Category: Pop

Nightcrawling, by Leila Mottley (Knopf, 271 pages)

Promising young writers don’t always live up to their potential; they can collapse under the combined weight of heavy expectations and featherweight talent. In the interest of kindness, let’s not name names.

Not so Leila Mottley, the young novelist that Oprah Winfrey has been gushing about. Mottley started writing Nightcrawling at 17; she’s now 20. Her novel is all Winfrey promised it would be, and then some.

It’s based on actual events in Oakland, California: the sexual abuse of a young Black woman by police officers who trapped her into serving an ever expanding number of officers sexually. Mottley, who lives in Oakland, read about the case and the ensuing cover-up and couldn’t stop thinking about the young woman and the experience of growing up “vulnerable, unprotected and unseen.”

From her imagination came Kiara, a 17-year-old in similar circumstances. Kiara and her older brother, Marcus, live in a run-down apartment complex where the pool is contaminated with feces. “Houses give away all their secrets at the door. Dee’s is full of scratches. Mine doesn’t even have a working lock no more,” Kiara muses in the first-person narrative which is both lyrical and devastating.

Their father is dead; their mother long gone and currently living in a halfway house. Their only other family member is an uncle who is something of a rap star in L.A. and has no contact with them.

Kiara carries the weight of their meager existence, since her brother spends his days recording rap music in hopes of hitting it big like his uncle. When the apartment complex is sold and they receive notice that the rent has been doubled, she is desperate, not only for herself and her brother, but also for Trevor, the young boy in an adjacent apartment whom she has been caring for in the absence of his mother.

She tries to find work, but without a work history, she is repeatedly turned away. Even the third-rate bars to which she applies won’t hire her until she turns 18.

One night, she has a sexual encounter that is more of a business transaction than romance, and the shock of receiving several hundred dollars for sex leads Kiara into selling her body more frequently. One night, she’s picked up by a couple of police officers who, in exchange for not arresting her, take advantage of her services. They soon begin calling her regularly and sharing her with other officers, to the point of her being the “entertainment” at police parties.

Although Kiara does not know the officers by name, she knows them by their badge numbers, and they indulge in her services so much that she knows their preferences and habits; she is paid both in money and also in a shabby form of protection. For example, once, when she is at a party, she gets a call from an officer who tells her that there are undercover officers in the house and there’s about to be a bust. An officer picks her up, preventing her arrest, but his “protection” involves taking her to his home for the night and sexual activities for which she is not paid.

One day, police come to her home and take Kiara to the station for questioning. The administration has learned of Kiara’s existence and abuse through a suicide note left by a member of the force. Kiara denies any involvement with officers and is released, but from there, must confront more dilemmas that a teenager should never have to face.

She has choices, but they’re all terrible. She feels she can trust no one; the institution that is supposed to protect her is corrupt. Her brother — who loves her so much that he had her fingerprint tattooed on his neck, who pierced her ears with a sewing needle as a gift for her 16th birthday — is in jail. And Kiara is unable to pay the rent and buy food without the money she receives from sexual encounters with the police.

While Kiara’s experiences and life, even before she descended into sex work, are foreign to much of America, they will be painfully familiar to many.

Mottley clearly knows something about the humiliation of poverty: of having nothing but cereal and ramen in a roach-infested pantry; of having to share a washing machine with someone else at the laundromat; of making your own birthday cake from a mix using syrup because you don’t have any oil; of never having slept in a real bed, or been invited to anyone’s house because your daily existence is limited to staying alive.

In one moving scene, Kiara remembers going grocery shopping with her mother, before she disappeared. While her mother is trying to figure out how much credit was left on their EBT card, how much they could spend, young Kiara wistfully fills a carriage with frozen pizza and “fancy” cereal — things that, to her mind, were luxuries only rich people can afford.

“I don’t think you can feel more trapped than in the center of food you’re not allowed to eat, waiting to go home, and not knowing if anyone will remember your existence,” Kiara says.

While Nightcrawling takes us into a deeply depressing underworld of shame, despair and corruption, it is still a pleasure to read. Mottley’s voice is true and compelling, and she endows Kiara with unsettling wisdom that gives us hope that she will survive and move (both literally and figuratively) to a better place, with Marcus and Trevor in tow. A

Book Notes

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly a year since the disappearance of Gabby Petito, the young woman traveling across the country in a van with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, who the FBI has said claimed responsibility for killing her, according to a January story in the New York Times and other media reports. That case mobilized a nation of armchair investigators. We can all track down murderers now from the comfort of our living room, or at least come up with tips that might prove helpful.

And there are plenty of unsolved cases out there, as Trailed by Kathryn Miles reminds us. Trailed (Algonquin, 320 pages) is the account of two women, Laura “Lollie” Winans and Julie Williams, who were found dead in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, and Miles’ personal investigation into their deaths. The case remains unsolved, but Miles, a science writer who lives in Portland, has evidently done a masterful job of telling this story; there are lots of “couldn’t put this book down” in reader reviews. The author explores not only the flaws that plagued the investigation, including charges that the National Park Service tries to bury cases like this so people feel safe on its property, but also the unique dangers that confront women and members of the LGBTQ community when in the wilderness.

The “true crime” genre isn’t for everyone, but for those who enjoy it, there are plenty of offerings this summer. Another is When the Moon Turns to Blood(Twelve, 320 pages), journalist Leah Sottile’s account of the Idaho murders allegedly committed by Lori Vallow, a former beauty queen, and her husband Chad Daybell, a doomsday novelist. The couple are accused of killing two children and Daybell’s ex-wife. (The trial is scheduled for January 2023.) The subtitle promises “a story of murder, wild faith and end times.”

Less sensational but equally dark is We Carry Their Bones (William Morrow, 256 pages) by Erin Kimmerle. The author is a forensic anthropologist who examines the crimes committed at the Dozier School in Florida, which operated from 1900 to 2011 despite reports of cruelty, abuse and unexplained deaths of young boys, many of whom were Black. School records show that about 30 boys were buried in a field on the property; Kimmerle found that there were actually twice the number of graves.

And finally, those who enjoy true crime will appreciate Unmasked: My Life Solving America’s Cold Cases (Celadon, 288 pages) by Paul Holes. Hole is the forensic detective whose obsession with the case of the Golden State Killer led to a former police officer’s arrest for 13 murders and 50 rapes in California between 1974 and 1986.

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Book Events

Author events

• DIANE HALLENBECK presents Rejecting Fear: Learning to Be Led By Loveat the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Thursday, July 28, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• MARY ELLEN HUMPHREY presents My Mountain Friend: Wandering and Pondering Mt. Majorat Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, July 28, at 6:30 p.m.

• LAURIE STONE presents Streaming Now: Postcards from the Thing That Is Happeningat Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 4, at 6:30 p.m.

• KATHLEEN BAILEY and SHEILA BAILEY present their book New Hampshire War Monuments: The Stories Behind the Stones at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 11, at 6:30 p.m.

• R.A. SALVATORE presents Glacier’s Edge at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Friday, Aug. 12, at 6:30 p.m.

• CASEY SHERMAN presents Helltown at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Sunday, Aug. 14, at 1:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• VIRGINA CHAMLEE presents Big Thrift Energy: The Art and Thrill of Finding Vintage Treasuresat Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Monday, Aug. 15, at 6:30 p.m.

• SPENCER QUINN presents Bark to the Future: A Chet & Bernie Mysteryat Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 18, at 6:30 p.m. and on Sunday, Aug. 28, at noon at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600). The Bookery event is BYOD: bring your own dog.

• PHIL PRIMACK presents Put It Down On Paper: The Words and Life of Mary Folsom Blair in a Literary Lunchtime event at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Sept. 8, at noon.

Poetry

• OPEN MIC POETRY hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com), starting with a reading by poet Sam DeFlitch, on Wednesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Newcomers encouraged. Free.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

I love a well-written rom com that’s not super cheesy and entirely predictable, and I often still enjoy the ones that are. I’ve read Emily Henry’s two other novels, Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation, and I really enjoyed them (that falls somewhere between just plain “enjoyed” and “loved”). I admit I was hoping Book Lovers — a book about love and people who love books?! — would reach “loved” status, but ultimately the main characters were a little too bland to get me there.

Still, I really enjoyed Book Lovers, which centers on Nora, a New York City literary agent who is described as cold and entirely focused on her job. She thinks of her life as a book; as the main character, she sees herself as the villainess, never the hero. She meets Charlie, a book editor, to pitch her author’s latest book. He says no. They’re not especially kind to each other. The end.

But! Two years later, that book she’d pitched has become a bestseller with a different editor, and Nora heads to the town the book is set in, Sunshine Falls, because her sister Libby is pregnant with her third child and said she wanted to get away, specifically to that small town, before the baby is born. Nora agrees to go with her sister because she feels like the two used to be closer, and she wants to rebuild that bond. She even agrees to follow Libby’s checklist of small-town things to do, like sleep under the stars and save a small business.

Guess who lives in Sunshine Falls, guys? Charlie! It’s his hometown, and he’s back to help his parents, who have health issues, run their bookstore. Turns out he’s not so bad! Even with him there, though, the story is more about Nora and Libby and family and the things we do for them no matter what. It’s … nice.

Here’s one of my issues with the book. Nora is constantly described as cold-hearted and ruthless. Her author’s newest book is kind of about her, in fiction form; the main character is known as a “shark.” Nora sees herself in the character immediately and hates that people see her that way.

The thing is, there are very few times in the book — Book Lovers, not the book in the book – that Nora actually seems cold-hearted. She’s never really mean. She desperately wants to please her sister. She spent much of her young adult life making sure Libby was taken care of after their mom died, which meant sacrificing the relationship she was in at the time, and, for a long time, the possibility of other relationships. She’s cautious, but understandably. So that contradiction throughout the book was a little frustrating for me, and I had a hard time connecting with her character.

I also vacillated between loving the dialogue and being annoyed by it. It definitely flows well and is fun to read most of the time, but occasionally it feels a little over the top, a bit too scripted — like, no one in real life can banter back and forth that wittily for that long.

Take this small part of a scene where Nora and Charlie are at a bar, begrudgingly sharing bits of their lives before challenging each other to a game of pool.

‘Why do you care why I’m here?’ I [Nora] ask.

‘Morbid curiosity. Why do you care about my bad day?’

‘Always helpful to know your opponent’s weaknesses.’

He holds the cue out. ‘You first.’

I take the stick, flop it onto the edge of the table, and look over my shoulder. ‘Isn’t now the part where you’re supposed to put your arms around me and show me how to do it?’

His mouth curves. ‘That depends. Are you carrying any weapons?’

‘The sharpest thing on me is my teeth.’

Really?

But then I loved the very next, non-dialogue line: “I settle over the cue, holding it like I’ve not only never played pool before but have quite possibly only just discovered my own hands.” The book, for me, was a roller coaster of “Ugh, Emily Henry, you’re trying too hard,” and “Aah, Emily Henry, your writing is brilliant!”

The plot is somewhat unique, and the genius of it is that the predictability is meant to be predictable because it’s a romance novel that’s about book lovers who are experts in the typical tropes and characterizations of romance novels. Henry describes them in those terms, and creates a plot that’s purposefully “this is where the story is supposed to go,” and it does. There are a couple of twists, which I didn’t find all that stunning or exciting, but there is some originality that helped level up my feelings for the story.

All in all, Book Lovers is definitely worth the read. It was a little more same-same than I had hoped, but it’s still a fun book that most rom-com lovers will really enjoy. B+ — Meghan Siegler

Book Notes

Animals, including humans, not only eat less in periods of hot weather, but also do less. Researchers have found a connection between high temperatures and lower productivity. If this tendency toward summer sloth also applies to your reading, it’s a good time to take a break from the 400-page multi-generation historical novels and indulge in bite-sized fare. Here are some story and essay collections easily digested in the embrace of a hammock.

Night of the Living Rez (Tin House, 296 pages) is a collection of 12 stories set in the Penobscot Indian Nation in Maine. The author, Morgan Talty, is a citizen who grew up there. This is his first book, but his writing has been published in collections of the best American short stories in 2020 and 2021.

The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories (Harper, 288 pages) is from Jess Walter, whose six novels include Beautiful Ruins and The Financial Lives of the Poets. His stories have been called “wonderfully inventive” and the publisher says they’re about “those moments when everything changes — for the better, for the worse, for the outrageous.”

Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World (Random House, 352 pages) is a collection of essays by Barry Lopez published posthumously. Lopez was a widely acclaimed nature writer (Arctic Dreams and Of Wolves and Men) who died of cancer in 2020; his work has been compared to that of Henry David Thoreau.

Ghost Lover (Avid Reader Press, 240 pages) is by Lisa Taddeo, a two-time Pushcart Prize winner who lives in Connecticut. The Guardian says Taddeo is known for writing about “female desire.” The Kirkus Review says the stories “take us into the world of people cooler and more attractive than we are.”

Finally, O. Henry Prize winner Frederic Tuten is out with The Bar at Twilight (Bellevue Literary Press, 288 pages). From the Los Angeles Times Review: “In ‘The Snow on Tompkins Square Park,’ a man has entered a horse bar, and the bartender, a blue horse, tells him flatly, ‘We serve horses here, and people who look horsey. You aren’t and you don’t.’” Sign me up. — Jennifer Graham

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Book Events

Author events

• PAULA MUNIER and SARAH STEWART TAYLOR present their respective mystery novels The Wedding Plotand The Drowning Sea at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, July 21, at 6:30 p.m.

• LINDA REILLY presents her cozy mystery No Parm No Foul at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, July 26, at 6:30 p.m.

• DIANE HALLENBECK presents Rejecting Fear: Learning to Be Led By Love at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Thursday, July 28, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• MARY ELLEN HUMPHREY presents My Mountain Friend: Wandering and Pondering Mt. Majorat Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, July 28, at 6:30 p.m.

• KATHLEEN BAILEY and SHEILA BAILEY present their book New Hampshire War Monuments: The Stories Behind the Stones at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, Aug. 11, at 6:30 p.m.

• R.A. SALVATORE presents Glacier’s Edge at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Friday, Aug. 12, at 6:30 p.m.

• CASEY SHERMAN presents Helltown at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Sunday, Aug. 14, at 1:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

• VIRGINA CHAMLEE presents Big Thrift Energy: The Art and Thrill of Finding Vintage Treasures at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Monday, Aug. 15, at 6:30 p.m.

Poetry

• OPEN MIC POETRY hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com), starting with a reading by poet Sam DeFlitch, on Wednesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Newcomers encouraged. Free.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.

Sparring Partners by John Grisham (Doubleday, 320 pages)

Stuck at home with Covid, John Grisham was writing way too much, he said in a post on Goodreads back in January. The result is Sparring Partners, his first collection of novellas. They’re based on ideas he’s had for a long time that were too short to be novels but too long to be short stories, he wrote.

I’ve read all of Grisham’s novels and wasn’t especially excited to read this non-novel; short stories have never appealed to me, maybe because it seems like there’s not enough time to get attached to the characters, and I wasn’t sure if I would like longer short stories either. Plus, Grisham’s most recent books tend to all blend together in my mind — they’re good stories, but not outstanding, and I’ve gotten less and less eager to read them.

I guess it helped to have low expectations, because I was pleasantly surprised by Sparring Partners.

The first novella, “Homecoming,” takes place in Ford County and features Jake Brigance — both the location and main character should be well-known by Grisham fans. Brigance just heard from an old friend, Mack, a former lawyer who stole from clients, then disappeared. Jake and Harry Rex (another familiar name) help him return, but of course, it’s complicated by Mack’s angry children and, oh yeah, all those pesky crimes he committed that he never did time for. Once word gets out that he’s around, the FBI steps in.

The story feels complete because of Margot, one of Mack’s daughters. She’s strong and sassy but also willing to give her father the most tentative of chances, and their relationship is a highlight of the novella. She’s not a lawyer, judge, law enforcement officer or criminal; she’s just a young woman trying to figure out her relationship with her father, and it’s a refreshing point of view.

“Strawberry Moon” is the second novella, about a young death row inmate named Cody Wallace who is just hours away from execution. There’s no way to save him, so this isn’t a suspenseful last-minute race for clemency. It’s beyond that point already, so the story we get is more about Cody’s past, his experiences on death row and a final request.

I had conflicting feelings about this one. The brevity and pace of all the stories made Sparring Partners as a whole feel like a good, easy beach read, but having an entire novella set on death row is dark and depressing, a bit of a downer in the midst of more light-hearted fare. None of them are exactly uplifting, but the other two are a little more action and a little less doom-and-gloom social commentary on the justice system. It’s not unexpected from Grisham, but in this particular format, it seemed a bit rushed and ineffective. I didn’t care enough about Cody at the end to feel the impact of his fate.

That being said, this is John Grisham, not a quintessential beach read author like Elin Hilderbrand or Jennifer Weiner, so I can’t take off too many points for darker content.

The final novella is “Sparring Partners,” the partners being brothers Kirk and Rusty Malloy, who inherited their father’s law firm when he went to prison. They hate each other and talk as little as possible, but they have to come together when they plot to make sure their father stays in prison so they can get their hands on a life-changing chunk of cash. Meanwhile, fellow lawyer and soon-to-be self-designated partner Diantha makes the smartest move of her career with the press of her phone’s “record” button.

This is the best story of the bunch. The Malloys are seriously dysfunctional, and it’s fun to watch Diantha set herself up for success after years of being an honest, hardworking attorney but not getting as far as she should have. But it’s also hard to dislike the Malloy brothers; there is some level of sympathy for two unhappy brothers who are happy their dad is in jail but also happy that he killed their mother.

Overall, this collection is worth the read. Most Grisham fans won’t be disappointed, and those who haven’t read him before will get a taste of his easy-to-digest, fast-paced writing style. It’s not A Time to Kill or The Firm, but it’s not meant to be, so enjoy it for what it is. Though if you’d rather wait for a full novel, you won’t have to wait long; Grisham has a new legal thriller, The Boys from Biloxi, coming out in October. B+ — Meghan Siegler

Book Notes

The recent death of James Caan, one of the stars of The Godfather, will no doubt kindle nostalgia for the film. If you’re watching, check out last fall’s Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli, The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather (Gallery, 448 pages).

It’s written by former Vanity Fair editor Mark Seal, who writes in his dedication that his father kept one book by his bedside: the book that inspired the film. That would be, of course, The Godfather, written by Mario Puzo and first published in 1969. It’s one of the rare books that seems to have been eclipsed by the movie. There are probably millennials among us who don’t even know there was a book.

But the symbiotic relationship between books and film is ever expanding, and there seems to be no film so outdated that it doesn’t merit a “the story behind” book. Witness The Church of Baseball (Knopf, 272 pages) by Ron Shelton, which is the story behind the 1988 movie Bull Durham: “home runs, bad calls, crazy fights, big swings and a hit.” Shelton directed the film, which seems to be as much about baseball as movie-making.

While we’re speaking of Hollywood, Ken Auletta, longtime writer for The New Yorker, is out with Hollywood Ending (Penguin, 480 pages), a biography of disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein, the film producer now in jail for serial sex abuse.

It seems a short walk from Hollywood to Helltown, Casey Sherman’s true-crime story of a serial killer at Cape Cod in the 1960s. But this isn’t just about the investigation of a string of murders, but also how Kurt Vonnegut and Norman Mailer became part of the story, with each launching investigations of their own in order to write about the killer. (Sourcebooks, 464 pages.)

For fiction readers, the paperback of New Hampshire author Jodi Picoult’s 2021 bestseller, Wish You Were Here, is finally here (Ballantine, 400 pages). It’s about a life-changing trip to the Galápagos Islands made by a New York City woman who gets stranded there as the world shuts down because of a virus. Read fast; it’s already been optioned by Netflix.

And finally, worth a look is Joan (Random House, 368 pages) by Katherine J. Chen. It’s a new reimagining of the life of French hero Joan of Arc that got lots of advance praise. — Jennifer Graham

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Book Events

Author events

• SARAH MCCRAW CROW presents The Wrong Kind of Woman at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, July 19, at 6:30 p.m.

• PAULA MUNIER and SARAH STEWART TAYLOR present their respective mystery novels The Wedding Plot and The Drowning Sea at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Thursday, July 21, at 6:30 p.m.

• LINDA REILLY presents her cozy mystery No Parm No Foul at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) on Tuesday, July 26, at 6:30 p.m.

• DIANE HALLENBECK presents Rejecting Fear: Learning to Be Led By Love at the Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, bookerymht.com, 836-6600) on Thursday, July 28, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Free event; register at www.bookerymht.com/our-events.

Poetry

• OPEN MIC POETRY hosted by the Poetry Society of NH at Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com), starting with a reading by poet Sam DeFlitch, on Wednesday, July 20, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Newcomers encouraged. Free.

• DOWN CELLAR POETRY SALON Poetry event series presented by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Monthly. First Sunday. Visit poetrysocietynh.wordpress.com.

Writers groups

• MERRIMACK VALLEY WRITERS’ GROUP All published and unpublished local writers who are interested in sharing their work with other writers and giving and receiving constructive feedback are invited to join. The group meets regularly Email [email protected].

Book Clubs

• BOOKERY Monthly. Third Thursday, 6 p.m. 844 Elm St., Manchester. Visit bookerymht.com/online-book-club or call 836-6600.

• GIBSON’S BOOKSTORE Online, via Zoom. Monthly. First Monday, 5:30 p.m. Bookstore based in Concord. Visit gibsonsbookstore.com/gibsons-book-club-2020-2021 or call 224-0562.

• TO SHARE BREWING CO. 720 Union St., Manchester. Monthly. Second Thursday, 6 p.m. RSVP required. Visit tosharebrewing.com or call 836-6947.

• GOFFSTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY 2 High St., Goffstown. Monthly. Third Wednesday, 1:30 p.m. Call 497-2102, email [email protected] or visit goffstownlibrary.com

• BELKNAP MILL Online. Monthly. Last Wednesday, 6 p.m. Based in Laconia. Email [email protected].

• NASHUA PUBLIC LIBRARY Online. Monthly. Second Friday, 3 p.m. Call 589-4611, email [email protected] or visit nashualibrary.org.

Language

• FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CLASSES

Offered remotely by the Franco-American Centre. Six-week session with classes held Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. $225. Visit facnh.com/education or call 623-1093.