Dear Readers,
I always think of autumn as the time of year that brings an embarrassment of riches in the publishing world but we are in the midst of an absolute boom of brand-spanking-new books. In particular, our fiction shelves are filled with tremendous possibilities for days when the weather keeps us at home or long-put-off spring break trips actually come to fruition (hallelujah!).
If you haven't had a chance to visit us in a week or two, you'll notice up front and center our celebration of Black History Month featuring titles about Black achievement and perseverance plus beautiful volumes on food, dance, art, and much more. We'd love to share some of these magnificent titles with you so if you have a few free minutes, we hope you'll swing by and have a look.
Finally, today's Friday Five is all about something I've been thinking about a lot lately: why can it be so hard to change our minds? The list is a bit rambling but I hope you find something you can sink your teeth into and discuss with friends. And one more thing - Listening With Leslie is back so don't forget to scroll all the way down and see what she recommends you listen to this week!
We look forward to seeing you soon,
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Changing one's mind, whether that of the reader or characters (or in many cases both) is, of course, a common part of the reading experience. Sometimes it happens when new information is presented. Often repressed memories remerge when triggered by an old acquaintance or remembered event. In the Mystery and Suspense genre it's an essential trope; what fun would it be, for example, if whodunnit suspicions never shifted by the end of the book? For those among us desiring self-improvement, excellent guidebooks (Mindset, Think Again, etc.) provide research-based advice to help us produce more flexible mindsets and more.
All of this is a long on-ramp to this week's Friday Five which was inspired by an early morning reading of Recitatif, Toni Morrison's first short story, reissued this month in a brilliant stand alone volume with a preface by Zadie Smith (which, may I say, will absolutely blow your mind). Picture the best university lecture you ever attended and translate it to book form; Smith makes you feel like you are engaged in a back and forth conversation about this multilayered text. The tale follows two orphan girls whose overlap at St. Bonaventure shelter seals them together for life. Morrison deliberately plays with questions of racial identity, forcing the reader to question their assumptions, while the characters also find themselves engaged in a tortuous battle with their own memories. Changing their minds about a shameful event from their past may change how they move forward in the future.
Of course significant shifts of the mind are not always chosen or welcome. This is on full display in Julie Otsuka's fantastic new novel, The Swimmers (under 200 pages alert for short fiction fans out there). In The Swimmers, a group of dedicated, if somewhat obsessed swimmers, use the community pool to assuage a variety of ills. When the pool is suddenly closed due to a mysterious crack, the focus zeroes in on one woman whose mental decline coincides with the end of her daily laps. (NOTE: This book releases on 2/22/22 but we have plenty of stock coming and we'd be happy to reserve a copy for you).
Now that you have a short recommendation in your pocket, here's one for those looking for a serious project: Nobel Prize winning author Olga Tokarczuk is back with a gorgeous translation by Jennifer Croft. The Books of Jacob follows a cult-like leader through a multistage metamorphosis as he tried on a variety of religious traditions, changing minds and hearts as he himself transitions from Judaism to Catholicism to Islam. Need some additional cheerleading to dive into this nearly 1,000 page tome? Ron Charles notes: "The Books of Jacob is finally available here in a wondrous English translation by Jennifer Croft, and it’s just as awe-inspiring as the Nobel judges claimed when they praised Tokarczuk for showing 'the supreme capacity of the novel to represent a case almost beyond human understanding.' In terms of its scope and ambition, The Books of Jacob is beyond anything else I’ve ever read." Book club discussion, anyone?
Finally, what happens when an author deliberately offers up alternative versions of a story? Telephone derives its title from the childhood game, which, as anyone with experience knows, almost always ends with the original message shifting as it passes through a multitude of ears, brains, and mouths. The plot follows a father struggling with the irreversible cognitive decline of his daughter as she slowly loses her mind and thus agency over her life. Everett published not one, not two, but three versions of this novel, only discernible by slight directional differences in the compasses that appear on the cover. Was it because he couldn't make up his mind about which version was the best? Or did he want us to question the validity of the version procured? From Wall Street Journal columnist Sam Sacks: "God bless Percival Everett, whose dozens of idiosyncratic books demonstrate a majestic indifference to literary trends, the market or his critics...the unknown both haunts and inspires Mr. Everett's books."
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New on the Shelf: Fiction |
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New on the Shelf: Nonfiction |
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Author: Lauren Groff
Narrator: Adjoa Andoh
Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
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I spent my High School years in a boarding school being taught by highly educated, creative women of strong character and quick wit, who just happened to be Nuns. Even at the time, I wondered how they were able to lead satisfying lives serving a church in which men held most of the power. Lauren Groff brings us a character in the person of the Abbess Marie, who manages to inspire a group of nuns to perform tasks that can only be described as heroic under the most challenging of circumstances. Matrix is narrated in the rich, full voice of the great British actress Adjoa Andoh, who could dignify even the most prosaic prose, and who has in Lauren Groff’s lyrical, descriptive language a vehicle worthy of her talent. Matrix is set in the middle-ages during the sixty years that the vastly wealthy Eleanor of Aquitaine dominated the European stage, her power only matched or even exceeded by the Roman Catholic church. Taking her inspiration from a poet of the period Marie de France, about whom little is known, Groff creates an unforgettable character in Marie, who has as much strength and cunning as her beloved Queen Eleanor. A bastard half-sibling of King Henry II, Marie has none of the grace and beauty of her mother, but is educated, unusually tall and strong and can ride and hunt like a man, traits which make her unmarriageable and thus unwelcome at the court. Queen Eleanor decides to take advantage of Marie’s obvious devotion and relegates her to what she expects will be obscurity as Abbess of a remote and bankrupt abbey. Although raised as a Catholic, Marie is no believer in the “foolish” notions of the Church, especially the “law of submission” that places women at the mercy of men. Marie resolves to prove her worthiness, gradually transforming this sickly and starving group of women into a thriving, self-sufficient community comprising not only nuns, but also wealthy widows there for retirement and girls studying in its schools. Among the many interwoven strands of this story is the awakening of Marie’s spiritual perceptions and physical desires, culminating in 19 ecstatic visions of the Virgin Mary, exquisitely, sensually, and reverentially portrayed by Groff. While Matrix is a multi-layered story set against the backdrop of a complex, violent time, at its heart, this is a story of women in community finding the strength and resolve to create meaningful lives. |
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