Hello,
This week, we invite you to check out our book club discussion of Elizabeth Strout's early-pandemic novel Lucy by the Sea, which follows a divorced couple spending lockdown together.
In Editor's Choice, we bring you another intimate depiction of a dissolved relationship, Ayana Mathis's long-awaited second novel The Unsettled, which traces the history and present of a mother-daughter estrangement.
You can also explore our vast historical fiction category, get the inside scoop on the right number of pages for a book club book, and enter our latest giveaway for a chance to win a copy of Lauren Grodstein's We Must Not Think of Ourselves.
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With best wishes,
The BookBrowse Team
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Discussions are open to all to view and participate, so if you've read a book, click on "discuss."
If you have not, we suggest you go to "about the book" to avoid spoilers.
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Lucy by the Sea
by Elizabeth Strout
From the Jacket
From Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout comes a poignant, pitch-perfect novel about a divorced couple stuck together during lockdown - and the love, loss, despair, and hope that animate us even as the world seems to be falling apart.
From the Discussion
"I liked reading about how others managed during the pandemic, and I liked reading about Lucy’s thoughts. She seems to always have an anxious mind. I even liked that Olive Kitteridge was mentioned. Life is so unpredictable and I appreciate that Strout’s stories reflect that." —Patricia Ann
"Reading Lucy by the Sea helped me look at how I may have been processing everything myself at the time — disbelief, anger, resignation, deep sadness, worry, fear, yet also joy, excitement, and gratitude...the small things are the big things, and before the pandemic I might have been taking a lot of them for granted." —acstrine
"The writing was superb. I thought the character of Lucy was well developed. ... The descriptions made me feel I was there in the country setting. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it a great story for a horrific period in all our lives." —arlenei
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The Unsettled
by Ayana Mathis
Eleven years after The Twelve Tribes of Hattie became a global sensation, Ayana Mathis offers another domestic portrait. The Unsettled, set in the 1980s, is about a multi-generational black family who are estranged from one another and carry the painful freight of the past.
The story opens in an uncomfortable place. Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son Toussaint are forced to find residence in a Philadelphia homeless shelter after Ava's violent husband Abemi Reed kicks her out of the house. Shaken and feeling betrayed, Ava gropes through her new life while suffering from headaches, depression, and despair. The shelter's feeble attempts at normalcy fill her with distaste and contempt. They are a reminder of her mother, who she blames for her hardships.
Hundreds of miles away, Dutchess lives on a rutted red dirt road, fighting off developers from the Progress Corp who want her land, the last thousand acres left. During the twentieth century, Bonaparte, Alabama — whose placard reads Negro Incorporated Town, established 1868 — was sold off, one farm plot after another, or as the locals saw it, taken by "white folk's thieveries." ... continued
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This issue of The BookBrowse Review features reviews and "beyond the book" articles for 14 titles, including Chenneville by Paulette Jiles, Flee North by Scott Shane and Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward (publishing next week.)
We also bring you a reading list of books that reflect on mid-life, the latest book news, previews of 35 new and notable books publishing in the next two weeks, and much more!
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What you see on BookBrowse for free is just a small part of what is available to members for just $3.75/month.
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A subscription to BookBrowse for Libraries provides remote and in-library access to all patrons and staff at a very affordable rate—an excellent book discovery resource for book club members and all those who read to expand their horizons!
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Jesmyn Ward's Let Us Descend and Paulette Jiles' Chenneville, both appearing in the latest issue of The BookBrowse Review, are featured in our Historical Fiction category, where you can find more than 600 recommended works of fiction that take place in past eras.
This is just one of 130+ themed categories you can explore on BookBrowse to find the perfect read for your book club or yourself. Members can enjoy access to all categories, while non-members have limited access.
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What's the right number of pages for a book club book? Should your group set a page limit for the titles you read?
In our most recent annual survey, we asked subscribers how their clubs factor the length of books into their selection process. Here, we'll explore their answers and the significance of page count for book clubs in general.
As it turns out, very few of our respondents' clubs have a hard rule when it comes to page count. But that's not to say that book length doesn't matter. ... continued
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We Must Not Think of Ourselves
by Lauren Grodstein
From the Jacket
On a November day in 1940, Adam Paskow becomes a prisoner in the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Jews of the city are cut off from their former lives and held captive by Nazi guards, and await an uncertain fate. Weeks later, he is approached by a mysterious figure with a surprising request: Will he join a secret group of archivists working to preserve the truth of what is happening inside these walls? Adam agrees and begins taking testimonies from his students, friends, and neighbors. He learns about their childhoods and their daydreams, their passions and their fears, their desperate strategies for safety and survival. The stories form a portrait of endurance in a world where no choices are good ones.
Praise
"[A] delicate, warm account of a brutal, cold time, grounded in humanity, small details, and unwavering clarity." ―Kirkus Reviews
"Grodstein makes her persecuted characters achingly human... This will stay with readers." ―Publishers Weekly
About This Sweepstakes
Algonquin Books will publish We Must Not Think of Ourselves by Lauren Grodstein on November 28. We have five early reader copies to give away.
Due to copyright restrictions, this offer is only open to residents of the USA.
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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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