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The First Actress: A novel

May 27, 2020

actress

Born the illegitimate daughter of a French courtesan, Sarah Bernhardt didn’t even live with her mother until she was eight years old. When she did move in with her, Sarah caught the eye of one of her mother’s patrons and was shipped off to convent boarding school. Not for her safety, but because her mother didn’t want the competition.  When she returned to Paris at 15 her ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 19th century, France, historical fiction

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life

May 25, 2020

irby

Samantha Irby is a 36-year-old, black, lesbian living in Chicago. She also grew up broke-ass poor—all of which she lets you know from the get-go in her essay collection We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. But her biographical details are the least interesting thing about her. What really matters is that she is wildly funny, even as I cringed at how she has NO filter about ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: essays, humor

Master Class by Christina Dalcher

May 22, 2020

master

Christina Dalcher’s debut novel, Vox, established her as one of those writers who can layer present events onto the future and make it grim, but plausible. In the novel, separation of church and state disappear and one of the first acts of the new government is to restrict the number of words a woman can speak each day. Yeah. Now, she’s back and she sets Master Class in a ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: dystopia, science fiction, thriller

Rodham: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld

May 20, 2020

rodham

Seldom has there been a public figure more scrutinized, disparaged, and talked about than Hillary Rodham Clinton. You might think it’s the price to be paid for entering politics, but the level of personal attacks against her often seem largely based on the fact that she is a she. Add to this her marriage to a man not known for his fidelity and her defeat in the 2016 ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, historical fiction, literary, politics, women

Little Family by Ishmael Beah

May 18, 2020

family

In an abandoned field hidden by a maze of thickets, trees, and shrubs is a downed airplane. When it crashed is unknown, but in this unnamed African country it has become home for four young people and one little girl. In Little Family they use stealth, determination, and their wits to survive in a world that either views them with suspicion or has forgotten them entirely. At ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, cultural, literary

Old Lovegood Girls by Gail Godwin

May 14, 2020

lovegood

No one could be more surprised than me to be back again this week with another slower paced, character driven novel, but here I am. Gail Godwin’s Old Lovegood Girls is the story of Feron and Meredith (who goes by Merry), two young women who meet when they are fortuitously matched as roommates at Lovegood College, an all-girls Southern school. They are an unlikely pair who ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Bloomsbury, book clubs, friendship, historical fiction, literary, women

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