Need a new paperback? Here are five just out:
"Barkskins," by Annie Proulx. (Simon & Schuster, $20). Proulx's latest follows ("with Dickensian sprawl," said reviewer Ellen Emry Heltzel) two 17th-century French immigrants, discovering the forests of the New World.
"A Country Road, A Tree," by Jo Baker (Knopf, $16). The author of "Longbourn" returns with a very different novel, set during World War II and inspired by the wartime experiences of playwright Samuel Beckett. Reviewer Melinda Bargreen wrote that the author "re-creates vividly Beckett's own terrible struggle with words and his emergence as a writer."
"American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst" by Jeffrey Toobin (Knopf, $16.95). Toobin, a New Yorker staff writer, traces the complex tale of the California college student kidnapped in 1974 by a leftist radical group _ "a fascinating ride through a troubled time," wrote reviewer Kevin J. Hamilton.
"City of Secrets" by Stewart O'Nan (Penguin, $15). Seattle Times crime fiction reviewer Adam Woog put this "vivid and melancholy novel," set in post-World War II Jerusalem, in his top ten for 2016.
"The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save The World's Most Precious Manuscripts," by Joshua Hammer (Simon & Schuster, $16). Despite the sensational title, wrote Seattle Times reviewer David Wright, this book "provides a sobering look at an ongoing human and cultural tragedy across the Arab world."
