Editor’s note: The opinions of the smart, well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot, and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables. So we asked them, and all Denver Post readers, to share their mini-reviews with you. Have any to offer? Email bellis@denverpost.com. – Barbara Ellis
“Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company,” by Patrick McGee (Scribner, 2025)
If you’re not clear as to why Apple can’t simply start making iPhones in the U.S., this book will enlighten you. Although the main focus is on Apple’s enmeshed relationships with its Chinese suppliers, the story can’t be told fully without also reviewing Apple’s history, too. It was a slippery slope for Apple in turning away from its touted in-house manufacturing to embrace contract manufacturing, first in Japan, then to other Asian contractors, before finally landing in China for the attractive fiscal benefits of cheap and abundant labor, greater scalability, speed to market and minimal direct overhead costs. Apple soon learned that these were not solely business arrangements, they were also influenced by largely unspoken political and cultural undercurrents. McGee details the incremental decisions, mistakes and comprises made along the way, all in the name of corporate profit. An eye-opening read. — 3 1/2 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver
“Heart, Be at Peace,” by Donal Ryan (Viking, 2024)
Winner of the Irish Book of the Year, the novel is composed of 21 voices, each a short chapter. Set in a small Irish town, each character reflects on a pivotal incident. Relationships intersect in such a town; everyone has history. The stories’ undercurrent is an emerging drug ring that pulls in young men as distributors, buyers/users, and victims. What’s a righteous man to do? A difficult but beautiful book. — 3 stars (out of 4); Jo Calhoun, Denver
“Atmosphere,” by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine Books, 2025)
It is 1984, at the height of the Space Shuttle exploration program, when one crew of astronauts finds themselves in dire trouble on a flight. Joan, the Mission Control specialist, must verbally guide her friends and co-workers back to Earth after an explosion has damaged the shuttle. We are taken back a few years to when this group is hired on by NASA, the first to include several female astronauts, and put through a grueling, years-long training that many will fail. Joan and Vanessa, two of the newly hired women, begin a hidden romance that, if discovered, could risk their careers and destroy their dream of being one of the first women to explore outer space. In this male-dominated field in an era of little acceptance, a warning comes from their boss that “sexual deviancy” will not be tolerated, and the two women have a choice to make. — 3 stars (out of 4); Karen Goldie Hartman, Westminster
“The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox,” by Maggie O’Farrell (Mariner Books, 2007)
Esme Lennox has spent over 60 years in an insane asylum when she is released into the care of her great-niece, Iris. Over just a few days, both of them will change in cataclysmic ways. Multiple voices chorus together to make this story mesmerizing. In this, an early novel, O’Farrell shows her growing command of her craft. Although not as dazzling as her recent novels (like “Hamnet” and “The Marriage Portrait”), O’Farrell’s writing here is already more accomplished than that of many writers. This is decidedly a book worth discussing. — 3 stars (out of 4); Neva Gronert, Parker
“Great Black Hope,” by Rob Franklin (Summit Books, 2025)
The protagonist is a young, entitled, black man, skating merrily along in the New York City clubbing scene as the story opens. It feels like “Bright Lights, Big City” meets Nina Simone. Our hero is then given a chilling dose of reality following a drug arrest. He has to put his promising future on hold and retreat to his family home in Atlanta, where “Great Expectations” await and he evades owning up to the real reason for his presence there. His class status and family connections help to keep him out of prison, but race is still a barrier to his achieving the success he sought within the East Coast establishment. He was his family’s hope, but what are his hopes? — 3 stars (out of 4); Kathleen Lance, Denver