Requiem for an Vanishing Island

Also this week: David Bowie and space music, 'A Pregnant Thelma & Louise,' and our critics picks books [detail from cover of Chesapeake Requiem]( Tangier Island, located in the Virginia portion of Chesapeake Bay, has been home to a small, self-reliant population for centuries. Recently, climate change has accelerated the disappearance of the fishing community into the same water which sustains it -- whether or not its residents believe that climate change has anything to do with the increasingly high tides. The journalist Earl Swift was so moved by the people of Tangier that after reporting on them extensively, he actually moved to the island for over a year to write a book. [It's called Chesapeake Requiem, and in an interview]( he talks about the hard work of the island's crabbers, the incredible nicknames that islanders have for each other and the longstanding religious tradition that underpins their community. [Strange Stars, by Jason Heller]( Between "Space Oddity" (1969) and its sequel "Ashes to Ashes" (1980), David Bowie's music can be said to bookend the 1970s. It's no coincidence that this is also the decade where musicians embraced science fiction. Author (and occasional NPR critic) Jason Heller traces the influences of sci-fi themes on hi-fi tunes in Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded. Bowie is the catalyst here; after all, "'Space Oddity' was a dramatic example of how space exploration, science fiction, and pop music could dovetail into something that captured the collective hopes and anxieties of the human race," [Heller says in an interview.]( [A River Of Stars, by Vanessa Hua]( In A River of Stars, a factory worker from China and a Taiwanese-American teenager are sent to "maternity hotel" in Los Angeles -- where women are sent to give birth such that their babies may enjoy U.S. citizenship. (It's a real thing, apparently.) For various reasons, they harbor their own suspicions about what will happen to them when they give birth -- and they flee the secret home. That's the premise for the debut novel by Vanessa Hua, who was herself an expectant mother when she devised the book. "I've been calling it a pregnant Thelma & Louise," [Hua says in an interview.]( Finally this week: Lily Meyer writes that the "long, twisty, and ambitious" [The Air You Breathe,]( Frances de Ponte Peebles]( is her "new gold standard" of beach book. Michael Schaub writes that [Ohio,]( Stephen Markley]( is a "wild, angry and devastating masterpiece" of a debut novel. And in [Red, White, Blue by Lea Carpenter]( Bethanne Patrick finds "a dark spy thriller with plenty of plot but even more meaning." Happy reading! [Facebook]( [Twitter]( You received this message because you're subscribed to our Books emails. | [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Policy]( | NPR 1111 N. CAPITOL ST. NE WASHINGTON DC 20002 [NPR]