Louise Kennedy’s *Stations* Leads This Week’s Top Reviewed Books

Louise Kennedy’s Stations stands out among this week’s strongest-reviewed books, earning nine rave notices. That count puts it at the front of a fiction list that otherwise ranges across distinct styles and subjects, from Tom Drury’s reflections on ordinary lives to Ian Rankin’s latest crime novel. In nonfiction, reviewers turn to Judi Dench’s memoir-like collection and books about Tolkien, castles, the pen and Martin Scorsese. The common thread isn’t a single genre or argument; it’s a set of books asking what can be learned by looking closely at people, objects and the stories built around them.

Fiction: Kennedy sets the pace

Published by Riverhead, Stations drew praise from Cory Oldweiler of The Boston Globe, who called it “extraordinary—and indeed bittersweet.” Oldweiler places Kennedy alongside contemporary Irish writers Eimear McBride and Sally Rooney, a comparison that situates the novel within a strong recent tradition without suggesting that Kennedy is simply following it. His stated eagerness to read whatever she writes next is a further sign that the response rests on her work as a writer, not only on this book’s subject or immediate appeal. Nine rave notices make Stations the week’s clearest critical standout.

Tom Drury’s West of Loveland (Grove Press) follows with five rave and one positive review. Booklist’s Bill Kelly praises its measured pace and cumulative force, describing the novel as a humane reflection on fate, belonging and the hidden connections between ordinary lives. That emphasis suggests a book whose impact depends on accumulation: small details and encounters gathering meaning over time, rather than a quick succession of dramatic turns. It’s a quieter kind of ambition, and one that asks readers to notice how lives can intersect without anyone fully seeing the pattern.

Ian Rankin’s The Heights (Cardinal) received three rave, three positive and one mixed review. The novel takes Rankin beyond Edinburgh, but Chris Connor of Crime Fiction Lover argues that it retains the qualities behind the Rebus books’ appeal—and shows the author still has plenty to offer after four decades at the top. A change of setting can test what makes a familiar author’s work recognizable; Connor’s assessment suggests Rankin’s strengths travel with him. That said, the mixed review in the tally is a reminder that readers may not respond uniformly to a change in direction.

Kit de Waal’s Sweet Pea (St. Martin’s) earned four rave and one positive review. Booklist reviewer Enobong Tommelleo highlights the quiet humor in the prose, including Paulette’s shifts into Caribbean phrases when she grumbles about friends. Those changes in voice make character visible through everyday speech, rather than relying on explanation alone. The book’s account of forgiveness, Tommelleo says, gains force from its unsentimental approach. No easy absolution; the emotional weight comes from how the story handles the difficulty of making peace.

Lucy Apps rounds out the fiction selection with Gloria Don’t Speak (Mariner), which received two rave and one positive review. Laura Chanoux of Booklist commends Apps’s close attention to language and perspective in a character study that leaves a lasting impression. That kind of praise points to a novel built around the way a person is seen and understood, with style and viewpoint doing much of the work. Its smaller review count places it lower on this week’s list, but the notices describe a book with a distinct voice.

Nonfiction: lives, objects and built history

D. J. Taylor’s The King Under the Mountain: In Search of J. R. R. Tolkien leads nonfiction with five rave, one positive and three mixed reviews. The book takes a less conventional route than a full biography, tracing Tolkien’s life while examining the contradictions and mysteries around his personality and work. In The Financial Times, Marcel Theroux calls it deeply researched and insightful, with room for both Tolkien’s eccentricities and his achievement. That balance matters: a portrait can flatten its subject into either a public icon or a list of private quirks, while Taylor’s approach appears interested in the tension between the two. The mixed notices indicate that its method won’t suit every reader.

Judi Dench’s Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? (St. Martin’s) received five rave reviews. Fiona Sturges of The Guardian notes its loose structure and stretches of professional shop talk, but says Dench’s humor, anecdotes and warmth keep the book moving. The praise doesn’t erase the potential limits of a collection organized around recollection and conversation: readers looking for a tightly plotted account may find the digressions less appealing. Yet those same digressions can be part of the draw when the author’s voice is the point. Here’s the thing: Dench’s manner seems to matter as much as the events she recounts.

Dan Jones’s Castles: A Fortified History of the World (Viking) earned four rave and one positive review. The New York Times Book Review’s Spencer Strub praises the book for showing how castles’ material history intersects with scholarship and myth. A castle is both a physical structure and an object shaped by later stories about power, conflict and the past. Jones’s framing, as described by Strub, brings those layers together, giving readers a way to think about how buildings acquire meaning beyond their original use.

Simon Garfield’s The Pen: A Human History (Crown) gathered three rave and two positive reviews. Booklist’s Lillian Liao sees the book as a study of what the writing instrument represents, especially in a digital age. The subject opens a useful line of inquiry: tools can shape habits and carry cultural meaning even when newer technologies change how people work. Garfield’s focus on the pen, then, gives a familiar object room to stand for more than its practical function. If you’re working in this space, that’s a reminder that a tool’s history can also be a history of how people communicate.

Mark Binelli’s Just a Shot Away: Martin Scorsese’s Life in Film (Metropolitan) closes the list with four rave reviews. David Pitt of Booklist describes a portrait of Scorsese as a dedicated artist, offering a quieter view of the filmmaker behind his familiar public persona. A life in film can be told through celebrated work and public reputation, but Pitt’s description suggests Binelli is also interested in the discipline behind that image. That perspective gives the book a clear purpose: to consider the person at work, not just the name audiences recognize.

What this week’s reviews suggest

Together, the selections range from sharply observed fiction to books that reconsider familiar figures and everyday objects. Kennedy’s sweep of rave reviews gives the week its clearest standout, while the nonfiction titles share an interest in the stories and meanings behind people, places and things. This is more significant than it looks: across very different subjects, several of these books appear to challenge the easy version of a story, whether that means a settled image of Tolkien, a public view of Scorsese or a castle treated as mere architecture.

Review counts offer a useful snapshot of critical response, but they don’t settle questions of audience or lasting value. The spread of positive and mixed notices around some titles shows how much depends on a reader’s expectations, especially when a book takes an unusual route or leans on voice and interpretation. And yet the pattern is clear enough to be useful: this week’s strongest books invite attention to detail and resist reducing their subjects to a single defining trait. What that means for you is straightforward: there’s a strong choice here whether you want fiction centered on character or nonfiction that asks what familiar lives and objects can still reveal.