Reported by Garry
Beloved by Toni Morrison is a multiple award-winning 1987 novel, loosely based on true events. Set in 1873, the novel follows Sethe, her daughter Denver, and their interactions with the other-worldly Beloved, the ghost of her unnamed infant daughter. This unflinching novel examines the effects of slavery on not only Sethe’s immediate family, but looks at how the harm echoed down through time, even well after slavery was abolished, and the severe psychological damage it inflicted. Our reader was struck by the beautiful and powerful writing in this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, and recommends it highly, especially for its portrayal of the relationships between the main characters. AH
Casket Chronicles: Living and Working in a Funeral Home is Not What You Might Think by T.A. Walters is a sometimes macabre, but always entertaining look at what is definitely an unusual housing situation. Walters recounts his time living in a funeral home while attending college in the 1960s and sharing one room with two other roommates, all while studying to be a mortician. Our reader thought this unique memoir was very well written, funny, and different, and recommends it for a look at a profession that few of us think about, but will all one day use. CD
Booth by Karen Joy Fowler is a new look at the life and times of John Wilkes Booth, the actor who would become notoriously infamous for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Booth’s father was a renowned Shakespearean actor who had abandoned his wife and young child in Britain to settle in Maryland with his mistress and their children. Of ten children born to the couple only six survived, and all of the boys became actors. Told in alternating chapters from the viewpoints of the individual family members, this heavily researched book places the reader inside the minds of the Booth children as they struggle to contain their father’s escalating alcoholism and instability, and idolize their long-suffering, beautiful mother. Our reader stated that she could hardly put this well-written historical novel down. ML
The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray is a centuries-spanning historical novel about three women whose lives and very identities are entwined with the historic Chateau Chavaniac, a 14th century castle located in Auvergne, France. The story starts with Adrienne, the wife of the Marquis de Lafayette, whose life is threatened by the events of the French Revolution. In 1914, Beatrice Chanler, a New York socialite turned activist, sees the devastation that the Great War is wreaking on France and the castle in particular, and sets about trying to get America involved in the war. In 1940, French school teacher Marthe Simone starts secretly using the castle as a hiding place for Jewish orphans trying to escape the horrors of the Nazi regime. The stories and lives of the three women interweave throughout the book, which, our reader states, makes keeping the timelines straight somewhat difficult. That said, our reader was highly impressed by the amount of historical research and detail that the author has put into this beefy novel (592 pages), and recommends it to those who love historical fiction. ML
Also mentioned:
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
Aliens of Transylvania County by Patrick Bone
Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness by Pete Fromm
What My Hand Say by Glenis Redmond
Paradise by Toni Morrison
What to Wear For the Rest of Your Life: Ageless Secrets of Style by Kim Johnson Gross
White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America by Joan C. Williams
Orfeia by Joanne M. Harris
The Blonde by Anna Godbersen
Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe
Vinyl Moon by Mahogany L. Browne
Recitatif Toni Morrison
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