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Monthly Archives: July 2015

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

29 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Biography, Non-fiction

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grief, hawks, spirituality

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Suddenly Helen’s world caves. She is numb with grief.  Not a stranger to the world of falconry, Helen has raised small birds of prey.  But to honor her deep loss, she raises the stakes.  She decides to immerse herself in the training of a goshawk  – one of the fiercest and largest birds of prey.  Enter a world most of us know little about.  An extraordinary execution of nature writing and memoir that will have you sitting on the edge of your chair and holding your breath!

“To read Helen Macdonald’s new memoir is to have every cell of your body awake and alive.” —Robin Young, Here and Now

“In this profoundly inquiring and wholly enrapturing memoir, Macdonald exquisitely and unforgettably entwines misery and astonishment, elegy and natural history, human and hawk.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

“Breathtaking . . . Helen Macdonald renders an indelible impression of a raptor’s fierce essence—and her own—with words that mimic feathers, so impossibly pretty we don’t notice their astonishing engineering.” —Vicki Constantine Croke, New York Times Book Review (cover review)

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The Children Act: a novel by Ian McEwan

13 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction

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England, legal story, religion and law, Self-actualization (Psychology) in women, women judges

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Right from page one, this male author has a rare sensitivity to his women characters.  A female English judge is faced with some difficult cases and portrayed with much compassion.

“Irrefutably creative … With his trademark style, which is a tranquil mix of exacting word choice and easily flowing sentences, McEwan once again observes with depth and wisdom the universal truth in the uncommon situation.”
—Booklist, starred review

“A short, concise, strong novel in which a judge’s ruling decides the fate of a teenage boy in ways she never intended or imagined … it’s a book that begins with the briskness of a legal brief written by a brilliant mind, and concludes with a gracefulness found in the work of few other writers.”
—Meg Wolitzer, NPR

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Virginia Woolf’s Garden: the Story of the Garden at Monk’s House by Caroline Zoob

13 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Non-fiction

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England, gardens, homes, literary landmark, Sussex, Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

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A fascinating over-the-fence view of Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s magnificent and enchanting garden in Sussex, England, written by the former gardener and tenant at Monk’s House.

The discussion of the design and growth of the garden is interwoven with tender and intimate stories of the Woolfs as a couple.  The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs by Caroline Arber.

“Monk’s House, on the edge of a village in Sussex, became Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s cherished weekend and summer retreat. Both were ecstatic over the garden and the pear and apple orchard. Leonard did the designing and most of the work, becoming, as Virginia wrote, “garden proud,” while she found immense solace and inspiration in their verdant paradise. He planted mammoth arrays of flowers and vegetables and built alluring brick paths, terraces, and borders to create a series of “rooms” that made their garden a labyrinth of hidden sanctuaries. Leonard also indulged his “passion for ponds” and his love of roses and became an avid beekeeper. We learn all this and much more about the Woolfs and their beloved home and garden and their loving marriage in this lavish and thoughtful tour of the property past and present. Striking archival photographs mix well with Caroline Arber’s radiant color shots, and Zoob is the best possible guide, having moved into Monk’s House, which is owned by the National Trust, with her husband in 2000, and tended the garden for more than a decade. Her charming and affecting chronicle grants us a new perspective on this remarkable pair of “fantastically hard-working” and immeasurably influential writers and how profoundly they were nurtured by their gorgeously bountiful garden and refuge.”  –  Booklist

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The Turner House by Angela Flournoy

07 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction, Historical Fiction

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African-American, aging, big families, Detroit's East Side, inheritance, parenthood

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The Turner House is a thoughtful, character-driven novel centered on the beloved home of an African American family. Francis and Viola Turner leave their sharecropping roots in Arkansas with their baby son Cha-Cha to find opportunity in Detroit during the city’s industrial heyday. Through sacrifice and hard work, together they raise a large family at 6257 Yarrow Street, a place that embodies their pride and hope for a brighter future. When matriarch Viola falls sick in 2008, the Turner family, thirteen-strong, must reckon with changing realities over which they have little control.

“A lively, thoroughly engaging family saga with a cast of fully realized characters…[Flournoy] handles time and place with a veteran’s ease…She puts her own distinctive stamp on this absorbing narrative.”–Publisher’s Weekly, starred and boxed review
“Nobody can take you from joyful to infuriated as fast as your brother or sister. Similarly, the ups and downs of the 13 siblings that populate The Turner House, the first novel by Angela Flournoy, whip from laugh-out-loud to heart-crushing. Still, she proves even bonds that have stretched a mile long have the ability to snap back.”—Essence
Magazine
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