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James McBride, author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

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Week of July 28, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of July 28th include THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride, a novel as compassionate as DEACON KING KONG and as inventive as THE GOOD LORD BIRD, which revolves around small-town secrets and the people who keep them; BAD LIAR, a riveting, emotionally powerful thriller that marks the long-awaited return of Tami Hoag, in which old jealousies and fresh deceits, family loyalties gone wrong and love turned sour all lay a twisting trail that leads deep into the Louisiana swamp, endangering all who follow that path; THE HORSE, a poignant novel from Willy Vlautin that captures the life of a journeyman musician who is unable to escape the tragedies of his past; and A HUNGER TO KILL, a fascinating and profoundly chilling account of how Detective Kim Mager, a real-life version of Clarice Starling, closed in on --- and broke --- one of Ohio’s most infamous serial killers.

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