Books We’re Excited to Read in February

Tara Westover grew up in a survivalist family in rural Idaho and spent her days not in a classroom, but stockpiling canned goods and salvaging in her father’s junk yard. She didn’t have a birth certificate, had never been to a doctor and certainly hadn’t ever received formal schooling. She could have stayed on the mountain forever and raised her own children on the compound, but when her older brother turned violent, she began to teach herself grammar and mathematics as a means of escape. She managed to get into Brigham Young University, though when she entered, she suffered massive culture shock. Tara went on to Harvard and Cambridge, where she earned a PhD in history, proving that life is really what you make of it. This memoir is filled with inspiring determination, similar to Wild and The Glass Castle, and is an ode to the power of an education.

Oft-revered for her novels (see: White Teeth, On Beauty and Swing Time to name a few), Zadie Smith is also a brilliant essayist. Feel Free is a collection of essays, both previously published favorites, and never-before-seen work, split into five sections: In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free. In these, Smith provides searing meditations on things like global warming, Facebook, and, of course, books. We especially love her essay about loving libraries! Readers will return again and again to Zadie Smith’s smart, sensitive, and joyful ponderings about life.

Fans of drama-filled shows like Grey’s Anatomy and ER will love this debut novel that spins female friendship, heartache, betrayal, and humor together against the backdrop of a hospital. Pediatric cardiologist Zadie Anson and trauma surgeon Emma Colley have been best friends since medical school, both practicing together in Charlotte, North Carolina. When a former colleague returns out of the blue, his reappearance will reopen old wounds, force secrets to the surface and make these two friends question everything they know about one another.