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Hi Davina,
This week, we bring you our First Impressions readers' comments on Digging Stars, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma's quirky and captivating novel about a young woman studying astronomy in the shadow of her accomplished father, and searching for answers after his mysterious death.
Our Editor's Choice pick is Elizabeth Fremantle's Disobedient, a historical tale as rich and intense as the work of its subject: Italian Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi. The accompanying "beyond the book" article focuses on Judith Slaying Holofernes, considered the early feminist painter's masterpiece.
Plus, be sure to check out recent reader reviews and a new Wordplay!
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With best wishes,
Davina Morgan-Witts
BookBrowse Publisher
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Each month, we share books with BookBrowse members to read and review. Here are their opinions on one recently released title. | |
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Digging Stars
by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
"I enjoyed this book about a daughter following in her father's footsteps in the field of astronomy! It was definitely different from anything I had read before and wove in elements of the stars with elements of relationships, mainly the father/daughter connection. Rosa, like many girls, idolized her father, and with his unexpected death, the mystery of him makes her long even more for him." —Becky S. (Springfield, MO)
"I love to read for entertainment but when a book piques my interest in a subject I know nothing about that is even better! I went down the internet rabbit hole to read about Zimbabwe, Bantu geometry, astronomy, melanin research, etc. … The story is energized with an off-kilter feeling." —Marci G. (Sicklerville, NJ)
"This is one of the most interesting books I've read in a while. It explores so many issues: astronomy and space exploration, racism, relationships and the search for the understanding of, and love for, a remarkable and genius parent." —Melissa C. (Saint Johns, FL)
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Members! This month's First Impressions and Book Club books are now available to request. Offer closes end of Saturday September 16.
Books are provided free of charge to BookBrowse members resident in the U.S. with the understanding that they'll do their best to either write a short review or take part in an online discussion forum (depending on whether the book is assigned for First Impressions or the Book Club). Members who choose to take part generally receive a book about every 3-4 months.
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Not yet a member? Free books from our monthly First Impressions and Book Club offers are one of the many benefits of a BookBrowse membership. If you're interested in becoming a member, or renewing a lapsed membership, and do so before end of this Saturday (the 16th), you'll have the opportunity to request the book of your choice from these five titles. As a new or returning member, if you request just one title you have a very good chance of receiving it; if you request two or more titles, you will definitely receive one of them.
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Disobedient
by Elizabeth Fremantle
Born in Rome in 1593, Artemisia Gentileschi led a successful career as an artist throughout the early 17th century. In recent years, she has come to be regarded by many as one of the most influential and talented artists of the era. However, her career was almost over before it even began, when, aged just 17, she was raped by fellow artist Agostino Tassi.
It is a difficult task to imbue real events with the dramatic flair of fiction without sensationalizing them, but author Elizabeth Fremantle strikes a sensitive balance. She also does well to showcase Gentileschi's inherent rebellious nature and more modern outlook from the beginning, establishing her as a young woman unafraid to challenge the norm. By age 17, for example, when the majority of the novel is set, she already regularly stands up to her father's drunken temper, in a time when children – especially girls – are expected to toe the line. The author also has Gentileschi show complete acceptance of her best friend Piero's homosexuality. These quiet yet powerful rebellions pave the way for her later determination to bring the truth to light following the assault, a mission that forms the crux of the novel. ...continued
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Beyond the Book:
Judith Slaying Holofernes
Judith Slaying Holofernes — also referred to as Judith Beheading Holofernes — is widely considered the masterpiece of Italian Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-c.1656), the protagonist of Elizabeth Fremantle's novel Disobedient. It depicts the Biblical tale of the widowed Israelite Judith, with the help of her maidservant Abra, killing the Assyrian general to free her people from his siege on the city of Bethulia.
The tale of Judith was popular among artists at the time, but Gentileschi's depiction is noted for being perhaps the most graphic and realistic ever put to canvas, with a marked emphasis on the physical strength and mental determination of her heroine, as well as the resulting bloodshed.
There are, in fact, two versions of this iconic work. ...continued
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As you may know, through our First Impressions program, BookBrowse members can receive free copies of some titles in exchange for their honest review. But any visitor can write a review for any of the more than 17,000 books we've covered, just by clicking on the "Write a Review" link.
To see what BookBrowse visitors have been saying recently, visit our Best Recent Reader Reviews page, where you'll find a constantly updated selection of opinions for a wide variety of books. Below are just a few examples:
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"This is a remarkable and powerful story that is also a really good read, but the best description of all comes straight from author Xochitl Gonzalez: It's a big, weird novel. It is about a lot of things: Puerto Rican politics, political corruption, the close-knit diaspora of Puerto Rican communities in New York City, and a bit of Puerto Rican history. But more than all that, this is a very human novel—a story about breaking free from social restraints and family expectations and fully realizing your dreams…of becoming who you were meant to be" (Cathryn C). More
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"It is crystal clear that Tom Hanks loves movies. He loves acting, he loves the process, and most importantly he loves all the people involved with movies. The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece is a love letter to all the casts and crews, from the superstars to the extras and the directors to the gofers. ... This is a well-woven, intricate tale with fully fleshed-out characters that you instantly become enraptured with. My personal favorites are Al Mac-Teer, Wren Lane and Ynez Gonzalez-Cruz, but I fully support you choosing your own dearest ones!" (Gloria M). More
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"This book might be subtitled, 'What we do for love': love of place, nature, parents, children, siblings; romantic love and illicit love, platonic and physical. This remarkable collection of linked stories is told in different voices from different times, with many contemporaneous social and cultural issues explored. There are riddles, ballads, and ghost stories, and writing that seems to come right from the first-hand accounts of captured colonial settlers as well as Victorian authors like Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, and 1950s-60s pulp crime fiction" (Deborah C). More
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Solve our Wordplay puzzle to reveal a well-known expression, and be entered to win a one-year membership to BookBrowse!
A J O A Thousand M B W O S
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The answer to the last Wordplay: E Dog H I D
"Every dog has its day"
Meaning: Sooner or later, every person has a stroke of good fortune.
It is safe to assume that this expression was in regular use during the mid 16th century as, in response to his request for a picture of her, the then Princess Elizabeth wrote to her brother King Edward VI as follows:
"…Of this also yet the proof could not be great, because the occasions have been so small, notwithstanding, as a dog hath a day, so may I perchance have time to declare it in deeds, which now I do humbly beseech your majesty, that when you shall look on my picture you will witsafe to think, that as you have but the outward shadow of the body afore you, so my inward mind wisheth that the body itself were oftener in your presence…" ...continued
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BookBrowse Highlights is one of our four free newsletters. We also offer Publishing This Week every Sunday, and Book Club News and Librarian News monthly.
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