Read Her Like an Open Book

1 day ago | billwolfe.substack.com | Bill Wolfe

I was on the third day of a bicycle trip from Lisbon, Portugal to the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, and had just huffed and puffed up a steep hill to a Celtic standing stone circle.

1 week ago | billwolfe.substack.com | Bill Wolfe

The last two weeks have felt fragmented. First, there’s the anti-democratic chaos [waves arms wildly in all directions], which has been totally distracting, infuriating, and frightening. I've been working extra hours before I go on vacation. And I’ve had a pretty good cold for the past week. The first week of the month I read Jennifer Haigh’s excellent Rabbit Moon (review to come). But for now, I’ll just say that you should read any (or all) of her books.

3 weeks ago | billwolfe.substack.com | Bill Wolfe

The first thing I learn in our newborn-care workshop is that babies like the dark. Their room should be so dark that you can’t see your hand in front of your face, the teacher instructs. She tells us not to worry, they aren’t scared. They don’t know a fear of the dark yet; that will happen later. And she is right: It is when my daughter is two that she suddenly says, “Too dark!” after we turn out the light. She thinks there is something under the bed, in the closet.

4 weeks ago | billwolfe.substack.com | Bill Wolfe

What if there was a biological clock for extinction in every living creature’s DNA and there are only four generations left for human beings? In her thought-provoking debut, Lauren Stienstra examines this shocking situation. Twin sisters Charlie and Maggie Tannehill decide to join the Mendelia, a government-run human husbandry program that designs embryos in the hope that a particular combination of genes will lead to a mutation that can save humanity.

1 month ago | billwolfe.substack.com | Bill Wolfe

I'm late in getting to my Women's History Month post (it's been that kind of month). But I figure better late than never because most of you read historical fiction by and about women year-round. So here are ten books (plus a bonus) to consider reading, whether sooner or later. I made my selections based in part on whether a book had not received as much attention as it deserves. (That’s why this list doesn't include books like Pachinko, Great Circle, Hamnet, The Love Songs of W. E. B.