The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

04 Friday Sep 2020

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If you’re reading to escape thoughts of our current pandemic, this probably isn’t the book for you. However, if you’re willing to give it a chance, this novel set in Ireland during the 1918 influenza is worth the time. The main character is a nurse working on the maternity ward caring for pregnant women suffering from the flu. There are many tense scenes of childbirth and illness, and some very timely references to masks and social distancing, but also discussion of Ireland, World War I, the Catholic Church, and women’s lives in 1918. This is a beautifully written book that’s hard to put down.

Donoghue offers vivid characters and a gripping portrait of a world beset by a pandemic and political uncertainty. A fascinating read in these difficult times.– Booklist (starred review)

In Dublin, 1918, a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu is a small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, in “Donoghue’s best novel since Room” (Kirkus Reviews)

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Apeirogon: a novel by Colum McCann

24 Monday Aug 2020

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LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • From the National Book Award–winning and bestselling author of Let the Great World Spin comes an epic novel rooted in the unlikely real-life friendship between two fathers.  (Amazon)

To become a member of the Parent’s Circle, you have to lose a child and be willing to speak.  The author, in real life, met these 2 fathers and was so inspired to write about their stories and their determination to turn their grief into a weapon for peace. This is more than a story about Palestine and Israel. This is 1001 fragments that come together to form a whole – a tour de force unlike anything you’ve read to date.

“Brilliant . . . powerful and prismatic . . . Apeirogon is an empathy engine, utterly collapsing the gulf between teller and listener. . . . It achieves its aim by merging acts of imagination and extrapolation with historical fact. But it’s undisputably a novel, and, to my mind, an exceedingly important one. It does far more than make an argument for peace; it is, itself, an agent of change.”—The New York Times Book Review (cover review)

 “McCann performs his own epic balancing act between life and art, writing with stunning lyricism and fluent empathy as he traces the ripple effects of violence and grief, beauty, and the miraculous power of friendship and love, valor and truth.”—Booklist (starred review)

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Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

18 Tuesday Aug 2020

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“I might have been ten, eleven years old – I cannot say for certain – when my first master died.”  So begins the odyssey of a young boy who escapes slavery in Barbados and embarks on a richly imbued adventure to discover the true meaning of freedom. Washington Black is an unforgettable character and I looked forward to every sitting with this book.

“Exuberant and spellbinding. . . . The novel is not only harrowing and poignant in its portrayal of the horrors of slavery on a Caribbean plantation but liberating, too, in its playful shattering of the usual tropes. The result is a book about freedom that’s both heartbreaking and joyfully invigorating.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Wall Street Journal

“Edugyan has created a wonder of an adventure story, powered by the helium of fantasy, but also by the tender sensibility of its aspiring young hero.” —NPR

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Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

10 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by in 20th century, Biography, History, Non-fiction, United States

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER –  If you never read it, do it now.  It is as relevant now as it was then, a must read and see the movie too starring Oprah Winfrey.  Book club selection at the Weston Public Library January 2020.

Just a few of the many accolades this 2010 book received:

Discover magazine 2010 Must-Read
Entertainment Weekly #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year
National Public Radio Best of the Bestsellers
Bloomberg Top Nonfiction
Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
Library Journal Top Ten Book of the Year
Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
Booklist Top of the List—Best Nonfiction Book
New York Times/Science Bestseller list

“Science writing is often just about ‘the facts.’ Skloot’s book, her first, is far deeper, braver, and more wonderful.” —New York Times Book Review

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a remarkable feat of investigative journalism and a moving work of narrative nonfiction that reads with the vividness and urgency of fiction. It also raises sometimes uncomfortable questions with no clear-cut answers about whether people should be remunerated for their physical, genetic contributions to research and about the role of profit in science.”
—National Public Radio

“Skloot explores human consequences of the intersection of science and business, rescuing one of modern medicine’s inadvertent pioneers from an unmarked grave.” —US News & World Report

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The Holdout by Graham Moore

03 Monday Aug 2020

Posted by in 20th century, Fiction, murder, suspense

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“Wow! I loved The Holdout, in which author Graham Moore does the impossible, creating a page-turning legal thriller with a twisty and absolutely riveting plot, as well as raising profound and thought-provoking questions about the jury system and modern justice. All that, plus a strong and compelling female heroine in lawyer Maya Seale, whom you’ll root for as the tables turn against her and she finds herself behind bars, with everything on the line. You won’t be able to put this one down!”—Lisa Scottoline, #1 bestselling author of Someone Knows

“The twists are sharp and the flashbacks that uncover what each juror knows are placed for maximum impact in this rollicking legal thriller. . . . Moore expertly combines deft character work with mounting bombshell revelations in a story that will attract new readers and also seems primed for the big screen.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“This stellar novel from bestseller [Graham] Moore takes a searing look at the U.S. justice system, media scrutiny, and racism. . . . Moore has set a new standard for legal thrillers.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[A] stemwinder of a murder mystery wrapped in a legal thriller . . . The story is gripping, and the pace is furious.”—Booklist

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Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan

27 Monday Jul 2020

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Elisabeth is a new mother who has just moved with her husband to a college town in upstate New York. There, she hires a new babysitter named Sam, a college student who struggles to fit in with her wealthier peers. The two women share a close bond, but their different situations and backgrounds occasionally cause tension. This thoughtful, well written novel explores motherhood, class, and friendship.

 “Sullivan’s intimate, incisive latest explores the evolving friendship between a new mother and her babysitter… Readers will be captivated by Sullivan’s authentic portrait of modern motherhood.”—Publishers Weekly

“Sullivan… writes with empathy for her characters even as she reveals their flaws and shortcomings. And while the story she tells focuses primarily on two women from different backgrounds and at different stages of life, it also illuminates broader issues about money, privilege, and class; marriage, family, and friendship; and the dueling demands of career and domesticity with which many women struggle. This perceptive novel about a complex friendship between two women resonates as broadly as it does deeply.”—Kirkus, starred review

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The Mirror & the Light (Wolf Hall Trilogy Book 3) by Hilary Mantel

20 Monday Jul 2020

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This book concludes the acclaimed Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel. These engrossing works of historical fiction follow Thomas Cromwell, an influential adviser to Henry VIII. In this final novel, Cromwell begins to lose favor with the king, who is on his fourth marriage and turning on many of the people around him. If you haven’t read the other books, be sure to read Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies first.

“Deep, suspenseful, chewy, complex and utterly transporting―truly a full banquet. Most miraculously of all, it’s every bit as good as the first two books, both of which won the Booker Prize…. ―Elizabeth Gilbert, The Wall Street Journal Magazine

“The Wolf Hall trilogy is probably the greatest historical fiction accomplishment of the past decade.” ―The New York Times Book Review

 “This is rich, full-bodied fiction. Indeed, it might well be the best of the trilogy simply because there is more of it, a treasure on every page…The brisk, present-tense narration makes you feel as though you are watching these long-settled events live, via a shaky camera phone… Mantel has…elevated historical fiction as an art form… At a time when the general movement of literature has been towards the margins, she has taken us to the dark heart of history.” ―The Times (London)

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Black Water Lilies by Michel Bussi translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside

10 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by in Fiction, murder, mystery

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A thrilling tale of murder that takes place in Claude Monet’s gardens in Giverny, France. The location provides a lush backdrop to this intricately plotted mystery that takes place over just 13 days in 2010.  The ending is astonishing and you’ll be desperate to find others to discuss the outcome!

One of France’s most celebrated crime authors and winner of more than 15 major literary awards, I rushed to read his first novel, After the Crash.

“A work of genius befitting the masterpiece by Monet at its heart…. Bussi cleverly breaks all the perceived rules of plotting in a story containing riddles within riddles…. But every loose thread is meshed neatly together in the final pages until the jaw-dropping big reveal at the end. The result is simply stunning.”―Daily Express (UK)

“Bussi’s portrait of the difficulties of investigating a closed community is fascinating, and the novel ends with one of the most reverberating shocks in modern crime fiction.”―The Sunday Times (UK)

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Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: the Daring Young Woman Who Led France’s Largest Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson

05 Sunday Jul 2020

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This is the true story of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, a leader in the French Resistance who worked with many spies in France and the UK. The book offers a lot of information about the Resistance and challenges some of the incorrect assumptions about the movement, particularly how women’s accomplishments were often overlooked. A great addition to the many books about France during World War II.

“A brilliant, cinematic biography of resistance leader Marie-Madeleine Fourcade . . . Olson’s weaving of Fourcade’s diary artfully and liberally into her own writing and her heart-stopping descriptions of Paris, escapes, and internecine warring create a narrative that’s as dramatic as a novel or a film. Olson honors Fourcade’s fight for freedom and her ‘refusal to be silenced’ with a gripping narrative that will thrill WWII history buffs.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Incredibly absorbing and long-overdue . . . This masterfully told true story reads like fiction and will appeal to readers who devour WWII thrillers à la Kristen Hannah’s The Nightingale.”—Booklist (starred review)

“A hell of a yarn . . . Why the heck have we never heard of [Marie-Madeleine] Fourcade? The only woman to lead a major French resistance network. A woman who in later life was elected to the European Parliament. And who, upon her death in 1989 at the age of seventy-nine, became the first woman to be granted a funeral at Les Invalides, the complex in central Paris where Napoleon Bonaparte and other French military heroes are buried. Olson posits a few possible reasons for Fourcade’s relegation to the footnotes of history. The inescapable one, though, circles back to where we began: her gender.”—The Washington Post

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Deacon King Kong by James McBride

28 Sunday Jun 2020

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Set in a Brooklyn neighborhood in 1969, this novel follows a large cast of characters, all of whom are connected in some way. The main one is Sportcoat, an older widower who drinks too much and mourns his late wife, along with his friends, members of his church, local criminals, police officers, and more. This book is really funny and well written, with surprisingly emotional moments too. I grew to love all of the characters, no matter how flawed each one is.

“Much is unpacked by the time the book reaches its lovely and heartfelt climax, as McBride shows what can happen when people set aside their differences. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW

“McBride has a flair for fashioning comedy whose buoyant outrageousness barely conceals both a steely command of big and small narrative elements and a river-deep supply of humane intelligence. An exuberant comic opera set to the music of life.” —Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW

“While historical fiction fans will appreciate the richly detailed approach to Brooklyn’s grittiness, McBride’s neighborhood saga ultimately sets a new standard for multidimensional fiction about people of color.” —Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

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