffy or ridiculous. It treads a fine line on that and quality of life issues the man faces. Surprisingly the actors seemed to fit the characters quite well. I was won over by them. Overall the movie met my expectations and wasn’t overly blubbery, though it’s a love story that raises some thought-provoking questions. It’s a bit charming and touching but not overly intense.

As for albums coming out in August, I didn’t see many worth checking out — though there’s new ones by Ingrid Michaelson, and Dolly Parton, which could be interesting. But I think I’ll try Amos Lee’s new album “Spirit” for my pick this month.

What about you — which books, movies, or albums are you looking forward to this month?