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Memphis: A Novel by Tara Stringfellow

April 11, 2022

memphis

Memphis is both the title and location of Tara Stringfellow’s stirring debut novel. Three generations of women pass through the family’s home and tumultuous times in a city where racism and violence flourish. Hazel, August, Miriam, and Joan share lives that spill over with trauma, love, and resilience in this novel about the abiding strength in love and family. It's 1995 and ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, Southern life

The Honeybee Emeralds

April 8, 2022

honeybee

The Honeybee Emeralds is about a young woman working at a Parisian magazine who discovers a gorgeous necklace in the pocket of an old coat. Is it real? Who did it belong to? The hunt is on in this fun, light novel. The magazine Alice interns at is failing fast, as evidenced by the fact that the heat has been off in the building for weeks. She and a surly neighbor are ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: debut, historical fiction, Paris

Four Treasures of the Sky

April 6, 2022

four

From the near-future in The Candy House I read my way through the distant past in Jenny Zhang’s Four Treasures of the Sky. The novel is the story of Daiyu, a young girl in China, kidnapped and smuggled to America in the early 1880s. A government law banning all Chinese from entering America had no impact on the market for beautiful young girls, a world Daiyu is forced into. Not ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, historical fiction, literary

Peach Blossom Spring

March 25, 2022

peach

I’ve done my fair share of fictional reading about World War II. What I’ve never heard much about is Chinese history at the time. Peach Blossom Spring goes some way towards rectifying that as it spans one family’s journey from mainland China in the mid-20th century all the way up to America in 2015. In that time, much changes including the shape and meaning of family and ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: China, debut, historical fiction, war

Dilettante: True Tales of Excess, Triumph, and Disaster

March 14, 2022

dilettante

Good morning! Sometimes I read a book and love it so much that I agonize over the words to review it. Then, there is the more unusual experience of a book that is such easy, delicious reading words are fighting their way out of my brain and onto the page. That’s the case with today’s book, Dilettante by Dana Brown. Brown worked at Vanity Fair for 25 years. This is his memoir ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: debut, memoir, New York City, pop culture

Brown Girls: A Novel

February 21, 2022

brown girls

Who are the brown girls? When Daphne Palasi Andreades’s novel, Brown Girls, opens it’s Nadira, Khadija, Anjali, Yesenia, and Sophie, a group of 10-year-olds growing up in the “dregs of Queens”. In under 250 pages they pass from childhood to old age in lives that are as singular as they are relatable. Not to mention riveting. Andreades makes bold stylistic choices in Brown ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, debut, literary

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