There There, by Tommy Orange

[Lesley] Many thanks to the library patron who requested this book!

I think most fiction I have read with Native American characters have either been fictionalized history or stories that take place on reservations. This book turns all of the familiar tropes inside out.

Meet the “urban Indians” who you have never thought about or even realized existed. Generationally, their grandparents have both feet in traditions, language, history; their parents were part of that as children but since have melted into the mixing pot of cities – either by choice or circumstance – cities where tribes are formed more around economics than heritage; the urban Indians are caught between two worlds – neither one of their choosing and neither one purely then or purely now, purely here or purely there.

Like energetic atoms, these characters spin and bounce off of their families, each other, and society fueled by loss, sadness, anger, ambition, and hope. The energy builds to one moment, one inevitable and unrelenting moment that is devastating but not without some beauty.

This book and the book Girls Burn Brighter seem indicative of our time when so many people are in a limbo-world between the past and the future. The present, which is transitional, is messy and confusing but filled with uneasy imperative to emerge in a new world as a new type of person. Not labeled by ethnicity, gender, language, class – but something freer and more true.

Check catalog/place hold for There There
Check catalog/place hold for Girls Burn Brighter

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Nightbird by Alice Hoffman

[Sara]

I have thoroughly enjoyed several Alice Hoffman books for adults so I figured I’d give this one a try. I liked it a lot! Even though it is not as complex a story as her longer, more epic works, it is a beautiful story of family, understanding, and belonging. It contains just a hint of magic, enough to please those fans of her more witchy books, but leans more on the realistic elements. This makes it not only accessible to readers of different ages, but those of us who are not usually inclined to read fantasy or magical realism. Don’t judge this book by its cover 😉

Check for availability in Wiggin catalog

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Still Me by Jojo Moyes

Louisa in New York! I liked this third installment of Me Before You very much. My friend, with whom I was about to head to NYC, insisted that I read it before our trip and I’m happy she did. Perfect pre-NYC read.

Outside of this moment in my life, though, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it quite as much, although I really loved the vivid characters that contributed to Louisa’s continued story.

I do recommend this book for those who have read the first two. Great follow up that shows new elements of Louisa and Sam.

Check for availability in Wiggin Catalog
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Girls Burn Brighter, by Shobha Rao

[Lesley] This book burns brighter than most. A story of two Indian girls as well as each of their stories from life in India to life in America. This wasn’t the book I expected and was better than I could have imagined.

Life is hard. In some places, for some people, life is so hard as to nearly be unbearable. Yet – some people bear it. How? Why? Follow the stories of Poornima and Savitha and you will get a glimpse.

The writing is unflinching and exacting – perfectly suited to the story. Parts of this book are beautiful and otherworldly – the experience of nature and the environment entwined with life as a whole. People who aren’t fully themselves except in the place where they were born. Parts of it are fascinating – everyday life in India, the levels of poverty and comfort, the cultural traditions. And parts of this book are horrific and hard to read. The kinds of things that make you close your eyes to avoid reading the next words and hope that will shake the image from your mind. It doesn’t work though; you have to read on in order to replace the image. Maybe violence and inhumanity are always present when two worlds are colliding? Maybe beauty and amazement and love are as well.

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

I LOVED THIS! Eligible had a lot stacked against it since I was pretty sure anything that messed with Pride & Prejudice was, by definition, going to be terrible. Nope. It evokes emotions and frustrations, weaving so many current day family relationships in believable, relatable ways. Sittenfeld did a great job translating Jane Austen’s masterpiece into modern day America, even if she did make it a little more raunchy.

I listened to this one on digital audio through Overdrive for free.

Check availability in Wiggin Catalog
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Less, by Andrew Sean Greer

[Lesley] First, let’s just say that this is the 2018 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. That’s a pretty good recommendation! At first, I was surprised that this book one though. By the end, I had no doubt that it deserved it.

Disarmingly charming. Arthur Less is a bit like a Shakespeare character who stumbled off the stage before the first rehearsal began. The book is an accumulation that ultimately coheres and seems like truth. It’s a hard book to describe: the plot isn’t especially exciting or fast-moving, the main character is underwhelming, and no matter where the action is taking place (France! Germany! Morocco! India!) the situations Less finds himself in are the most pedestrian. Yet, there is humor, nostalgia, outrage, reflection, and a journey that ends somewhere very, very different than expected. It is some kind of genius that can take all of these things that seem one way (underwhelming, sheltered, hapless) and reveal them to be illuminating and essential. I couldn’t see the world in quite the same way after reading this book.

Here’s a more complete review (which I totally agree with!) from the Kenyon Review: https://www.kenyonreview.org/reviews/less-by-andrew-sean-greer-738439/

The Power, by Naomi Alderman

[Lesley] Perfect story within a story — It’s as if the story inside the book that is inside the book is describing a society that is in the author’s (the fictional author!) imagination, or his theory. Then, once his book has ended and we return to the correspondence between him & Naomi, his reader, we are shifted yet again. The parts of the book that Naomi finds unrealistic or unbelievable or unsupported by facts, are just the ones that we accept without question. [and – wow – the uses of the name “Naomi” in this book is genius.]

In places this seems like a somewhat simple allegory for our times. When women have the power (literal and figurative) they mirror the men who have always been seen as corrupted by it. Violence, anger, and revenge are not the sole purview of males; an eye for an eye seems inevitable once power for one side is absolute. Parts of the book read like a critique of violent cultures and the misuse of weapons. There are plenty of characters who make this “allegory” less straightforward though. Tunde, frightened out of his teenage existence by an early experience with a young woman who has the power, becomes an embedded recorder of events — we think (and he thinks) his dispatches are enlightening the wider society. Jocelyn, daughter of the mayor-turned-governor, has inexplicable variability in her power – a weakness that her mother tries to hide. Then there are Allie and Roxy – two women, strong in both the same and different ways, who weave and create the story as two sides of the same coin.

The illustrations of “archaeological” (fictional) figures and relics add an interesting layer of theoretical support for the story that unfolds. Is it all proof that this story, this power, is real? Or is it proof that society has not always been this way? History is told by the victors – what if the culture we are in was completely opposite once upon a time?

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Macbeth, by Jo Nesbo

[Lesley]  I haven’t read any Jo Nesbo books before; not really my genre. I *had* to read this one though as an installment in the Hogarth Shakespeare series. Loved it. Now that I have read it, I can’t imagine a better modernization of Macbeth. Nesbo is clearly a master of gritty, politically-charged, psychological thrillers. The relentless hurtling to the inevitable end is very much what I remember from the Shakespeare play; you just want the characters to stop making choices that are going to end in more pain and death but they don’t. And the brew. Evil, but only in that it amplifies the cruelty, greed, and violence already inside people. We see that those who aren’t addicted also are cruel, selfish, and violent, they may just be more inhibited or circumspect than those who are.

Other titles in the Hogarth Shakespeare project: http://catalog.library.strathamnh.gov/cgi-bin/koha/opac-search.pl?q=hogarth+shakespeare

About Hogarth Shakespeare: The Hogarth Shakespeare project sees Shakespeare’s works retold by acclaimed and bestselling novelists of today.

http://hogarthshakespeare.com/

 

Freshwater, by Akwaeke Emezi

[Lesley]  Bookshelf: Amazing. I first heard about this book on NPR and it sounded intriguing – I never could have expected its complexity and utter originality. Multiple personalities – sort of; Coming of age – sort of; Immigrant experience – sort of. It was so far beyond any of those categories. Somehow in so much strangeness and extremity, there is a powerful story that is accessible and emotionally resonant. I know many people who would be turned off by the violence (there is some) and especially the way sex is used, but not a single thing is gratuitous or there for shock value. This is a shocking book, but not in the way I think that is usually meant.

Check the library catalog for availability

Circe, by Madeline Miller

[Lesley] Circe. The witch who turned Odysseus’s men into pigs. That’s about all most of us think of when we hear the name. I love how Madeline Miller uses the staging of Greek mythology and hero lore to tell an old story from a new perspective. I liked Circe even more than the Song of Achilles and I think some of that had to do with the female voice. I like that our biases and our complacency with the old stories are exposed when we read this re-interpretation. We are usually so busy looking at Odysseus that we miss Circe andTelemachus. We are so sure that naiads and nymphs are beautiful and good that we miss the complexities of being even less than a demigod. We see Prometheus alone, bound to that rock and never think of a girl who might have tried to offer him comfort. As Miller (and Circe) shine a light onto this, we also see how Circe overlooks the stories behind the stories and comes to suffer for it. She straddles the strange line between god and mortal and ultimately uses witchery (actually the power of Kronos, but who would know how to collect or use it but a witch?) to choose where she will land. Choice after a near-eternity of living out someone else’s intentions for her.

 

Check the library catalog for availability:
http://catalog.library.strathamnh.gov/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=54066