Since I’ve been reading a lot during the coronavirus shutdown, I thought I’d share a few of the books I’ve read recently. I usually commit to reading twenty-five books on the Goodreads yearly reading challenge, and it looks like I might surpass that goal if I keep on reading like I am now.
Here’s a few I liked and recommend.
American Dirt: Lydia Quixano Pérez runs a bookstore in Acapulco, Mexico, where she lives with her husband, Sebastián, who is a journalist, and their son, Luca. When a man starts visiting her store, buying books and striking up a friendship, she has no idea initially that he will be responsible for turning her life upside down. But Lydia and Luca will have to flee Acapulco, setting them on a journey they will share with countless other Central and South Americans-turned migrants. …From the colossal opening chapter to the epilogue, American Dirt is a novel of crisp writing, urgent pacing, and remarkable empathy. It deserves the attention of a large audience. —Amazon Book Review
Lilac Girls: “Inspired by actual events and real people, Martha Hall Kelly has woven together the stories of three women during World War II that reveal the bravery, cowardice, and cruelty of those days. This is a part of history—women’s history—that should never be forgotten.”—Lisa See, New York Times bestselling author of China Dolls
The Women: Having brought to life eccentric cereal king John Harvey Kellogg in The Road to Wellville and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey in The Inner Circle, T.C. Boyle now turns his fictional sights on an even more colorful and outlandish character: Frank Lloyd Wright. Boyle’s incomparable account of Wright’s life is told through the experiences of the four women who loved him. There’s the Montenegrin beauty Olgivanna Milanoff, the passionate Southern belle Maude Miriam Noel, the tragic Mamah Cheney, and his young first wife, Kitty Tobin. Blazing with his trademark wit and inventiveness, Boyle deftly captures these very different women and the creative life in all its complexity. —Amazon Book Review
The Story of A Marriage: San Francisco in the 1950s may have seemed like a simpler time, but for African American wife and mother Pearlie Cook, it is anything but. Settled in the city’s Sunset District with her African American husband, Holland, she is wholly unprepared for the news imparted by a stranger who appears one Saturday morning at her door. He is Charles “Buzz” Drumer, a handsome white man who shared a room with Holland in a military hospital during World War II. (Holland had seen battle, Buzz had not. He was a conscientious objector, or, Pearlie wonders, was he just a coward?) Buzz’s astonishing admission (nope—not telling) and the request that follows rattle Pearlie’s peaceful world. She must make a heartbreaking decision, not only for herself, but for her polio-stricken son. Greer (The Confessions of Max Tivoli, 2004) sets this emotionally wrenching tale in a U.S. rife with strife—recovering from one war, mired in yet another, and grappling daily with the prickly issue of race. A haunting, thought-provoking novel about the liabilities of love. —Allison Block, Booklist
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And for a little change of pace, here’s what a librarian created in her spare time during her coronavirus shutdown. Very clever!
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