Each week, when available, a local library or bookstore will recommend a selection of books available for check out or purchase.

These reviews are brought to you by The Common Good’s lead bookseller, Beatrice Wedd. Based in Kerhonkson, Beatrice is a local writer, a Bard College and Columbia University alum, and a former English teacher.

To learn more, swing by The Common Good bookstore Wednesday through Sunday, at 119 Canal St. in Ellenville – across the street from the Shawangunk Journal! You can reach out to Beatrice by following her bookstagram, @beatriceandthebook, where she reviews books and shares her writing, or by emailing her at beatrice.wedd@gmail.com. You can reach The Common Good’s owner, Matthew, by emailing matthew@thecommongoodny.com.

The Emperor of Gladness

by Ocean Vuong

For National Poetry Month, I was honored to receive and read this advance reader copy from an award-winning, NYT-bestselling novelist and poet. This is the story of a shy, suicidal teenager named Hai living in the impoverished, drug-ravaged rural town of East Gladness, Connecticut. One night, Hai is stopped short of jumping off a bridge to his death by an elderly Lithuanian immigrant living on the river. Alone and poor, the old widow Grazina suffers from dementia. In exchange for his caretaking, Grazina offers Hai a home to live in and a friend, at precisely the moment he needs. What follows is a gorgeous, heartbreaking meditation on survival in the midst of unbearable circumstances, addiction, and depression. A vision seen over and over again in poor, rural towns across America. Like Vuong’s poetry, The Emperor of Gladness will crack you open and fill you with something new.

Good Material

by Dolly Alderton

For our bookstore’s April’s book club pick, we chose Good Material. A tragicomedy about a standup comedian’s breakup, this is Alderton’s first book written from the male perspective. Her protagonist, Andy, cannot, or will not, understand or cope with his girlfriend of four years, Jen, unexpectedly leaving him. With her signature witty, laugh-out-loud humor, Alderoton explores the universal difficulty of lopsided love, masculine socio-emotionality and behavior patterns, and the devastating emotional impact of your best friend and imagined future wife falling out of love with you. Named one of the NYT’s “10 best books of the year,” Good Material is intensely readable, funny, wise, and socio-emotionally complex.

What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures

by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

There’s a feeling among most millennials and younger generations (at least those who don’t deny that climate change exists) of shared existential dread and apathy. While generations before us could look forward to the future, happily plan for and raise children, and fight for what they believed in knowing it might come to pass, younger generations are now burdened with record levels of depression and anxiety about their future. As a result, young Americans are choosing to either have far fewer children than their ancestors, or none at all. Named a Smithsonian “best book of the year” and NYT-bestseller, What If We Get It Right offers folks a crucial missing piece of the emotional puzzle in the climate change narrative – what the author calls “grounded hope”. Starting with a sobering, science-backed chapter titled “Reality Check” and followed by engaging essays and interviews with experts focused on achievable, hope-filled solutions, and stunning, justice-oriented poetry and art throughout, Ayana paints a picture here of the future we should – no, must – work towards. One that is obtainable, joyful, colorful, just, and full of all the health and nourishment intrinsic to the natural world.