Louise Kennedy's Stations Leads the Week's Best Reviewed Books

Louise Kennedy's second novel Stations collected nine rave reviews this week, making it the most acclaimed title on Book Marks, Lit Hub's book-review aggregator. Riverhead publishes the book, which leads the fiction chart ahead of new work from Ian Rankin, Tom Drury, Kit de Waal and Lucy Apps.

Book Marks grades each review on a scale from rave to pan. The weekly ranking aggregates coverage from outlets including The Boston Globe, The Guardian, The New York Times Book Review, Booklist and the Financial Times.

What are critics saying about the fiction list?

Cory Oldweiler, writing in The Boston Globe, called Stations "extraordinary—and indeed bittersweet." He wrote: "Kennedy has earned a spot alongside contemporary Irish greats such as Eimear McBride and Sally Rooney, authors whose next project I'll race to read, whatever they choose to write about."

Tom Drury's West of Loveland (Grove Press) follows with five raves and one positive. Bill Kelly of Booklist praised its "measured pacing and cumulative power" and described it as "a deeply humane meditation on fate, belonging, and the unseen threads that connect seemingly ordinary lives."

Ian Rankin's The Heights (Cardinal) posted a more divided record: three raves, three positive reviews and one mixed. Chris Connor of Crime Fiction Lover defended the book against doubts about Rankin's move away from Edinburgh. "The Heights captures everything that makes the Rebus books so popular and shows that even after 40 years at the top of his game that he has plenty left to offer," Connor wrote.

Kit de Waal's Sweet Pea (St. Martin's) earned four raves and one positive. Enobong Tommelleo of Booklist highlighted the novel's "quiet humor and heartwarming details," calling it "a story of radical forgiveness, made all the more moving by its unsentimental honesty."

Lucy Apps's Gloria Don't Speak (Mariner) rounds out the fiction list with two raves and one positive. Laura Chanoux of Booklist called it "a well-crafted character study with a story that will linger."

Who tops the nonfiction chart?

D. J. Taylor's The King Under the Mountain: In Search of J. R. R. Tolkien (Pegasus) leads nonfiction with five raves, one positive and three mixed—the most contested score of the week. Marcel Theroux, reviewing in the Financial Times, noted that "freed from the obligations of biography, Taylor offers instead a wittier, shorter and more irreverent book." Theroux concluded that the book "manages to smile at Tolkien's quirks and absurdities while paying tribute to his mysterious and undoubted gift."

Judi Dench's memoir Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? (St. Martin's) took five raves, the cleanest nonfiction score of the week. Fiona Sturges of The Guardian acknowledged "the shoptalk and the haphazard structure" but found "enough witty anecdotes and oddball facts to keep it clipping along," crediting "Dench's rare humor and warmth which long ago elevated her to national treasure status."

Dan Jones's Castles: A Fortified History of the World (Viking) earned four raves and one positive. Spencer Strub of The New York Times Book Review called it "[a] charming tour" that "brilliantly shows how myth, scholarship and material history intertwine," though he also observed that the book is "richer and deeper than a pitch deck"—a remark that cuts both ways.

Simon Garfield's The Pen: A Human History (Crown) received three raves and two positive. Lillian Liao of Booklist wrote that the book "proves that a writing utensil is more than its barrel" and frames it as a study of "what we make of this writing tool in our digital age."

Mark Binelli's Just a Shot Away: Martin Scorsese's Life in Film (Metropolitan) closed the nonfiction list with four raves. David Pitt of Booklist said Binelli presents Scorsese as "a deeply dedicated artist who brings a keen eye, and a sharp intellect, to every project he undertakes," capturing "the Martin Scorsese who lives behind the man we think we already know."

What does this change for readers?

Not much for the bestseller tables, but plenty for autumn reading lists: Kennedy's Stations now carries the strongest consensus of any title tracked this week, while the split verdicts on Rankin and Tolkien suggest two books worth sampling before buying.