Having read The Warmth of Other Suns, Wilkerson’s illuminating first book about the history of Black migration from the South to northern industrial cities that won the Pulitzer Prize, I was eager to read her latest book, Caste. And I was not disappointed. In Caste, Wilkerson has written a second seminal book – one which I predict will also win many literary prizes.
Fifteen Dogs is one of the most entertaining books, with one of the weirdest premises, that I have ever read. Set in and around downtown Toronto, the story begins with a conversation in a bar between the gods Hermes and Apollo, who share a drink and make a wager. They debate whether the cause of human unhappiness is consciousness, and so decide to bestow human consciousness on a group of dogs so see if their lives are made happier by it.
I will admit I was nervous to start this book, which I added to my reading list at the suggestion of smart people who offered resources to educate and spread anti-racism. In my vague understanding of who Malcolm X was, I pictured him as an angry, violent version of Martin Luther King Jr.
Another Brooklyn reminds me of a soap bubble. It is a beautifully sweet and sad book that took less than two days to read. It is a book about memory, and I find it hovering in my memory ever since I finished it.
In Deacon King Kong, James McBride once again proves his master storyteller status. McBride sets the novel in the housing projects of New York City in the late 1960s with an unforgettable main character named Sportcoat. Beloved by many, Sportcoat is an old, Black man who fights his demons by consuming vast quantities of bootleg liquor.
What an absolute gem of a book Maggie O’Farrell has written in Hamnet. The novel starts off slow and feels almost pastoral. But, it keeps growing in intensity until culminating in one of the most heart-wrenching and satisfying endings I can remember ever reading.
I would also like to recommend I Am Malala. Quite by chance I read this book less than a month after finishing Daugher of Destiny. The two books make excellent companions.
I should have listened to my friend Carolyn who, over six months ago, told me I should read The Water Dancer; that our book club should read it; that Coates’ writing was poetic. She was so right. Now I am recommending that all of you read this beautifully written and expertly crafted debut novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
I honestly don’t remember how this book got on my reading list, except I think it was mentioned in another book. Perhaps Hillary Clinton’s most recent? However it came to me, I picked it up knowing almost nothing about Bhutto, her family or Pakistani history. My only understanding going in was that she was the first female prime minister in the Muslim world.
What better time to tackle those huge tome-like books you have always meant to read than during an overlong quarantine? That was my thinking when I finally sank my teeth into Shantaram, which appears on many “all-time best books” lists and had been sitting on my shelf for years. After finishing that and recovering by reading several shorter books, I decided to take the plunge into The Pillars of The Earth, my first-ever Ken Follett book.
When I read (and reviewed) Americanahlast year, I knew I wanted to read more of Adichie’s work, and I was not disappointed by Half of a Yellow Sun. Once again Adichie creates a vivid world full of compelling and complicated characters, all of whom struggle to balance tradition and the hope for a more successful and just future.
Best known for his 2020 presidential bid and his controversial “Freedom Dividend,” Andrew Yang provides a sobering look at the economic and sociocultural status of the United States in The War on Normal People. Yang, a former lawyer and entrepreneur, offers a statistics-backed look into the many problems plaguing the U.S. today: income inequality, wealth disparity, job loss, the opioid epidemic, and others. He tackles issues that many of us, including our elected officials, often minimize or ignore.
In The Travelers, Regina Porter offers an epic tale of two families, one Black and one White, over several generations. With a cast of characters so elaborate that she includes a reference at the book’s beginning, the stories of the Vincents and the Christies overlap and intersect at strategic points. Although there are quite a few characters to keep track of, Porter does an amazing job of making each of them come alive.
This completely original and unforgettable book will captivate you from beginning to end. Edugyan opens the book with young Washington Black (Wash) who is enduring life as a young slave on a sugar cane plantation on Barbados in 1830. Under the dominion of the ruthlessly cruel plantation owner, Erasmus Wilde, Wash struggles to understand how so little value can be placed on the slaves’ lives.
When I read this book in March it felt painfully current. Sadly its relevance and timeliness have only grown over the past several months as we’ve seen police violence against Black Americans magnified a thousand-fold.
My first encounter with Pearl Cleage was as a playwright, when I took part in a pandemic play-reading group created and run by Northern Stage in Vermont. Her enchanting play, Blues for an Alabama Sky, set during the Harlem Renaissance, combined with hearing her speak about her work, made me immediately add several of her novels to my reading list. And I was not disappointed!
Set in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century, The Wonder fascinates with the story of Lib Wright, a nurse who trained with Florence Nightingale. She has been hired for two weeks to observe 11-year-old Anna O’Donnell, who claims not to have eaten for four months. Her parents and the local priest and politicians believe that she is a living miracle. Her fame has spread so widely that believers make pilgrimages to meet her. Lib believes she will uncover with ease and efficiency the deceit in the little girl’s and her family’s claim. Instead, she finds herself pulled into Anna’s saint-like aura.
You don’t need me to tell you that this book is a masterpiece. The Pulitzer Prize committee did that a few weeks ago when they awarded Colson Whitehead his second Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Whitehead’s phenomenal writing style simultaneously draws you into the world of his story, while illuminating difficult truths about his characters and our society.
I’m not usually a big biography gal, probably because I have read more than a few boring ones, often of playwrights I admire. So this book sat on my shelf for a while, despite my dad’s hearty recommendation. Lesson learned: listen to dad.
Afterlife is a beautifully written, sensitive and realistic exploration of one woman’s struggle to come to terms with her husband’s sudden and unexpected death. The novel begins one year after Sam’s death and Antonia is still fixated on her final days with her husband. She has conversations with him in her mind as a means of keeping him alive. Antonia is grappling as well with how and when she’ll feel able to interact with her three sisters again. They have always been very close, but she’s found them barely tolerable since becoming a widow.
