All About Books

It’s Summer growing season for Nebraska home gardeners. This week several titles to help gardeners embrace nature for a healthier home landscape. “Essential Guide to Ecological Gardening, from The American Horticultural Society” and “How Can I Help? Saving Nature with Your Yard” by Douglas Tallamy.

“The Lilac People” a novel by Milo Todd, begins in 1936 Berlin where a thriving queer community must first hide from Hitler’s concentration camps, then escape Allied forces who were arresting queer prisoners during the liberation.

One Book - One Lincoln has been a community reading project for 25 years. Alyssa Deal, the chair of their selection committee joins host Pat Leach this week to talk about the 3 books readers can vote for.

In her graphic novel, “This Beautiful, Ridiculous City” Kay Sohini tells her story as an immigrant and survivor of an abusive relationship. For her, New York City isn’t just a place of dreams but a source for healing and self-discovery.

Robert McFarland is a naturalist who is also a gifted writer. His latest book is joyful and mind-expanding journey towards an ancient idea- should we think of rivers as living beings? Hear a review of “Is a River Alive?”

Their high school hockey team is so bad, it probably won’t take the ice again next year. This uncertain future is where the main character, Tommy finds himself in the novel “Small Ceremonies” by Kyle Edwards. It’s story of friendships and struggles for a group of Native high students in Winnipeg

The vast American prairie is an ecological marvel- home to bison, elk, wolves and prairie dogs. The changes made on this environment by European settlers and their agricultural methods are the subject of “Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie.”

One hundred years in the future, a lonely British scholar longs for our time as he chases a poem written in 2014. He’s captivated by what he imagines were the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. It’s the carefully plotted literary novel, “What We Can Know” by Ian McEwan.

This 1925 novel deals with topics very relevant today: the value of a university education, and the costs of war. “The Professor’s House” by Willa Cather has been released for the Oxford World Classics series, authored by Cather scholar Dr. Melissa Holmstead of UNL. Dr. Holmstead will be the guest on this week's All About Books.

Smith is a queer Black Stanford graduate arrested for cocaine possession. In the novel “Great Black Hope”, author Rob Franklin shows a young man protected by his class but betrayed by his race.

In her new collection of personal essays, UNL Professor of English Lisa Knopp uses an older meaning of the verb ravel- to entangle. In Ravelings: Essays on Love, Loss, and Wonder, she contemplates loss, change as well as connection and joy.

The One Book One Nebraska selection for this year is “The Antidote” by Karen Russell. Set in a fictional Nebraska town during the Great Depression, the novel looks at a struggling rural community and what people choose to forget.

It’s a very unique biography of the famous Regency author. “Patchwork: A Graphic Biography of Jane Austen” by graphic artist Kate Evans combines drama, comedy, and historically immersive detail to bring Jane Austen’s story to life with dynamic artwork

Deep in the English countryside, two neighboring families find themselves in nearly identical situations- a baby on the way and the relationship beginning to fade. The harshest winter in living memory traps the families with their long-kept secret resentments. "The Land in Winter: a Novel" by Andrew Miller

A tightly written novella from the author of "Brooklyn" and "Long Island", “A Long Winter” by Colm Tobin describes an extraordinary bond between a mother and son and a haunting portrait of a family in crisis.

When Olivia Laing began the work of restoring a centuries-old garden in England, she had time to think about the history and legacy of gardens. Her book “The Garden Against Time”, is a beautiful account of gardens, not as a refuge from the world, but a place to encounter and discover.

The history of Nebraska can be told by its landscape. Larkin Powell, the Director of the School of Natural Resources at UNL has a new book called “The Best of Intentions.” It traces the transformation of the Nebraska landscape through historical photographs, personal narratives, and ecological research.

Many people find solace and understanding in reading literature, a few would also include writing and receiving letters. In the novel “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans, we meet a woman who uses letters to make sense of the world and her place in it.

A PBS documentary called the “Librarians” follows the story of librarians on the front lines of the national battle over restricting access to books that have race-related and LGBTQIA+ content. “All About Books” host Pat Leach talked with the film’s director Kim Snyder and Martha Hickson a librarian featured in the show.

The mysterious circumstances around the disappearance of a young girl’s father begins Susan Choi’s novel, “Flashlight.” A story that spans decades and continents dealing with family, loss, and memory.

Award-winning chef and author Gabrielle Hamilton came from a family of unsentimental non-conformists. They had charisma, but there was brutality and deep rifts too. In her new memoir “Next of Kin”, Hamilton comes to terms with her family with intense honesty and raucous humor.

The writer Geraldine Brooks received the phone call from the ER doctor that her husband, journalist and author Tony Horwitz, had died walking down a sidewalk in Washington D.C. In the scramble to deal with the immediate demands of her husband’s death, Brooks had no chance to truly grieve. Her book "Memorial Day” is a memoir of sudden loss and the journey towards peace.

The writer Geraldine Brooks received a phone call from an ER doctor that her husband, journalist and author Tony Horwitz, had died walking down a sidewalk in Washington D.C. In the scramble to deal with the immediate demands of her husband’s death, Brooks had no chance to truly grieve. Her book "Memorial Day” is a memoir of sudden loss and the journey towards peace.

In the novel “Hard by a Great Forest” by Leo Vardiashvili, two brothers and their father struggle with the past and people they left behind after fleeing the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Hear a review of this story about the collective trauma of war and the unbreakable spirit of the people who survive and remember those who did not.

It’s 1914 in England and all of Europe is on the brink of disaster. This is the setting for “Precipice”, a novel by Robert Harris. In it, an intelligence officer traces leaked documents back to the Prime Minister and his posh 26-year-old mistress. An affair that could topple the British Government.