Great Reads!
View our hand-selected great books to read, featuring an assortment of genres:
This Body I Wore: A Memoir by Diana Goetsch
This is not a description of Goetsch’s transition from man to woman; it is a life story with all the complexity of the human experience. If you’ve ever wondered about the T in LGBTQ+, this book will not answer all your questions but will move you on a path to humanity…and it is a great read by an exceptional poet and author.
~ Liz Drake, ByWayBooks staff
Memoir
Apeirogon by Colum McCann
McCann seems to invent an all consuming new literary form that follows in the footsteps of Let The Great World Spin by bringing the reader into a vast world. This book is beautiful, painful and most of all – hopeful.
~ Teddie Henderson, ByWayBooks contributor
Science fiction
James Herriot’s Dog Stories by James Herriot
The original PBS series, based on James Herriot’s books, now has been re-done in the 2020s…and for good reason. James Herriot’s stories are not just about the animals he treated in his Yorkshire country practice, but also about the relationship between the practical, gruff farmers, their land, their animals, and each other. It is about how Herriot comes to understand the unique Yorkshire culture, and, most important, about the timeless relationships between humans and all life. This collection of fifty stories includes some never-before published in America.
~ Ann Binder, contributor
Pets and animals/Short stories
West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge
This is an historical fiction novel following a 17 year-old who, with a determined zookeeper, ends up transporting two giraffes from NYC to the San Diego Zoo. The story takes place in 1939 and captures the culture of the time. We gain a perspective of the south during the time of Jim Crow Laws and the rise of Nazism. This is an adventure, full of humanism, light romance, and a deep respect for the giraffes.
~~ Severia Drake, proprietor
Historical fiction
The Overstory by Richard Powers
The ByWay Books proprietor recommended this book based on our conversations about my reading preferences. I devoured the book; it absolutely blew my mind, An incredibly important book and I know I will never look at a tree again without thinking about how their interconnections are so linked to ours. Absolutely beautiful.
~ Ross, ByWayBooks contributor
Fiction
The Enigma of Room 622 by Joel Dicker, translated by Robert Bononno
This is a whodunit full of twists and turns, layers of intrigue, and even a question of who was murdered. While the plot takes place in the present, the reader is shunted from time to time and place to place while the narrative often reads like a throw-back to the late 19th century. There seem to be many main characters, enticing the reader down rabbit holes, chasing a carrot—power. This is an intriguing, fast paced mystery laced with humor & compassion. If you’re a hound with a penchant for uncovering who done it, this will keep you on your toes!
~ Severia Drake, proprietor
Mystery
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Orbital is a lyrical look at our space on earth from outer space through the eyes of astronauts. In prose, the earth is examined from afar and the style of writing lends to the circadian rhythms of the rotations around earth and its effects on the communication the astronauts have with people on earth. It illustrates the fleeting moments we have with people who come and go temporaneously in our lives.
~~ Severia Drake, proprietor
Science fiction
