A heartwarming tale of the bond between humans and animals, Running With Sherman (Knopf, $27.95), by Christopher McDougall—best known for his bestselling Born to Run—is another masterful, fun, and inspiring memoir. This time he tells the story of Sherman, an abused donkey McDougall and his family adopted and brought to their farm in the Amish Country. Sherman was not expected to survive, but after McDougall did as someone advised and gave him a job—the donkey began to thrive. The job was preparing for the World Championship Leadville Burro Race in Colorado, an annual marathon run by humans and donkeys, side-by-side. Full of the kind of kooky characters and long-distance runners typical of McDougall’s other books, this one is more than just a compelling, feel-good page-turner. It’s also a powerful argument for why animals matter in our evolution of society, and how damaged we humans become when we turn away from them.
In her latest memoir, Travel Light, Move Fast (Penguin Press, $27), Alexandra Fuller returns to the family history and African childhood that made her 2001 Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight a classic. Recounting her upbringing on a farm in war-torn Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Alexandra chronicles the incomparable and fastmoving life of her ex-pat father, Tim Fuller. Starting with his death a few years ago, Fuller highlights the nuggets of wisdom Tim gathered over the course of his life from experiences that included his sense of himself as a black sheep, his self-exile from England, his role as patriarch of his own family, and his efforts, throughout Africa, to grow bananas in the midst of post-colonial revolutions. Moving through her grief, Fuller mines her memories and her father’s example for the resilience she needs to navigate the challenges of her own life. Writing with her signature striking, beautiful prose and hilarious anecdotes, Fuller effortlessly blends her story and her father’s into a moving account of an unconventional family.
Danny Conroy grew up in The Dutch House (Harper, $27.99), the unusual, majestic mansion in the Philly suburbs that is the true main character of Ann Patchett’s elegant and moving novel. Part of the baby boom generation, Danny and his sister Maeve were abandoned by their mother when they were young and endured a difficult childhood with their father’s second wife who, interested only in the house, bore more than a passing resemblance to the storied evil stepmother. Richly evoking the different relationships—of the siblings, of their parents, of mothers and sons—and showing how they were both formed and warped by the house, Patchett’s deeply compelling narrative follows Danny as he matures, leaves the house and his father, but remains close to Maeve and their shared memories. Beautifully written with complex and fascinating characters, this novel is as intimate as it is panoramic.
