The summer reading season continues apace, and may I point out that paperbacks are much easier than hardcovers to hold aloft while sprawled in a hammock? Apparently I need to get a hammock. While I work on this, here are some new paperbacks out:
"American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West" by Nate Blakeslee (Broadway Books, $16). Reviewer Irene Wanner named this as one of her favorite natural-history books of 2017. Blakeslee, a writer for Texas Monthly, writes of the successes and struggles of wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after decades of near extinction, focusing specifically on O-Six, a charismatic alpha female in the Lamar Pack.
"Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder" by Caroline Fraser (Picador, $22). Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Fraser's book fascinated many childhood devotees of Wilder's "Little House" series, myself included. A native of Mercer Island, Fraser will be in town to discuss the book at 3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 12, at Elliott Bay Book Co. (elliottbaybook.com, 206-624-6600).
"The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek" by Howard Markel (Vintage, $18). Former Seattle Times book editor Mary Ann Gwinn loved this biography _ a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist _ of two brilliant, feuding Michigan brothers, who founded the Kellogg cereal empire. "Markel, an M.D., Ph.D. and a medical historian, brings both men to life," she wrote, "especially John, with his white suits, celibate marriage, dietary obsessions and embrace of the now discredited field of eugenics."
"The Red-Haired Woman" by Orhan Pamuk (Knopf, $16). This latest novel from the Turkish author, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006, has "a lapidary, fable-like feel to it," wrote a reviewer in The Guardian, "closer in spirit to earlier novels such as 'Snow' and 'The Silent House.' " Translated by Ekin Oklap, it's a story about fathers and sons, set on a military base outside Istanbul.
It's a great week for female-focused crime fiction, with three of my favorite such authors represented with new paperbacks. Denise Mina, whose dark Glasgow-based novels provide a welcome chill on a hot summer day, takes a break from her Alex Morrow series for a stand-alone novel: "The Long Drop" (Little, Brown; $15.99), inspired by a true story about a 1950s serial killer. Laura Lippman goes deliciously noir for "Sunburn" (William Morrow, $16.99), which takes place during summer's heat in a small Delaware town where two attractive strangers eye each other in neon-tinged light.
And finally, a sad goodbye: Sue Grafton's delightful alphabet series, begun in 1982, was so very close to the finish line with the publication of "Y Is For Yesterday" last summer, but Grafton's death in December meant that we have seen the last of intrepid P.I. Kinsey Millhone and her all-purpose dress. "Y" is out in paperback this week (Penguin Publishing, $16); it's not Grafton's best, but it's well worth a read, if only to spend just a few more hours in Kinsey's good company.
