04 Saturday Nov 2023
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction
Tags
19th century, African American women, Ashley (Enslaved person in South Carolina), family relationships, memory, mothers and daughters, South Carolina, Southern states, women slaves
27 Friday Oct 2023
Posted in Biography, History, United States
This memoir tells the story of the millennial feminist meeting toxic patriarchal culture at American Apparel. Hilariously funny – I was cheering for Kate the whole way!
“A racy, thoughtful memoir of [Flannery’s] tenure during the rise and fall of the controversial company…Flannery’s conversion from credulous retail recruit to company woman doesn’t trade in hyper-intellectual #MeToo-era analysis or retrospective scolding. Instead, its currency is the prickly panic of realizing your life doesn’t match your principles, spiked with salacious specifics that evoke the highly sexed environment of American Apparel’s cultural and commercial peak.”
―New York Times Book Review
“[A] bold debut memoir…Flannery succeeds in illustrating the fashion industry’s blurred lines in the decade prior to #MeToo, and the tough choices women faced between professional success and personal safety. This is an authentic portrait of the battle to remain true to oneself.―Publishers Weekly
“Begins like a classic Hollywood noir…Strip Tees goes down as easy as a rum and Diet Coke, breezily written and punctuated at its intermission by a few pages of glossy photos…[it’s] as if Flannery were recounting the saga of her ill-fated years at American Apparel directly to you ― not in a suburban basement, but perhaps over frozen rosé outside a hotel bar, where we can smell the pool water and swimsuit Lycra.”―Washington Post
18 Wednesday Oct 2023
Posted in Fiction, United States
While they are all home working on the family’s cherry orchard, a mother tells her daughters the story of an important summer in her past. I always love Ann Patchett’s writing, and her new novel does not disappoint, with interesting characters and beautiful descriptions of Northern Michigan.
“Patchett’s intricate and subtle thematic web…enfolds the nature of storytelling, the evolving dynamics of a family, and the complex interaction between destiny and choice….These braided strands culminate in a denouement at once deeply sad and tenderly life-affirming. Poignant and reflective, cementing Patchett’s stature as one of our finest novelists.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“As this spellbinding and incisive novel unspools, Patchett brings every turn of mind and every setting to glorious, vibrant life, gracefully contrasting the dazzle of the ephemeral with the gravitas of the timeless, perceiving in cherries sweet and tart reflections of love and loss.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Meryl Streep…is ideal for narrating Tom Lake…. Streep delivers with her signature whimsy, her cadence lilting from wide-eyed innocence to winking wisdom, blurring the nostalgia for small-town Americana with dashes of big-city dreams.” — New York Times Book Review
11 Wednesday Oct 2023
Posted in Fiction
I read this in one weekend unable to put this down – a brainy thriller both a page-turner and a meditation on a loving, close Korean American family in crisis. It is fiction with footnotes! – and each one offers fascinating tangents as entertaining as the main story. Excellent read.
“Brilliant . . . amazing . . . the claim that a book will change your life often seems like exaggeration. Here the potential is real.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Kim uses the parallel investigations of police and family to explore the complex dynamics of interracial marriage, Asian and biracial identity in America, and the nuances of raising a child with special needs. You’ll want to savor every word as Kim plunges the depths of human action and finds love at the center.”—CrimeReads
“Happiness Falls is on the one hand a profound meditation on the meaning of life and the nature of happiness, while on the other hand a riveting mystery replete with suspense.”—Chris Pavone, author of Two Nights in Lisbon
04 Wednesday Oct 2023
Posted in 20th century, Biography, History, Non-fiction
Tags
Auschwitz (Concentration camp)|, biography, Escaped prisoners, Holocaust survivors, Jewish Holocaust, Jews, Nazi concentration camp escapes, Rudolf Vrba, Slovakia, World War 1939-45
26 Tuesday Sep 2023
Posted in Fiction
June and Athena have known each other since college. Both aspiring writers, Athena has found great success, while June has not. When Athena dies unexpectedly, June takes one of her manuscripts and publishes the book as her own. Chaos ensues! This is a darkly funny, cynical take on race, the publishing world, and cancel culture.
“Her magnificent novel uses satire to shine a light on systemic racial discrimination and the truth that often hides behind the twisted narratives constructed by those in power.” — Booklist (starred review)
“At once a brilliant satire that mixes horror and humor; a nuanced exploration of race, heritage, identity, and diversity in publishing; and an honest look at the hell that is social media, this might just be Kuang’s best.” — Boston Globe
“This is a great read. Crime, satire, horror, paranoia, questions of cultural appropriation. Plenty of nasty social media pile-ons, too. But, basically, just a great story. Hard to put down, harder to forget.” — Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author
22 Friday Sep 2023
Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction, United States
This is a disturbing look at slavery through the lens of forced conception and birth as a means to increase wealth for slave owners. Peyton’s use of language is beautiful and powerful
“Engaging, arresting…. Peyton positions Night Wherever We Go in conversation with contemporary novels that reimagine the expansion of possibilities for Black enslaved people in the American South…. [Night Wherever We Go] asks us to remember that our personal history—acting with whatever power, big or small, we have in our reach—transforms our communities, too.” — Boston Globe
“A powerful and inspired achievement. Tracey Rose Peyton gives voice to the enslaved women of this nation’s past who have, for far too long, had their voices gone unheard in the annals of history. She does them justice and then some. This one is not to be missed.” — Nathan Harris, author of The Sweetness of Water
“Night Wherever We Go is extraordinary: a beautiful book about harrowing things, beautiful because of its understanding of humanity, its astonishing language, and the plain brilliance of its author. I’m not sure I’ve recovered from the experience of reading it, or ever will, or ever should.” — Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Souvenir Museum
15 Friday Sep 2023
Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction, United States
Tags
ambition, book clubs (Discussion groups), female friendship, Helen Gurley Brown, New York (N.Y.), women photographers, young women
I loved this very funny historical fiction story from the 1960’s told from the point of view of the woman who became Helen Gurley Brown’s secretary when she took over running Cosmopolitan magazine.
“Where the book sparkles brightest is in Rosen’s complete success in creating a soapy, small-town-girl-in-the-big-city story that includes sophisticated bad boys, designer clothes, and lots of smoking and day drinking. An ode to idealized 1960s New York, this champagne bubble of a novel takes the Mad Menapproach to depicting single, twentysomething women.”—Booklist
“Instantly absorbing, thoroughly researched and a fun, breezy read. It’s like revisiting ‘Mad Men,’ but from Peggy and Joan’s points of view.”—BookReporter
“Renée Rosen is my go-to for whip-smart heroines who love their work. Park Avenue Summer is a delightful summer cocktail of a read!”—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Alice Network
06 Wednesday Sep 2023
Posted in action, adventure, History, murder, murder and investigation, Non-fiction, Travel
Tags
1700's, Great Britain, murder and investigation, mutiny, Patagonia (Argentina and Chile), shipwreck victims, shipwrecks, Wager (Ship)
The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann’s recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O’Brian, his portrayal of the castaways’ desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann’s work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound. (Amazon)
“The most gripping sea-yarn I’ve read in years….A tour de force of narrative nonfiction. Mr. Grann’s account show how storytelling, whether to judges or readers, can shape individual and national fortunes – as well as our collective memories.”—Wall Street Journal
“The beauty of The Wager unfurls like a great sail…He fixes his spyglass on the ravages of empire, of racism, of bureaucratic indifference and raw greed…one of the finest nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” — The Guardian (UK)
“His dogged search through ships’ logs and other contemporaneous accounts of the disaster and its mutinous aftermath has turned up the kind of sterling details that make his writing sing; he is also interested in the way these events were recorded and then recounted, with many different people trying to shape the memory of what happened. Grann simultaneously reconstructs history while telling a tale that is as propulsive and adventure-filled as any potboiler.”— The Atlantic
25 Friday Aug 2023
Tags
domestic fiction, family secrets, Hispanic Americans, Hurricane Maria 2017, Identity (Psychology)|, mother and child, political activists
Siblings Olga (a wedding planner) and Prieto (a politician) are lifelong New Yorkers navigating their careers and personal lives when they begin receiving messages from their mother, who left them years ago to return to Puerto Rico. Olga Dies Dreaming is both funny and serious, weaving the culture and history of Puerto Rico into a story about love and family.
“Vibrant and raw…Olga Dies Dreaming delivers a roller coaster’s worth of beautiful highs and lows. All told, it’s an experience worth savoring.” ―BookPage
“Liberation is at the heart of Olga Dies Dreaming. The story’s driving tension derives from questions of how to break free…The book’s title is an allusion to the poem “Puerto Rican Obituary,” by Pedro Pietri, which contains the lines “Olga / dies dreaming of a five dollar raise.” But Gonzalez’s Olga will not go meekly to such a fate. Sometimes we must free ourselves ― even from dreams.” ― New York Times Book Review
“Atmospheric, intelligent, and well informed: an impressive debut.” ―Kirkus, starred review
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