This week, we share our First Impressions readers' enthusiastic comments about Costanza Casati's debut novel Clytemnestra, a fresh and accessible take on one of Greek mythology's most villainized women.

Our Editor's Choice review features Abraham Verghese's superb multigenerational epic The Covenant of Water, which we're happy to see is getting plenty of attention, including as an Oprah's Book Club pick!

If you are or know a librarian, be sure to check out the recent BookBrowse webinar hosted by Niche Academy: Building Community Through Book Clubs.

Plus, we have a new Wordplay for you to puzzle out. Enjoy!

With best wishes,

Davina Morgan-Witts

BookBrowse Publisher

Each month, we share books with BookBrowse members to read and review. Here are their opinions on one recently released title.

"Costanza Casati’s debut novel is a creative retelling of the life of Clytemnestra, a classical heroine of Greek mythology. She is strong, powerful, fearless, ambitious and loyal. A woman who is unwilling to be solely defined by the culture and norms of her time. ... Casati writes to create the times of ancient Greece, concealing impeccable research behind beautiful and lyrical prose. Having read The Song of Achilles, Ariadne and Circe, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and highly recommend it." - Cassandra W.

"Put aside any hesitation about reading a novel set in the world of ancient Greece. The author gently navigates the reader through the maze of historical characters and places so that Clytemnestra's personal story can clearly unfold. The savage fighting skills she learned as a princess of Sparta will sustain her through tragic losses while simultaneously providing her with the ability to maintain her focus on loyalty and love of her family. This is a journey to be experienced!" - Robin S.

"Clytemnestra was a courageous woman, a loving and protective mother, and a fearless leader. There is a lot of life lived in these pages. I highly recommend this book and I plan to share it with my book club in 2023." - Carla A.

Along the Malabar Coast of South India in 1900, a 12-year-old girl grieving her father's death sets off to a rambling estate called Parambil to marry a man almost 30 years her senior. Three generations later, her granddaughter and namesake begs her for a story about their ancestors and a genealogy "chock-full of secrets." So begins an unforgettable journey of faith, medicine and love in Abraham Verghese's magisterial novel The Covenant of Water.

Mariamma, the young bride, arrives at the 500-acre Parambil farm missing her mother and uncertain of her future. Finding strength in her faith as a Saint Thomas Christian, she throws herself into her duties as a wife and homemaker. As the years go by and she bears a child, her stepson JoJo calls her Big Ammachi ("Big Little Mother"), and the name sticks. She becomes the matriarch and mainstay of a family with a peculiar affliction, one she refers to as the "Condition": every generation, one person dies from drowning. Early in her marriage, after an unimaginable tragedy occurs, her husband unrolls a fragile parchment revealing a family tree (what she will call "the Water Tree") going back seven generations. ... continued

One of the overarching themes in Abraham Verghese's The Covenant of Water is faith, in all its various guises. For the character Big Ammachi and her family, it is their proud history as Saint Thomas Christians that sustains them in their bleakest hours.

The novel refers to the legend of Saint Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ, landing in 52 CE along the Malabar Coast, in the modern-day state of Kerala. He is believed to have converted a few Brahmin (high-caste Hindu) families to Christianity, and Verghese writes that those first converts, Saint Thomas Christians, "stayed true to the faith and did not marry outside their community. Over time they grew, knitted together by their customs and their churches." ... continued

Niche Academy recently hosted a webinar with BookBrowse's Founder, Davina Morgan-Witts, in which she explores book clubs and particularly book clubs in libraries, based on two surveys of over 5,000 book club members.

Topics include:

The presentation also covers:

The program is relevant to librarians, whether they are running book groups or providing readers' advisory to those in groups.

Solve our Wordplay puzzle to reveal a well-known expression, and be entered to win a one-year membership to BookBrowse!

The answer to the last Wordplay: P, Heal T

Meaning: Fix your own faults before pointing to the faults in others.

This proverb appears to have been in common use in the Roman Empire of 70 AD given that it is referenced as such in the Gospel of Luke, as translated in the King James Bible.

And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. ... continued