Staff Choices

Four thousand miles is a long way to travel, especially on foot. Traveling by car isolates and insulates you from everyone and everything you pass; so Andrew Forsthoefel walked. Newly graduated from college at age 23, Andrew had something to prove, to find and to learn as he made his way across America from Pennsylvania to San Francisco by way of Texas. His parents’ divorce when he was a teenager was a pivotal time in his life, a shadow, a reckoning he needed to address.



While on the road he is frequently surprised by the kindnesses of strangers. Many took him into their home, fed him a meal, or allowed him to camp on their property. By keeping his eyes open, he kept his mind open, meeting people from different cultures, religions, and backgrounds; he listened. And when he was alone, he had the writings of Rilke and Whitman for company.



Hurt walking, urge walking, dream walking, fury walking, scream walking, dance walking, weep walking, why walking, beauty walking – Andrew experienced all of these.



His writing got better as the book went on. He became more confident, more introspective, asking different questions of himself and others he meets trying to understand the world around him. Walking to Listen may appeal to those who also read Wild by Cheryl Strayed, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, and Tracks by Robyn Davidson.

Author Nina Willner is from a strong family. Forty autumns, forty years of an oppressive, ruthless regime that once in place, no one believed it would ever end. After WWII ended, communism took hold in East Germany; one war morphed into a different kind of war. Eventually, the Berlin Wall went up around the entire perimeter of the city. With such a constant state of fear, oppression, deprivation and suspicion, Nina’s grandmother created a safe haven in their home, a family wall.



Many of us watched on television as the Berlin Wall fell. Nina’s perspective and her family’s first-hand accounts make this story come alive as quite a history lesson. This memoir provides an intense, unique portrait of life behind the Iron Curtain.

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin is a family saga that spans almost a century, starting in the not so distant future and looking backwards as famous poet Fiona Skinner reflects on her life. An environmental crisis has significantly altered life on earth, but this is not a dystopian novel. Instead, we spend most of our time with the four Skinner children, who first lose their father to a sudden heart attack, and then their mother to “the pause”, what the kids have dubbed her long period of severe depression that essentially leaves them parentless for several years. This rudderless childhood forges strong bonds between the siblings, but also impacts each of them in ways that will haunt them throughout their lives.

The Last Romantics does a beautiful job of conveying all  the messiness, heartbreak, and beauty of what makes up a family, what constitutes love.

The River by Peter Heller is one of the best books I've read so far this year, but it is hard to classify. It is in parts a riveting suspense tale, an outdoor adventure, and an elegiac ode to nature.  But mostly this novel is a beautiful, heartrending story of friendship between two young men. Best friends and avid outdoorsmen Wynn and Jack are on a canoe trip in Northern Canada when everything starts to go horribly wrong. They must call on all their survival skills and instincts as they are forced to outrun a vicious forest fire while simultaneously trying to save the life of a woman who has been brutally attacked. Facing constant danger from fellow men and nature, both Wynn and Jack must confront their deepest held values, revealing fault lines in their friendship. The River would make an awesome action film...I'm already casting the two main characters in my mind.

What does it mean to be an exile? What weight does it carry? How much of your identity is wrapped around a place? Next Year in Havana is both the title of this book and a toast, a wish for the future, spoken by those who have left and hope to return.

Forced to flee in 1959, the Perez family came to the United States when the political tides shifted in Cuba. Told in two timelines. In the present day, the main character, Marisol, travels to Cuba to bring her grandmother’s ashes home. As she explores Havana and the surrounding countryside she uncovers a treasure trove of family history. Written with nostalgia, pride and hope intermingled with romance, high society life, rebellion, and secrecy. 

Author Chanel Cleeton grew up on family stories of her own family's departure from Cuba. This story provides an intriguing viewpoint of a country located only 90 miles away.

Erin Lee Carr is the daughter of New York Times journalist and author David Carr. In this case, the apple does not fall far from the tree. Erin is drawn to journalism and documentary filmmaking, her father is her guiding light. Preserved in emails and texts his advice to her is tender, loving, incredibly supportive, eloquent, direct, gruff, blunt, hard-hitting, spot-on and delivered with just the right touch whenever Erin reaches out to him.

Journalism is a competitive, work hard, play hard environment, constantly changing with breaking news and evolving with the rise of social media. Life is not easy. Both Erin and her father got caught in the trap of losing themselves to addictions and addictive behavior. How do you break free? Erin attributes her hard-won success to her father, leading her forward.  He opened some doors for her professionally but she had to do the work. She has spoken for a TEDx talk about her work and has directed two documentaries for HBO. After his sudden death when Erin is 26 years old, she is stopped short, forced to look at her life and actions closely without filters.

All That You Leave Behind is a candid, moving memoir to celebrate fathers, families and I think this is a good read for high school and college graduates.

In the author’s acknowledgements, she includes a thank you and directive to her readers: “YOU (for reading this; now go write someone you love an email).”

Peoples’ lives distill into emails, texts and blog posts in Mary Adkins’ debut novel When You Read This. This feels very familiar since this is how many of us interact today. In this story, the impersonal becomes personal as the narrative fleshes out while we read the communications between the main characters of Smith, Iris, Jade and Carl. Carl is a self-important, manner-less college intern who insinuated himself into Smith’s brand management business to an exasperating yet comic effect. Iris worked for Smith and Jade is Iris’ sister. Their paths intertwine with each other, clients and friends. All this points out how complicated lives are and how we occasionally create our own stumbling blocks. The story is oddly endearing, occasionally philosophical, has tender moments and made me feel like I was peeking into their correspondence.

Try this book if you are a fan of epistolary novels. Other titles in this literary style are Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher and Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson.

Summer is wedding season and Tif Marcelo’s book The Key To Happily Ever After is the perfect book to give you an inside look into wedding planning.

This lighthearted family drama is about three sisters who own a wedding planning business and discover love around the same time. Set in Washington, D.C. the de la Rosa sisters, Marisol, Jane and Pearl find that working together comes with its challenges. There is some family conflict and a little bit of drama, but overall it shows the closeness sisters share even when they are fighting.

This charming, fun, and, at times, genuinely moving, trip down the aisle(s) is full of romance, family drama and unexpected twists.

The Key To Happily Ever After is a perfect one to add to your summer reading list to enjoy on the beach or while sipping lemonade on your front porch.

In Tracey Garvis Graves latest book, The Girl He Used to Know, Annika is a high-functioning woman with autism spectrum disorder. Throughout the story, the reader is given an inside look into her life and how she copes with being on the spectrum. Annika struggled with life in a way most of us will never understand. Socially awkward, her experiences with college and daily life was so very different and only underscored how difficult just the simplest encounters could be.

When Annika gets to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has an understanding roommate that signs her up for the chess club she meets Jonathan Hoffman. Jonathan does not mind that Annika is different. He can see through her awkwardness to her beautiful heart, and they fall in love. After a tragic event and separating ways, their story picks up again ten years later when they meet by chance at Mariano’s in Chicago. Annika is the girl that Jonathan never forgot and Annika still hurts over their breakup.

I enjoyed this second chance romance very much, but the book also strongly focuses on the heroine's own personal growth. How she evolves from someone filled with anxiety that leans heavily on others to cope socially, to a woman who has fought for her own self-confidence and the skills to thrive on her own two feet. The book has dual points of view and alternates from the present time to flashbacks of the past in the couple's college years.

This is a unique book written with remarkable empathy. Although this is a fictional story, it is extremely relatable, inspirational, and insightful.

My love of food memoirs started when I read Ruth Reichl’s “Tender at the Bone” many years ago. In the years since, I have devoured all of Reichl’s books as well as many other memoirs by food writers, restaurant critics and chefs. Save Me the Plums is about her tenure as the Editor-in-Chief of ‘Gourmet’ magazine for 10 years, and its subsequent closing.

Reichl takes us through the endless machinations Conde` Nast used to woo her, as well as the behind the scenes world of magazine publishing. As the NY Times points out, Ruth was shocked at the perks “Apparently they pay for everything,” Reichl informed her husband. “Country clubs … hairdressers, travel. You name it.” With humor and detail she outlines what it takes to publish a magazine with the  history of Gourmet. The politics, the hierarchy, the eccentricities and the constant topic of money take up enormous amounts of time, not to mention all the creativity to breathe life back into this icon.

As with all of her books, her writing flows easily, but it’s all about the food. She talks about food, she thinks about food, she eats food and she cooks food. Thankfully, there are recipes.

Humorous, informative and simply delicious, Save Me the Plums is a great summer read.