Staff Picks for March

 

City of Women

By

David Gillham

 

 City of Women is yet another novel about World War II.  It is at once a thriller, a mystery, a romance and expose of those dark days in 1943 Berlin when most of the men were off fighting and the women were left home working war-effort jobs, raising babies for the glorification of the Reich, hiding in air raid shelters almost every night when the allies bombed and clandestinely working the black market or smuggling Jews and dissidents out of the country.

 

  A beautifully written, compelling, passionate story, where no one is quite what they seem and it is almost impossible (in a world of Nazi spies and snitches), to find anyone you can trust.

New FIC G413c

 

--Judith                                        

 

 ENON

by

Paul Harding

 

 

Enon is the name of the small town where Charlie Crosby grew up, worked, married, and where he raised his daughter. Enon is about Charlie’s descent into self-destruction and hallucinogenic landscape, where reality and illusion are blurred. Charlie’s life changed forever when the worst tragedy a parent can imagine, happened to him and his wife.

No wanting to reveal too much of what Charlie goes through, suffice it to say, how Charlie responds to his life situation, is hard to take in, because of the depth of emotion, loss, family ties, and grief.

I was drawn in by Harding’s  prose and deeply intimate portrayal of Charlie.

Enon is a continuation of the Crosby family written about in Harding’s debut and Pulitzer prize winning novel, Tinkers.

Lisa

New  FIC H263e

 

Cheryl’s Pick of the Month

March 2014

 

Crowns:

Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats

by Michael Cunningham & Craig Marberry

 

 

One white lady told me I could wear a paper bag on my head and look all right.  I came home and rolled a paper bag up and put it on my head. I looked at myself and said, “Humph, she just telling a tale.”

Carmen Bonham

 

You haven’t seen beautiful until you see a black woman all dressed to the nines ready to go to church. Her crowning glory is her hat!  This book is an exquisite collection of black women in their finest hats. Each photo is accompanied by a 2-page essay where each woman tells about her hats, friends, family, and of course her church.  What’s interesting is when you look and these beautiful women in their hats, is what the hat tell you about the woman.

 

Some of my favorites:  Carmen Bonham, page 13; Charlene Graves, page 42; Denise Hartsfield, page 61; Jacquelyn Jenkins, page 69, Charlotte Swann, page 141.

 

 391.43 Cun

Horseman, Pass By may be the Larry McMurtry book you haven’t read yet. The good things about it are that it:

 

      ·        is not a traditional Western about cowboys, trail drives, and gunfights;

·        is short; and

·        is a very good human story.

 

Yes, the story involves the West but the story is told from the point of view of the teenager Lonnie who is torn between the traditional life and character of his grandfather and the wild living of his irascible uncle, Hud.

 

In the beginning of McMurtry’s career he swore that he would not write stories about the romanticized, unrealistic and stereotypical perception of the historical frontier. Lonesome Dove changed that but that’s another story.  Horseman, Pass By is his first book (1961) and it describes a West that is changing from the dusty, hard life of the past to a more modern and urbanized reality less secluded on the ranch and engaged in more pervasive cultural and societal change.

 

FIC M168h

Paul