Books that keep Popping Up!!
This blog entry is entitled “Books that are Popping Up” because I have noticed from all of my publishing sources that certain books are continuously ‘popping up’ — being promoted and reviewed. We know some of the authors and have enjoyed their prior books. Other authors are new, at least to me. So, take some time to look at the folloiwng–taken directly from the sites in which they were featured. Enjoy!!
Book One (Think: The Paris Library)
The Last Bookshop in London By Madeline Martin An instant New York Times bestseller, just released in April! As World War II descends on London, Grace Bennett strives to keep her place of work, a dusty old bookshop, afloat. Little does she know that her efforts will bring a whole community together… “A testament to the power of stories to sustain us in even our darkest hours” (Jillian Cantor). |
Book Two (Highly Recommended)
The Personal Librarianby Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
Reader Reviews
“As a retired public librarian, I was drawn to this title for obvious reasons. Yet I was unprepared for the non-stereotypical, incredible story of Belle da Costa Greene, personal librarian to J.P. Morgan. This fictional account of Belle Marion Greener, who became da Costa Greene in order to hide her racial heritage, is a history lesson both fascinating and humbling… Never a shushing bespectacled matron dusting shelves, Greene was known for her clever negotiation savvy and vibrant style… This portrayal of the diminutive (in stature only) Greene and her ability to navigate a purely (white) man’s world with her wit, tenacity and intelligence is unforgettable.” – Patricia L. (Seward, AK)
Book Three (a personal favorite!)
With her second novel, Learning to Speak Southern, Lindsey Rogers Cook joins the longstanding literary tradition of writing about the adventures of expatriates. This novel, however, deals with the less romantic side of the story: What happens to the traveler who comes home?
Cook’s protagonist, Lex, has spent her 20s traveling nonstop, caught in a cycle of picking up odd jobs, engaging in drunken hookups with other ex-pats, learning new languages to fuel her linguistic obsession, then leaving on a whim to do it all over again somewhere else. This itinerant lifestyle allows her to keep an arm’s length between those she calls her “stranger-friends” and her troubled past.
Lex was born and raised in Memphis, and she feels nothing but resentment toward the South, a place with a painful history where she experienced her own incredible hurt. “In the years since I left Tennessee, I’ve tried on hundreds of personalities, pasts, and backgrounds,” Lex says, “in the hope that one day I’d find answers to these questions that fit. The real ones never did.”
Since graduating high school, Lex has avoided returning home at all costs. She succeeds, at first, in leaving behind the trauma she experienced in Memphis — from her tumultuous relationship with her parents to the death of her mother — until she experiences a profound tragedy while living in Bali.
The book opens there as Lex miscarries, alone in a hospital, abandoned by the father of the baby, a man she barely knew. The loss of her child triggers a series of events that forces Lex to confront the pain and anger she’s been trying so hard to outrun.
When Lex arrives back in Memphis at the behest of her godmother, Cami, she plans to stay only a few days, long enough to get back on her feet, but not so long as to risk encountering those she left behind — and those who left her. Then Cami reveals the real reason she told Lex to come home, giving her a letter written by Lex’s mother that contradicts everything Lex thought she knew about her family’s past. When Cami promises another letter each day she stays in Memphis, Lex knows she has no choice. In her mother’s writing, she might finally find the answers she’d been searching for everywhere except home.
As Lex reads her mother’s letters, Learning to Speak Southern jumps back and forth between the present and the past. A whole history unfurls, telling a story in which it is much harder for Lex to tell the good guys from the bad. The novel speaks to what in family is inescapable and what is unconditional. It shows that parents are people before they are parents, and it implicitly calls on readers to hold space for forgiveness and growth, even when facing people or places that have caused pain.
Cook’s conversational narrative style allows readers to be fully immersed in both the story and Lex’s mind as she grapples with her complicated internal conflict. We see her navigate her shame and rage toward her family’s heritage and the South as a whole, wanting both to be better than she believes they can be.
Cook handles these complex feelings with unfettered honesty, painting a picture that is somehow both devastating and cathartic. By only gradually revealing the past Lex’s mother wished to conceal, she crafts a story rife with plot twists up until the very last pages. And if there is always more to learn, there must always be room to hope.
Book Four (a little different type of story)
Urgent, propulsive, and sharp as a knife, The Other Black Girl is an electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.
Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust
Then the notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.
It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career.
A whip-smart and dynamic thriller and sly social commentary that is perfect for anyone who has ever felt manipulated, threatened, or overlooked in the workplace, The Other Black Girl will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last twist.