Nonfiction Review: PREQUEL (+Friday56 Sign-in)

Title: Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow

Book Beginnings quote:

(Chapter 1: The Glass House)  The reedy and excitable twenty-six-year-old recent Harvard graduate, full of anticipation, was motoring out to an open field in Potsdam, Germany, to attend a Nazi youth rally. Part of the draw for the Harvard man was the chance to see and hear, in person, Adolf Hitler, who was still several months away from ascending to the chancellorship of Germany but already the talk of Europeans and Americans in the know. Another factor in the draw to Potsdam was the opportunity to witness up close the dazzling spectacle reliably on display at Nazi rallies.

Friday56 quote: 

The way Johnson envisioned the Father Coughlin Labor Day event in Chicago, it would recreate the pageantry of a Hitler rally, not unlike the Hitler Youth rally he'd attended in Potsdam four years earlier. "The police were all pro-Coughlin, especially the Irish," Johnson told a Coughlin biographer fifty years after the fact.

Summary: 

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.
 
In the 1930s there was a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it. It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism, and destroy citizens’ confidence in their elected leaders, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the U.S. government and installing authoritarian rule.
 
That effort worked alongside an ultra-right paramilitary movement that stockpiled bombs and weapons and trained for mass murder and violent insurrection.
 
At the same time, a handful of extraordinary activists and journalists were tracking the scheme, exposing it even as it was unfolding. In 1941 the U.S. Department of Justice finally made a frontal attack, identifying the key plotters, finding their backers, and prosecuting dozens in federal court. These efforts at bringing the insurrectionists to justice largely failed.
 
While the scheme has been remembered in history—if at all—as the work of fringe players, in reality, it involved a large number of some of the country’s most influential elected officials. Their interference in law enforcement efforts against the plot is a dark story of the rule of law bending and then breaking under the weight of political intimidation.
 
The tentacles of that unslain beast have reached forward into our history for decades. But the heroic efforts of the activists, journalists, prosecutors, and regular citizens who sought to expose the insurrectionists also make for a deeply resonant, deeply relevant tale in our own disquieting times. (Publisher)

Review: On a recent trip my husband and I listened to the audiobook of Prequel read by Rachel Maddow herself. We watch Maddow every Monday evening on MSNBC and she mentioned aspects of this book and the podcast Ultra on the same topic. We were prepared mentally for the book's topic but I was not prepared emotionally. I got so angry and sad as I listened. It infuriates me that Americans would want to give away their (our) rights to an autocrat like Hitler and that is just about what happened.

If you have never read any of Maddow's books I want you to know that she does exhaustive research. I am fairly sure that all the facts and details in Prequel have never been pulled together in one spot before which increases the impact ten fold. There is no way I can even begin to touch on everything she includes in the book so I thought I would focus on just a few of the historical details that match what is happening today in politics.

Throughout the book we learned that many of the people who were pushing the American First/Pro-Authoritarian agenda in the 1930s and 40s were actually funded by the German (Nazi) government. Some were paid money and others, like some of the legislators who pushed the far-right agenda and attempted to stifle efforts to find out what was going on, were rewarded with money flowing to their pet projects and reelection donations. Sound familiar? We don't have 50+ years of research to back up these claims but the Mueller report did find that Russia interfered with our elections in 2016 and made attempts in 2020 and 2022. Putin wants Trump to be elected again so that Trump will withdraw support for Ukraine. The Republican agenda today is moving toward being more and more pro-Russia. 

The church played a role in the far-right agenda in the 1930s. Father Coughlin had a super popular radio show and his message was very racist, antisemitic,  and isolationist. He had a huge following with millions of people tuning in to his show every week. Today we know that evangelical Christians have thrown their support behind Trump and the Republican agenda, even though the message is the opposite of what Jesus taught his followers to do -- love your neighbor as yourself. 

The judicial system in the 1940s was overwhelmed and essentially swamped by the insurrectionists when they were finally brought up on charges. Delay, tomfoolery, and lack of respect for the justice system were all partially to blame. Essentially most of the indicted individuals never served a day in prison. Though many of the insurrectionists from January 6, 2021 have been convicted and received prison sentences but most of them are low-level participants, not the organizers. Of the 91 indictments Trump has received he has so far been successful in using delay tactics to his benefit over and over again.

 Those of us in the literary world all know that a 'prequel' is a book which was written after the first book about events that happened before. The prequel gives history and context to further the story and the reader's understanding. Rachel Maddow's book is a prequel to what is happening in politics today. She is giving us history and context to round our knowledge in hopes that we will thwart the efforts by many who seem eager to give away our democracy.

The book is a warning! Are we paying attention?

Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

As many of you know Freda over at Freda's Voice hosted #Friday56 for many years. On September 7th she told us she was going through some personal stuff and could no longer host. I've attempted to reach her but have had no reply. So I will host The Friday56 until she comes back. Help me communicate with past participants so they can figure out where and how to find me, please post this post's URL on your blog. Don't forget to drop a comment on my post also! Thanks.

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader

(If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

Review: Ivan Doig's Trilogy: The Morrie Morgan series

The Morrie Morgan series by Ivan Doig

This past month I finally finished the third book in the Morrie Morgan series, Sweet Thunder, by Ivan Doig. The Whistling Season is one of my favorite books and I've read it several times. I became aware that it was part of a series years after the fact and didn't read the second book, Work Song until late last year. Now I've finished the whole series so it seemed like a good time to take a look at the whole trilogy.

The series begins in 1909 in Marias Coulee, a small hamlet in Montana, where a widower and farmer, Oliver Milliron, and his three young sons, Paul, Damon, and Toby answer an ad for a cook and housekeeper. Rose Llewellyn is hired even though the ad says "Can't cook but doesn't bite." When she arrives by train her brother, Morrie Morgan, comes with me and decides to stay, eventually taking over the role of teacher in the small one-room schoolhouse. Morrie is a natural teacher and he ignites the imaginations of his students and finds ways to challenge their minds, especially Paul Milliron who was the brightest kid in the whole school and the narrator of the story. Readers of The Whistling Season come to really like and admire Morrie Morgan but more of the story is focused on the Milliron family and the lives of many of the children who attend the school together and the ways his tutelage changes their lives. For my complete review of The Whistling Season, follow this link.

We meet Morrie Morgan again in 1919 in the second book, Work Song, when he steps off another train, this time in Butte, Montana. This itinerant teacher, walking encyclopedia, and fulltime charmer is back.  After a short stint working at a mortuary, he gets a job as a library assistant, a job he seems born to do. Clearly, I homed in on the library quotes from the book. But the story is really about how to strengthen the unions, whose members are trying to figure out an angle to get more support. Morrie decides they need a song! And just like in Whistling Season the book is cram-packed with quirky characters.

If you haven't read anything by Ivan Doig before, I highly recommend his writing and for a strong feel for what it was like, what it must have been like, to live in the West in the first half of the 20th Century. Every page is full of some witticism or another or just some little treasure hidden on the page. For more about Work Song, please read my review, which is full of favorite quotes.

Sweet Thunder, the third installment, wraps up the series nicely. Morrie and his bride, Grace, return to Butte a year after they left, lured by the promise of a "gift" of a house. Sandy Sandison, Morrie's old boss at the library, as given them his mansion with a catch. He must be allowed to live with them. Like most things that are too good to be true, this house comes with more problems that it fixes. Morrie needs to find a job, and fast! He finds one, or should I say the job finds him, as the editorial writer for a brand new newspaper in Butte, The Thunder. The paper is to be the counterweight to all the other newspapers in town which have been bought-out by the Anaconda Mining Company and their editorial pages reflect the wishes of ownership to never say a negative thing about the company. This is a fairly elaborately plotted novel with lots of twists and turns and a whole host of characters, some new but most returning from the previous books. There are lighthearted moments, especially with a Morrie doppelganger who happens to be a bootlegger but Doig "quietly conveys the injustices and cruelties of American history, particularly in the realistically depressing and temporary resolution of the union’s struggle with Anaconda" (Kirkus Reviews).

I didn't like Sweet Thunder quite as much as the first books in the series. The battles between the editorial writers for the two main newspapers got a bit old. Morrie was so focused on his job he didn't have time or energy to attend to his failing marriage, and the silly bits with the bootleggers seemed, well, silly. As I was reading other readers' reaction on Goodreads one comment really caught my attention. Doig was 75 at the time of his death in 2015. He had been suffering from multiple myeloma for several years. This book, published in 2013 was his second to last. Perhaps, mused the commenter, his illness was keeping him from being at his best. I don't know if that was it, or if it was just hard to write about such a serious topic--union busting and the dangers of mining--without getting serious at times. The series as a whole is so worth it, though, if for no other reason than for its focus on life in the US West in the first half of the 20th Century. I gave Sweet Thunder a rating of four stars, which isn't off the mark by far.

-Anne

Review: I CHEERFULLY REFUSE by Leif Enger

Several years ago my daughter gave me a book, My Ideal Bookshelf by Jane Mount and Thessaly LaForge, which sparked a deep interest inside me to identify my top ten favorite books. The book encorporated art in the form of book spines based on the list of favorite books of famous (quasi-famous) people. I scoured My Ideal Bookshelf for ideas and then set to work to create my own. I couldn't afford to have my personal ideal bookshelf painted by Ms. Mount, but I could take a photo of the books artfully arranged on the fireplace mantle. (See the display and my review of My Ideal Bookshelf here.) After hemming and hawing for days I finally settled upon ten (really eleven +) books, among them was Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. The inclusion of this book was a surprise to even me. It is a quiet book which few people talk about yet I'd read two or three times and just loved it. It's message of hope and love and miracles just simply touched my heart in a very profound way. 

Later I came to realize I was not only a fan of Peace Like a River, but of Leif Enger, the writer. Enger is a wordsmith. After a long hiatus, in 2019 Enger published another book, Virgil Wander, and I checked out the audiobook from the library. The first sentence made me laugh out loud. In fact, I started the audiobook and within a few minutes of listening decided to start over but this time when my husband was with me, knowing he would enjoy the wordsmithery in Virgil Wander as much as me. I was right. 

So it shouldn't come as any surprise to you how I quickly got in line the moment I learned a new Leif Enger book was published. This one, I Cheerfully Refuse, is set in a dystopian future which isn't my usual fare but, hey, it was Leif Enger so I was willing to give it a try.

Rainy, a big bear of a man, is the narrator of I Cheerfully Refuse. He and his wife, Lark, live in a tiny Minnesota town on Lake Superior. He is a musician who plays the bass guitar in bars with his friends. things have gone dangerously dark in the world: autocratic rulers (The Astronauts); pollution; pandemics; a comet is barreling toward earth; and almost all industry has ceased, including the publishing industry. Lark buys and sells used books and is perennially positive, kind, and thoughtful. She even brings home a fugitive who sells her an advanced copy of a book by one of her favorite authors, I Cheerfully Refuse, which was never published. It was never published becoming a victim of the collapse of the publishing world. This fugitive inadvertently brings disaster to Lark and Rainy's doorstep, however. Rainy is forced to go on a quixotic voyage out onto Lake Superior on a rickety sailboat, to avoid negative forces searching for the fugitive and to to see if he can find Lark. Along the way he meets up with many n'er-do-well people, faces many challenges and adventures, eventually linking up with a ten-year-old girl, Sol, who helps change his focus.

I know this description makes the book sound bleak. It is bleak but somehow the story never loses its heart and a sense of hope. "The novel’s voice remains engaging, and its spirit resilient, against some staggeringly tough times" (Kirkus Reviews).

My husband and I listened to the audiobook together. Since we were not on a long car trip, we listened in short spurts, listening to the story when we could fit it in. This is a testament to the writing of Leif Enger that my husband was willing to listen in short sessions instead of insisting on listening only when we had a long stretch of time. We sat together in our living room listening for the last hour of the narration, me crying softly for the sweetness of the end of the story, thinking about the whole idea of endings and new beginnings, and how deeply books can make one feel.

Leif Enger has done it again. Another 5 star book, at least in my opinion.

 

-Anne

TTT: Quotes from Books I've Recently Read

Top Ten Tuesday: Quotes from Books I've Recently Read (and Loved!)

“It is not easy to make a friend let alone lose one.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

e

“Men, after all, delight in nothing so much as to recast themselves in the center of the story.”
― Kelly Barnhill, When Women Were Dragons

e

“We don't walk down the same street as the person walking beside us. All we can do is tell the other person what we see. We can point at things and try to name them. If we do this well, our friend can look at the world in a new way. We can meet.”
― Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

e

“One big appeal of fascism, if nothing else, was its unapologetic embrace of cruelty. Cruelty towards others, coupled with hypersensitivity towards any slight to oneself.”
― Rachel Maddow, Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism

e

“I thought again what an achievement a book is, a magic box simultaneously holding the presence of the author and the wonders of the world.”
― Ivan Doig, Sweet Thunder

e

“Your silence is like rain on my worries, feeding and growing them.”
― Lisa See, Lady Tan's Circle of Women

e

“You couldn’t go anywhere in this town without bumping into God.”
― Tess Gunty, The Rabbit Hutch

e

“Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth about how the world lives!”
― Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water

e

“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

e

“Why, he wondered, did white people get so very upset when anyone disagreed with them?”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

e

onopq

-Anne

Sunday Salon --- Happy Mother's Day!

Aurora Borealis. Photo taken in the middle of the street outside our house in Washington State on 5/10/24.

Weather: Gorgeous, and the aurora borealis!!! Woza. My first time seeing Northern Lights!

Happy Mother's Day! My mother is 95 years old. I win! Mom, I love you so much!

My Mother's Day gift: Don prepares all the planters and helps me put all the plants we purchased during the week into them. No grumbling from him, either. A true act of love. Our Sunday festivities will involve the whole family coming over after church for brunch and games. Then mid-afternoon we'll switch to making the day about celebrating Don's birthday. Such love!

The prettiest season in our yard.

New word -- GRAUPEL: Just two weeks ago we had this weather event, another first. "Although it sounds more like a German dish than a weather event, graupel is a type of winter precipitation that's a mix of snow and hail. Graupel is also known as snow pellets, soft hail, small hail, tapioca snow, rimed snow, and ice balls." Now you have a new word, too!

The camera on my phone helped us see all the swirly lights that our eyes couldn't catch.

Books and Blogging:

• Completed This Week:
• Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. A dystopian tale told set in the near future. A book club selection. Audiobook and print. 4 stars.
• I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger. A favorite author. This is also set in a dystopian future. Audiobook with Don. 5 stars.
• How to Be Perfect: Poems by Ron Padgett. I really enjoyed this collection, many of hte poems are humorous. Print. 4 stars.
• Currently reading:
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I really thought I'd love this classic but I'm really having the opposite experience. 50% complete. Audiobook where the narrator is very irritating.
• The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez. A novel set in Panama during the time period when the canal was being built. 10% complete. Print.
• Blogging:
• Review: Klara and the Sun
• TTT: Flowered Book Covers
• Six Degrees of Separation -- "The Anniversary to..."
• Sunday Salon -- A Little of This and That

I just learned that the solar event that is causing the northern lights was at G5 last night and will be a G4 tonight (Saturday.) For more info checkout Earth.com

Funny or...?

This would be dining at our suet feeder. In fact, the squirrel is dining quite piggily right now.

Good one! "A caterpillar worm ate my brain."

Here's one for the moms, or strong women, out there!

Have a great week!

-Anne

Review: KLARA AND THE SUN

Title: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Book Beginning quote: 

When we were new, Rosa and I were mid-store, on the magazine table side, and could see through more than half of the window. So we could watch the outside -- the office workers hurrying by, the texis, the runners, the tourists, Beggar Man and his dog, the lower part of the RPO Building.

Friday56 quote:

     'It's maybe not really a barn because it's open on two sides. More like a shelter, I guess. Mr. McBain keeps stuff in there. I went there once with Rick.'

     'I wonder why the Sun would go for his rest to a place like that.'

     'Yeah,' Josie said. 'You'd think the Sun would need a palace, minimum.'

Summary: 

In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love? (Publisher)

Review and a look at some of the book club discussion questions:

     I liked Klara and the Sun but I am having trouble getting a fix on all my thoughts about the book, set in a dystopian future where the "haves" alter their children somehow so that they will be superior to others who could not/do not want to be altered. The process is not without potential risks and, in fact, Josie, the young teen who gets Klara as her artificial friend (AF), just about doesn't survive the process.

     In order to better understand the book I thought I'd tackle a few of the book club discussion questions. There will likely be spoilers, so if you plan on reading this book you may want to stop reading here.

Klara and the Sun (Discussion questions)

by Kazuo Ishiguro

1. The setting of KLARA AND THE SUN is sometime in the future, when artificial intelligence (AI) has become more integrated into human society. Which elements of the novel felt familiar to you at the time of reading, which felt hard to imagine, and which were easy to imagine as a possibility for your lifetime?

• We already eat genetically altered food.  I just read about fish created in a laboratory just today.
• To some degree we do expect computers to be our children's friends. It is a creepy thought though.

2. Klara is prized for her observational qualities as an Artificial Friend. How do the tone and style of her first-person narration help to convey the degree of her attention to detail?

• I like that this book was written in first-person. The reader understands that Klara is not human from the way she addresses humans and how she learns. She is unemotional but it made me feel emotional for her.

4. The details of Josie’s illness are kept vague. Based on what we learn from the conversations among Helen, Chrissie, Paul and Rick about the choices parents make for their children in this world, how might that have affected Josie’s condition?

• Whatever was done to Josie altered her DNA in such a profound way she barely survived it and her older sister didn't. Yet, the parents went ahead with altering Josie. Sal's death cast a big shadow over the story, though the details happened outside of the confines of the book. Of course I was curious what it was that they did to her but I didn't get the idea that Josie was made more intelligent from it.

6. Before Klara goes home with Josie, Klara and the other AFs have a rapport with one another, especially with Rosa. What do these conversations, thoughts and feelings suggest about the sophistication of the AI technology in the novel, or about the unknown depths of the AFs’ consciousness?

• As Klara watched the outside world she gained knowledge and understanding. Rosa didn't seem to be as curious as Klara or seem to care as much about what was happening outside the store.

7. What does Klara’s connection to the Sun suggest about the nature of her inner world? Is her understanding of its power based mostly on what seems to be the plain facts of her existence --- that she is powered by solar energy --- or something deeper?

• As intelligent as Klara was, she was remarkably stupid about the Sun and the orbit of the earth. She actually thought the sun went to bed in the barn and got up in the morning. She treated the Sun like the all-giving life force, which makes sense because she needed the sun to recharge her batteries.

9. Discuss Klara and the Mother’s trip to Morgan’s Falls together. How does the natural setting help the Mother to reveal some of her vulnerabilities and fears? Why do you think the Mother makes the choices she does for her daughter?

• This was the really creepy part of the story -- how the mother loved Josie (and Sal before her) so much she was willing to sacrifice their lives for their advancements. But here we start to understand that Klara is being groomed to step in as a surrogate if needed.

11. Consider some of the ways that the characters in the book socialize: the “quick coffee” with the Mother and Josie, the kids’ “interaction meetings,” Josie and Rick’s drawing meetings, and the sessions Josie has with Mr. Capaldi. How did you interpret the tone and atmosphere of these moments of connection between humans?

• The mother was old enough to remember having friends and outside relationships. Now children had to have social opportunities arranged for them by their parents. It is sad to think this is what is happening with our world, too. Kids take remote learning and never learn how to navigate through relationships.

12. What was your opinion on the plan to turn Klara into an avatar of Josie? Who would have benefited most from Josie being able to “live” on in another form? Would you have made the same choice for your child or a loved one in the same situation?

• Well, clearly Josie wouldn't have benefited. She would be dead if Klara was her avatar. The mother thought she loved Josie so much she couldn't give her up, but could she really have accepted Klara as her daughter? I doubt it. I would never do such a thing. 

13. Klara and Paul share a moment of concern and consideration regarding her ability to learn Josie’s heart, which he describes as: “Rooms within rooms within rooms.... No matter how long you wandered through those rooms, wouldn’t there always be others you’d not yet entered?” (216). What do you make of Klara’s response about the finitude of such metaphorical rooms? Would you say, in your own experience, you’ve been able to explore and learn all the rooms of your own heart, or another person’s?

• Clearly there is no end to the depth of each of our hearts/self/ego. It was folly to think otherwise. What bothers me was why did Paul, the father, go along with this plan?

14. Would you describe the relationship between Klara and Josie as love? Where did you notice what seemed like genuine love to you in the novel?

• Love? At times it seemed that way at least going from Klara to Josie. But the parting, when Josie was leaving for college was so impersonal. I cried.

16. What did you make of Klara’s personification of the Sun, particularly in her final plea to save Josie? She observes in the layers of glass “that in fact there existed a different version of the Sun’s face on each of the glass surfaces.... Although his face on the outermost glass was forbidding and aloof, and the one immediately behind it was, if anything, even more unfriendly, the two beyond that were softer and kinder” (273). Have you ever experienced nature and other nonhuman entities in a similar way? What value does this have in our ability to experience compassion for each other?

• The is the crux of the story, I think. Klara was very naive but also so determined to help her girl. 

17. What did you think of the place where Klara is sent after Josie is finished with her? What does this bring up about the moral and ethical considerations of integrating more AI into society? Did her fate bring to mind that of any people you know?

• I couldn't figure this part out. Was she sent? Or did she just somehow end up there? At one point she noticed an old blender from the housekeepers kitchen. What she at the dump waiting for the end of her battery life? Another part I cried over without really understanding what was happening.

18. Who, in the end, seems more human to you --- the people in the novel, or the AFs?

• Why Klara, the AF, of course.

Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

As many of you know Freda over at Freda's Voice hosted #Friday56 for many years. On September 7th she told us she was going through some personal stuff and could no longer host. I've attempted to reach her but have had no reply. So I will host The Friday56 until she comes back. Help me communicate with past participants so they can figure out where and how to find me, please post this post's URL on your blog. Don't forget to drop a comment on my post also! Thanks.

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader

(If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

TTT: Flowered Book Covers

Top Ten Tuesday: Flowered Book Covers

Apparently I don't read many books with flowers on the cover so I had to search back in my files as far as 2019 to find the ten book covers I've highlighted here. Either that or flowers are not popular on covers right now. Interestingly, eight of the ten books here have strong female protagonists. (Indicated by ** in list below.) I wonder if there is a correlation between flowers and strong women?

Interested in any of these books? Hyperlinked titles will take you to my reviews:

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett **

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin **

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill **

Maame by Jessica George **

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett ** (Pink blobs on wallpaper are roses.)

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams **

The Ghost of Rose Hill by R.M. Romero **

Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer

Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy **

I liked all of these books and I also like all of the covers.

-Anne

Six Degrees of Separation --- "The Anniversary to ..."

Six Degrees of Separation

We start with

↓ 

The Anniversary by Stephanie Bishop.
It was on the Stella Prize Longlist this year. I haven't read it.

↓ 

The Souvenir Museum: Stories by Elizabeth McCracken.
This story collection was on the National Book Award Longlist Book in 2021.

↓ 

 

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.
This story collection won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Many of the stories are set in India.

↓ 

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese.
Is also set in India and it won the 2023 BrowseBook Award and the Viking Award for setting and place. I've never heard of either of these award before.

↓ 

The Leavers by Lisa Ko.
The Leavers won the Bellwether Award in 2016. This is another award most people haven't heard of. It recognizes excellence in literature which addresses social justice issues. 

↓ 

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.
This YA novel won the Morris Award and a Printz Honor, among its many, many awards in 2017 for this sharp criticism of racial justice in the US.

↓ 

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.
This book pokes a sharp stick at the terrible treatment of women and girls in a dystopian future. It was the Booker Prize co-winner in 2019. 

↓ 

Question mark.
Today, May 6th, The Pulitzer Prize will be announcing their pick for best literature of 2023. What book will win? The Pulitzer Prize committee does not tip its hand and give any hints, finalists or short or long lists to help us guess. What book will win? We don't have long to wait to find out.

There are so many different book awards, each recognizing different authors, types of books, or nationalities. For example the Stella Prize goes to the best literature written by an Australian female author, while the National Book Award goes to an American author. A qualification for the Booker Prize used to be that the author must live in the British Commonwealth but they have extended it to be books written in English and published in the UK. The Women's Prize, which I couldn't find a way to work into my list, goes only to female authors publishing in English. The Printz Award is the highest honor given to YA books as part of the Youth Media Awards given out by the American Library Association. It is announced each years alongside many other awards which you likely have heard of like the Caldecott Award and the Newbery Medal. I really enjoy reading award books because I think someone else, who knows what they are doing, has already done the work of determining the quality of the writing. And that is a big deal to me.

Join in the fun by creating your own 6-Degrees list of books. One never quite knows where they will end up. Link: Books are My Favourite and Best 6-Degrees Meme.

-Anne