This week’s must-read books
The Heart is a Shifting Sea
Elizabeth Flock (nonfiction, Harper)
While this book is a nonfiction look at love, marriage and shifting cultural norms in Mumbai, specifically tracking three married couples through a span of about a decade, it reads like a novel. Thoroughly researched, it’s also haunting and lovely. You’ll find yourself strangely riveted as you follow the lives of each couple.
How to Stop Time
Matt Haig (fiction, Viking)
Technically, Tom Hazard isn’t immortal — he’s just aging very, very slowly. Alive for centuries, he has to move every 10 years or so, once the people around him notice he never seems to develop wrinkles. As Hazard lives through history, meeting William Shakespeare and sharing cocktails with F. Scott Fitzgerald, he’s bound by one rule only: No falling in love.
The Line Becomes a River
Francisco Cantu (nonfiction, Riverhead Books)
Author Francisco Cantu served in the United States Border Patrol from 2008 to 2012; “The Line Becomes a River” is a sharp, honest look at the people who police the border and those who try to cross it, risking (and sometimes losing) their lives in the process.
Party of One: Truth, Longing, and the Subtle Art of Singleness
Joy Beth Smith (nonfiction, Thomas Nelson)
There are plenty of books for singles, but most of them aren’t aimed at the Christian singles set. This is a warm, funny and empowering book from the managing editor of Christianity Today, urging readers to celebrate the lives they’re living rather than waiting for a husband to appear.
An American Marriage
Tayari Jones (fiction, Algonquin Books)
Celestial and Roy are newlyweds brimming with potential when Roy is suddenly arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime he didn’t commit. While he’s in prison, Celestial turns to a childhood friend, the best man at their wedding. Then Roy’s conviction is overturned, and he comes home ready to resume their marriage.
The Great Alone
Kristin Hannah (fiction, St. Martin’s)
The bestselling author of “The Nightingale” is back with a novel about a father who returns from Vietnam a broken man, moving his family to live off the grid in the wilds of Alaska. At first, the wilderness seems like just the thing for the family, but as his mental state continues to fracture, mother Cora and daughter Leni realize they are on their own.