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Below are our past book recommendations and because the page is getting very long, we have deleted their descriptions. You can find information about them on the internet.
Some Luck
by Jane Smiley
The Nighingale
by Kristen Hannah
In Defense of a
Liberal Education
by Fareed Zakaria
Circling The Sun
by Paula McLain
The Quartet
by Joseph Ellis
Florence Gordon
by Brian Morton
Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World
by Linda Hirshman
My Life on the Road
by Gloria Steinem
The Golden Son
byShilpi Somaya Gowda
The Road to Character
by David Brooks
Everyone Brave is Forgiven
by Chris Cleave
Miller's Valley
by Anna Quindlen
Lowcountry Heart
by Pat Conroy
Underground Railway
by Colson Whitehead
Move Fast and Break Things is the riveting account of a small group of libertarian entrepreneurs who in the 1990s began to hijack the original decentralized vision of the Internet, in the process creating three monopoly firms--Facebook, Amazon, and Google--that now determine the future of the music, film, television, publishing and news industries.
Jonathan Taplin offers a succinct and powerful history of how online life began to be shaped around the values of the men who founded these companies, including Peter Thiel and Larry Page: overlooking piracy of books, music, and film while hiding behind opaque business practices and subordinating the privacy of individual users in order to create the surveillance-marketing monoculture in which we now live.
The enormous profits that have come with this concentration of power tell their own story. Since 2001, newspaper and music revenues have fallen by 70 percent; book publishing, film, and television profits have also fallen dramatically. Revenues at Google in this same period grew from $400 million to $74.5 billion. Today, Google's YouTube controls 60 percent of all streaming-audio business but pay for only 11 percent of the total streaming-audio revenues artists receive. More creative content is being consumed than ever before, but less revenue is flowing to the creators and owners of that content.
With the reallocation of money to monopoly platforms comes a shift in power. Google, Facebook, and Amazon now enjoy political influence on par with Big Oil and Big Pharma, which in part explains how such a tremendous shift in revenues from artists to platforms could have been achieved and why it has gone unchallenged for so long.
The stakes here go far beyond the livelihood of any one musician or journalist. As Taplin observes, the fact that more and more Americans receive their news, as well as music and other forms of entertainment, from a small group of companies poses a real threat to democracy. Move Fast and Break Things offers a vital, forward-thinking prescription for how artists can reclaim their audiences using knowledge of the past and a determination to work together. Using his own half-century career as a music and film producer and early pioneer of streaming video online, Taplin offers new ways to think about the design of the World Wide Web and specifically the way we live with the firms that dominate it.
Move Fast and Break Things
by Jonathan Taplin
New This Month
Click on this URL to hear a wonderful speech by Peggy Noonan about the importance of books.
The incredible true story of the women who fought America's Undark danger.
The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.
Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive -- until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.
But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.
Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives...
With her first two novels, Celeste Ng has established herself as a writer of rare sensitivity and talent. Her debut Everything I Never Told You was picked by the Amazon Editors as the best book of 2014 and went on to be a best seller. Now, Little Fires Everywhere is sure to please her fans and attract many more. The Richardson family lives in the planned community of Shaker Heights, Ohio—a place of wealth, comfort, and stability—and they are a clan that embodies those traits. But when Mia, a single mother, and her fifteen year old daughter, Pearl, rent a house in the area, their very different lives will merge with those of the Richardson family and begin to contort the carefully laid lattice that supports their views. Once again, the plotting and pacing are nearly perfect, the characters believable and real. Ng is a master of family and societal dynamics, shifting perspectives, and the secrets that we try to protect—and readers who loved her debut will recognize the author in this second novel, even as she continues to stretch herself as a writer. We are now eagerly awaiting her next novel.
Little Fires Everywhere
by Celeste Ng
Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane
by Lisa See
For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens.
Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.
Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens
Becoming
by Michelle Obama
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African-American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms.
Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defiedexpectations - and whose story inspires us all to do the same.
Lady Byron and Her Daughters
by Julia Markus
Leardership:
In Turbulent Times
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Save Me the Plums
by Ruth Reichl
From the New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and State of Wonder, comes Ann Patchett’s most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are.
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.
The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.
Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.
Dutch House
by Ann Patchett
“With his legendary passion for American history, David Rubenstein’s conversations with scholars and authors bring our country’s story to life in a new way. The American Story illuminates the humanity, motivations, and lesser-known stories behind some of our country’s most notable leaders with lessons that are important for all of us today.”—Bill Gates
“David Rubenstein draws out compelling stories and unexpected insights in dialogues with some of the most important historians in America. For the reader who loves American history and biography, or for anyone who would like to start, this book is for you.”—Michael Beschloss, New York Times Bestselling author of Presidents of War
“Rubenstein knows in his gut that we can't know where we're going without knowing where we've been. In The American Story, one of the best interviewers I know interrogates our greatest historians to find out about critical moments in our past that speak directly to our present moment.”—Ken Burns, Director of The Vietnam War
“This book tells the story of our past, but it also can help guide our future. I hope it inspires new generations to learn about our history and defend the democratic values that have always defined what it truly means to be an American.”—The Honorable Madeleine K. Albright, Former United States Secretary of State
“David Rubenstein brilliantly captures the essence of many of our country’s most significant historic figures and the insights of their greatest living biographers. The American Story is truly fascinating—wonderfully readable, substantively compelling, and full of unexpected revelations.”—General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former Director of the CIA
The American Story
by David Rubenstein
Women become horseback librarians in 1930s Kentucky and face challenges from the landscape, the weather, and the men around them.
Alice thought marrying attractive American Bennett Van Cleve would be her ticket out of her stifling life in England. But when she and Bennett settle in Baileyville, Kentucky, she realizes that her life consists of nothing more than staying in their giant house all day and getting yelled at by his unpleasant father, who owns a coal mine. She’s just about to resign herself to a life of boredom when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a traveling horseback library—an initiative from Eleanor Roosevelt meant to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression by focusing on literacy and learning. Much to the dismay of her husband and father-in-law, Alice signs up and soon learns the ropes from the library’s leader, Margery. Margery doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, rejects marriage, and would rather be on horseback than in a kitchen.
Although Alice and Margery both have their own romances, the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library. They may have different backgrounds, but their commitment to helping the people of Baileyville brings them together.
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
The Giver of Stars
by Jojo Moyes
We all sense it―something big is going on. You feel it in your workplace. You feel it when you talk to your kids. You can’t miss it when you read the newspapers or watch the news. Our lives are being transformed in so many realms all at once―and it is dizzying.
In Thank You for Being Late, version 2.0, with a new afterword, Thomas L. Friedman exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world today and explains how to get the most out of them and cushion their worst impacts. His thesis: to understand the twenty-first century, you need to understand that the planet’s three largest forces―Moore’s law (technology), the Market (globalization), and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss)―are accelerating all at once. These accelerations are transforming five key realms: the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and community. The year 2007 was the major inflection point: the release of the iPhone, together with advances in silicon chips, software, storage, sensors, and networking, created a new technology platform that is reshaping everything from how we hail a taxi to the fate of nations to our most intimate relationships. It is providing vast new opportunities for individuals and small groups to save the world―or to destroy it.
With his trademark vitality, wit, and optimism, Friedman shows that we can overcome the multiple stresses of an age of accelerations―if we slow down, if we dare to be late and use the time to reimagine work, politics, and community. Thank You for Being Late is an essential guide to the present and the future.
Thank you for Being Late
by Thomas L. Friedman
Poet and writer of clever, innovative ad copy, Margaret Fishback was admired in her time—the pre–Mad Men era—but is mostly forgotten now. Rooney (O, Democracy!, 2014, etc.) has written a lively, fictionalized version of Fishback’s story, drawing on real milestones but imagining her subject’s inner life.
Rooney’s Lillian Boxfish comes to Manhattan in 1926 to make her mark. A smart, stylish, independent young woman, she lands a job at R.H. Macy’s, where she turns out witty rhymes that promote the department store; on her own, she writes light verse, eventually published in several volumes. Though a self-styled “scoffer at love,”
Lillian falls hard for Max Caputo, the head rug buyer at Macy’s. They marry, but when she becomes pregnant with their son, Johnny, she's forced to quit her job—maternity leave being a thing of the future. The marriage eventually fractures, and Lillian suffers a mental breakdown. Intercut with this narrative is the more fanciful story of Lillian’s adventures on New Year’s Eve 1984. An old woman now, she roams the streets of Manhattan alone, passing landmarks public as well as private and befriending several New York characters (all too benevolent to be believed) along the way. The city is in decline—the Subway Vigilante is on the loose—which Lillian seems to equate with her own fall from grace. But the chance encounters lift her spirits, helping her come to terms with her past.
There is plenty of charm and occasional poignance here even if the novel makes you long for a proper biography of the real woman who inspired it.
Lillian Boxfish Takes A Walk
by Kathleen Rooney
Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.
Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy—two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.
Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia—trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?
American Dirt
by Jeanine Cummings
On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end.
In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments.
The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.
The Splendid and the Vile
by Erik Larson
The Vanishing Half
by Brit Bennett
First Sandra Day O'Connor
by Evan Thomas
“Barack Obama is as fine a writer as they come. . . . [A Promised Land] is nearly always pleasurable to read, sentence by sentence, the prose gorgeous in places, the detail granular and vivid. . . .
The story will continue in the second volume, but Barack Obama has already illuminated a pivotal moment in American history, and how America changed while also remaining unchanged.”
A Promised Land
by Barack Obama
A critic shouldn’t often deal in superlatives. He or she is here to explicate, to expand context and to make fine distinctions. But sometimes a reviewer will shout as if into a mountaintop megaphone.
I recently came upon William Kennedy’s review of “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which he called “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.” Kennedy wasn’t far off.
I had these thoughts while reading Isabel Wilkerson’s new book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.” It’s an extraordinary document, one that strikes me as an instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far. It made the back of my neck prickle from its first pages, and that feeling never went away.
I told more than one person, as I moved through my days this past week, that I was reading one of the most powerful nonfiction books I’d ever encountered.
Caste -The Origins of Our Discontent
by Isabel Wilkerson
Anne Youngson’s debut novel, Meet Me at the Museum, is a book you might find yourself finishing in one go.
Mrs. Tina Hopgood is an English farmer’s wife, and Anders Larsen a widowed curator at a museum in Denmark. Though a common interest in one of the museum exhibits brings them together, Anders and Tina soon begin sharing increasingly personal stories and thoughts from their lives, including some never spoken of before
It is touching and uplifting to follow along as their relationship develops, solely through their letters, particularly when Anders notes, “we have both arrived at the same point in our lives. More behind us than ahead of us. Paths chosen that define us. Enough time left to change.”
There is much to be charmed by in this epistolary novel, and Meet Me at the Museum is sure to find a welcome home beside bestsellers like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Meet Me At The Museum
by Anne Youngston
“The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett is an exquisitely poignant tale of life, friendship and facing death. In the latter, the author dares to explore a subject that many shy away from, but she does so with touching sensitivity, gentle humour and absolute honesty.
Eudora’s courage, dignity and wry sense of fun are beautifully drawn as she takes the reader on the heart-breaking yet ultimately uplifting journey of her life and death. Everyone should read this book.”
The Brilliant Life of Eudora Honeysett
by Annie Lyons
DISABILITY VISIBILITY
BY
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
This year's COMMON READ
• Once in a great while, a book comes along that changes our view of the world. This magnificent novel from the Nobel laureate and author of Never Let Me Go is “an intriguing take on how artificial intelligence might play a role in our futures … a poignant meditation on love and loneliness”
Klara and the Sun
by Kazuo Ishiguro
Click on the books above to see the Book Suggestions from our Two Zooms
The Personal Librarian illuminates the extraordinary life of an exceptional, intelligent woman who had to make the impossible choice to live as an imposter or sacrifice everything she’d achieved and deserved.
That Belle denied her true identity in order to protect herself and her family from racial persecution speaks not only to her times but also to ours, a hundred years later. All that glitters is not gold. This is a compelling and important story.”
The Personal Librarian
by Marie Beneduct and Victoria Christopher Murray
“What a gifted, assured writer Nathan Harris is. He does what all novelists are supposed to do—give birth to vivid characters, people worth caring about, and then get out of their way. The result is better than any debut novel has a right to be. With The Sweetness of Water, Harris has, in a sense, unwritten Gone With the Wind, detonating its phony romanticism, its unearned sympathies, its wretched racism.”
The Sweetness of Water
by Nathan Harris
"To read this collection is to be invited into that sacred space where a writer steps out from behind the page to say Hello; let’s really get to know each other. Stoic, kindhearted, fierce, funny, brainy, Patchett’s essays honor what matters most 'in this precarious and precious life.'"
These Precious Days
by Ann Patchett
“Welcome to the enormous pleasure that is The Lincoln Highway, a big book of camaraderie and adventure in which the miles fly by and the pages turn fast. Set over the course of ten riveting days, the story of these four boys unfolds, refolds, tears, and is taped back together. When you aren’t actually reading the book, you’ll be worrying about the characters, so you might as well stay in your chair and keep reading.”
The Lincoln Highway
by Amor Towles
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.
Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.
Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus
What really matters in life? What truly lasts in our hearts and minds? Where can we find community, history, humanity? In this lyrical new book, the answer is clear: through writing. This is a book for what Quindlen calls “civilians,” those who want to use the written word to become more human, more themselves.
Write for Your Life argues that there has never been a more important time to stop and record what we are thinking and feeling. Using examples from past, present, and future—from Anne Frank to Toni Morrison, from love letters written after World War II to journal reflections from nurses and doctors today—Write for Your Life vividly illuminates the ways in which writing connects us to ourselves and to those we cherish. Drawing on her personal experiences not just as a writer but as a mother and daughter, Quindlen makes the case that recording our daily lives in writing is essential.
When we write we not only look, we see; we not only react but reflect. Writing gives you something to hold onto in a changing world. “To write the present,” Quindlen says, “is to believe in the future.”
Write For Your Life
by Anna Quindlen
The It Girl
by Ruth Ware
April Clarke-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford.
Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the year, April was dead.
Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide…including a murder.
“The Agatha Christie of our generation” (David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author) proves once again that she is “as ingenious and indefatigable as the Queen of Crime” (The Washington Post) with this propulsive murder mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Despite the simplicity of the title, Geraldine Brooks’ latest novel is a heart-pounding American epic that gallops backward and forward in time to tell a story about race and freedom, horses and art, and the lineage of not just ancestors but actions.
In present day, we meet Theo Northam, a Black art historian who is researching 19th century equestrian paintings, and Jess, a bone specialist who is called to help uncover an old horse skeleton lodged somewhere in the Smithsonian. And flash back to the 1850s, there is Jarret Lewis, an enslaved groom for Lexington—a horse that will become the fastest thoroughbred ever to race—who desperately wants to be free but will do anything for the horse he’s raised.
Weaving together these different narratives, Horse tells a distinctly American story that shines a light on the legacy of slavery and the pursuit of independence. And, like the races Lexington runs, this is a fast, exciting, and all together remarkable read from Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks
HORSE
by Geraldine Brooks
• From Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout comes a poignant, pitch-perfect novel about a divorced couple stuck together during lockdown—and the love, loss, despair, and hope that animate us even as the world seems to be falling apart.
Lucy by the Sea
by Elizabeth Stout
In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood.
Based on years of research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the callousness and prejudice toward American Indians that allowed the murderers to operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly compelling, but also emotionally devastating. It won the National Book Award.
Killers of the Flower Moon
by David Grann
The Overstory
by Richard Powers
The Overstory is a 2018 novel by Richard Powers. Weaving together numerous character narratives, it is the story of a collection of environmental activists and their struggles to make their protests heard by society. It won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Black Cake
by Charmaine Wilkerson
Two estranged siblings delve into their mother’s hidden past—and how it all connects to her traditional Caribbean black cake—in this immersive family saga, “a character-driven, multigenerational story that’s meant to be savored”
Hidden Figures
by Margot Lee Shetterly
A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles
Hello Beautiful is a compelling family story with echoes of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. A story about how love (as well as the lack thereof) shapes us, the Padavano family is one you won't soon forget.
Hello Beautiful
by Ann Napolitano
As late as 1999, women who succeeded in science were called “exceptional” as if it were unusual for them to be so bright. They were exceptional, not because they could succeed at science but because of all they accomplished despite the hurdles.
“Gripping…one puts down the book inspired by the women’s grit, tenacity, and brilliance.” —
The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT,
and the Fight for Women in Science
by Kate Zernike
A novel about the extraordinary partnership between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune—an unlikely friendship that changed the world.
This well-researched novel touches on aspects of Roosevelt’s life not widely covered in other books, showcasing what the authors imagined to be her inner dialog during a critical time in her life and U.S. history as a whole. Even though McLeod-Bethune was one of the most well-known African Americans during her time, and called the “first lady of African American progress” by Mrs. Roosevelt, very little has been written about her, especially her personal life. This novel changes that, showing how together these trailblazers were extremely dynamic.
First Ladies
by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray
I highly recommend Killingly by Katherine Beutner which I just completed. It is historical fiction concerning the disappearance of a student at MHC in 1897. I found it riveting, especially since it makes so many references to our lives at the college.
From Diana Alexanian
Killingly
by Katharine Beutner
“This beloved author transports us to two dark periods in history: Nazi-overrun Vienna in 1938 and the current dire situation at the border between the United States and Mexico. . . . Both stories are rich enough to carry the weight of one novel, but Allende expertly intertwines them. Employing her signature touch of magical realism, she wraps us in a compassionate story that reminds us ‘we could all just as easily find ourselves in similar situations.’”—The Washington Post
The Wind Knows My Name
by Isabel Allende
Mount Holyoke’s 2023 Common Read, “Disability Visibility,” is an anthology of essays, stories, poems and more that centers around disability justice — written by people with disabilities and edited by disabled activist, writer, media maker and consultant Alice Wong.
Tom Lake
by Ann Patchett
With a cinematic sparkle, Ann Patchett (The Dutch House, Commonwealth, Bel Canto) has once again crafted a novel that beats with the pulse of family and the tug of nostalgia. Over the course of a pandemic summer’s cherry harvest, a mother recounts to her grown girls what happened one summer when she became a little bit famous and fell in love with an actor that became very famous. While the plot is seemingly straightforward, Patchett’s gift for rendering that very specific feeling of youthful independence, love, and ambition is pitch perfect. It’s all too easy and enjoyable to fall into the rhythm of the story—to be reminded of what it’s like to be a child, awash in the mythic glow that your parents had lives before you that were exciting, impactful, and maybe just a little bit racy.
“Simmons’s evocative account of her remarkable trajectory from Jim Crow Texas, where she was the youngest of twelve children in a sharecropping family, to the presidencies of Smith College and Brown University shines with tenderness and dignity.”
Up Home
by Ruth J. Simmons
A privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia was expected to adopt a willful blindness to the inequities of race and the constraints of gender. For Drew Gilpin, the acceptance of both female subordination and racial hierarchy proved intolerable and galvanizing. Urged to become “well adjusted” and to fill the role of a poised young lady that her upbringing imposed, she found resistance was necessary for her survival. During the 1960s, through her love of learning and her active engagement in the civil rights, student, and antiwar movements, Drew forged a path of her own―one that would eventually lead her to become a historian of the very conflicts that were instrumental in shaping the world she grew up in.
Culminating in the upheavals of 1968, Necessary Trouble captures a time of rapid change and fierce reaction in one young woman’s life, tracing the transformations and aftershocks that we continue to grapple with today.
Necessary Trouble
by Drew Gilpin Faust
Two New Books...Both reviewed by the New York Times together...and both very good!
Rachel Maddow traces the fight to preserve American democracy back to World War II, when a handful of committed public servants and brave private citizens thwarted far-right plotters trying to steer our nation toward an alliance with the Nazis.
Prequel
by Rachel Maddow
In Democracy Awakening, Richardson crafts a compelling and original narrative, explaining how, over the decades, a small group of wealthy people have made war on American ideals. By weaponizing language and promoting false history they have led us into authoritarianism -- creating a disaffected population and then promising to recreate an imagined past where those people could feel important again. She argues that taking our country back starts by remembering the elements of the nation’s true history that marginalized Americans have always upheld. Their dedication to the principles on which this nation was founded has enabled us to renew and expand our commitment to democracy in the past. Richardson sees this history as a roadmap for the nation’s future
Democracy Awakening
by Heather Cox Richardson
"Becoming Madam Secretary is a proud anthem to a forgotten founding mother. Frances Perkins starts out a bright young thing with an economics degree and an iron determination to make the world a better place, and ends up a shining star: first woman appointed to a presidential cabinet, architect of the New Deal, mother of Social Security, and FDR's much-relied-upon work wife throughout his entire presidency. Stephanie Dray's love and respect for this American heroine shines from every page, as does her impeccable research. Unputdownable!"
