As I finish up my Fall & Winter reading list, I can add The World of Tomorrow by Brendan Mathews to the books I would recommend. But this book I recommend only to patient readers.

This is an ambitious book. It starts in Ireland where two brothers ‘accidently’ steal a ton of money from the IRA. In disguise, they sail to New York where their other brother lives and set up camp in the ritzy Plaza hotel, living the high life off the bags of money. But soon we find out someone from their past is on their tail. The setting – on a micro level -includes the jazz joints of Harlem and the World’s Fair and all levels of New York society.

Though I got off to a slow start with this book and getting the background on all the characters was a bit exhausting, by the end I was fully invested in the characters and enjoyed all the places I had been taken.

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The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin might be my favorite book of the year thus far.

This book is based on a creepy concept: In 1969 New York City, four siblings (ages 7-13) visit a traveling psychic who tells them the date they will die.

The book follows this family for the next five decades – to see how these propechies play out.

What is destiny and what is choice?

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