compiled by Sally Brewster
Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips
In 1928, a Chattanooga man disappears down a hole in the ground and discovers a 150-foot waterfall in the middle of a mountain that he names after his wife: Ruby Falls. Within months, visitors can buy tickets to see the falls for themselves. But the Great Depression is tough timing for a natural wonder, and a shrewd public-relations ploy seems like the only way to save Ruby Falls. A famous mind reader agrees to launch himself into the caverns, where he will attempt to locate a hidden hatpin using only his psychic abilities. Ada Smith and another local guide have been asked to follow the mind reader’s party, staying out of sight, as a safety net in case of a broken leg or busted flashlights. One of them will be dead before the end of the day. Faced with a corpse and the stark reality that one of the people in her midst is a killer, Ada needs to get everyone back above ground before their light runs out.
The Golden Boy by Patricia Finn
After an involuntary retirement from his high-flying Hollywood career, Stafford Hopkins has retreated to a luxury estate on Maui, along with his wife Agnes, both grimly resigned to life in a paradise where neither feels fully at home. Stafford is ready to retreat into himself, too, when a letter arrives with shocking news. Stafford has been named guardian of four children he didn’t know existed: the grandchildren of his late childhood friend, Bobby Shepherd. Returning to both the hardscrabble farming town and a dark secret he’d tried to forget for decades, Stafford is forced to confront his past so he can rebuild his future — and to redirect the fates of his family and the four young people suddenly in his care.
Service Ready: A Story of Love, Restaurants, and the Power of Hospitality by Molly Irani
Growing up with parents who owned a restaurant, Irani understood the power of service but also had a keen understanding of the industry’s challenges. When her husband, Meherwan, wanted to open a restaurant that would serve the Indian street food of his childhood, Irani thought he was nuts. And yet, the couple turned this unlikely dream into a vibrant reality. Chai Pani eventually won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant in America and was named one of 50 favorite restaurants in America by The New York Times in 2021. The couple have since launched multiple Chai Pani locations, the fast-growing spin-off, Botiwalla, and the popular spice business, Spicewalla. In Service Ready, Irani shares the 10 core principles that have shaped their path, offering essential lessons for any industry. She opens up about the challenges and rewards of being business partners with your life partner and shares how she and Meherwan learned to merge their strengths in order to thrive. As she reflects on navigating a recession, a global pandemic and the devastating floods in Asheville, she explores resilience, innovation and how to create a strong culture in any workplace.
A Far-flung Life by M.L. Stedman
Set in remote western Australia, where the MacBride family leases nearly 1 million acres and tends to 20,000 sheep, this novel begins in 1958 when a truck accident kills the family’s patriarch and eldest son and leaves the youngest son, 17-year-old Matt, severely injured. Saddled with cognitive issues and memory loss, he faces a long road to recovery under the care of his mother, Lorna, and 20-year-old sister, Rose. Months later, a confounding drunken incident exacerbates the tragedy, forcing Matt to cover up terrible secrets. By 1969, new arrival Bonnie Edquist, a surveyor for a mining company, threatens to upend Matt’s safe and quiet way of life, while a nosy postmistress and a self-righteous police officer start to uncover his closely guarded secrets.
A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness
by Michael Pollan
When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers and artists all agree: It feels like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives — scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic — to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life. SP
Sally Brewster is the proprietor of Park Road Books, 4139 Park Road.
