Book review: Solitary — by Albert Woodfox

(Grove Press)   Albert Woodfox, who spent 43 years and 10 months in solitary confinement, and Robert King,  who spent 29 years in solitary, two of the Angola Three housed at the notorious Angola Penitentiary, spoke at Harvard Law School on March 8, 2017. Woodfox was quoted as saying, “Confinement is unnecessary evil which exists because society sanctions it.” His story, as put forth in “Solitary,” a National Book Award Finalist, is, most remarkably, of hope and transformation. It is revealing in the way tha … (read more)

(Candlewick Press) The winter solstice, as many readers know, is a day with the shortest period of daylight and the longest night of the year. It’s also the first official day of winter. This year it falls on Saturday, Dec. 21. Also called midwinter, Yule … (read more)

(Houghton Mifflin) Maurice Isserman is a virtual encyclopedia of skiing and mountaineering lore and history, and to the reader’s benefit, it is on full display in this fascinating look at the 10th Mountain Division, or as Isserman describes them, “America … (read more)

MIDDLEBURY —The Vermont Book Shop will celebrate 70 years in business this Dec. 17. To commemorate the occasion, Middlebury’s downtown bookstore will collaborate with John Vincent of A Revolutionary Press to create a broadside of a Robert Frost poem, “A T … (read more)

(Riverhead Books) Much of what has been taught in schools, and propagated through popular culture about the role of Indians (the term used by the author throughout this book) in America’s early colonies and westward expansion, are myths. For instance, whe … (read more)

(Doubleday Books) Critically acclaimed Newfoundland author Michael Crummey’s new novel transports the reader to another time, another place. What begins as a story of survival — a sister and brother orphaned at young ages, odds already stacked against the … (read more)

MIDDLEBURY — Sydney Lea, poet, writer, former Vermont Poet Laureate and Pulitzer finalist, will read from and discuss his new collection of poetry, “Here,” on Wednesday, Nov. 20, at 6:30 p.m., at The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury. He will be joined by f … (read more)

(Houghton Mifflin) There are a multitude of YouTube stars these days, I know, but bear with me, I believe Andrew Rea, best known for creating the “Binging with Babish” channel, is the real deal. As Andrew writes in his introduction (which is moving, raw a … (read more)

(Atria Books) When we meet Jacob Marley in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” and yes, this is the selfsame man in Jon Clinch’s delectable new novel, he is a haggard specter, weighted down with heavy chains. It is his desire to save Scrooge from a similar fate … (read more)

(Little Brown and Company) Leslie Jamison, author of the award-winning essay collection, “The Empathy Exams,” is an astute observer of the people she investigates, holding her skepticism in check, as well as herself, and how she relates to the stories she … (read more)

(Rootstock Publishing) Luke isn’t interested in learning anything about Peshawar or Pakistan, because even though his dad “had him over Christmas vacation. It said so in the divorce,” Peshawar, and the “Great Goddamn Project,” as he and his mother referre … (read more)

(Atria Books) The epigraph at the beginning of William Kent Krueger’s could not be more apt: “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story” from Homer’s epic “The Odyssey.” The award-winning author of the New York Times bestselling novel “Ordinary Grac … (read more)

(St. Martin’s Press) Renia’s diary — because that is what you hold in your hands, the diary of a young girl, a teenager, whose childhood was, as Greta Thunberg would say, stolen from her — feels private and due consideration should be accorded when readin … (read more)

MIDDLEBURY — The NER Vermont Reading Series presents an evening of new writing with poets Sara London and Sarah Wolfson, essayist Emily Arnason Casey, and fiction writer Rahat Huda. The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury will host this event on Thursday, Oct … (read more)

MIDDLEBURY — Poet, University of Vermont professor and guest editor of “The Best American Poetry 2019,” Major Jackson presents this new published annual collection with featured poets Didi Jackson, Vievee Francis, Camille Guthrie and Jane Shore on Tuesday … (read more)