The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
At the end of my fourth-grade year, in 1956 when I was ten, my father borrowed money from my grandfather to purchase the former Homelawn Hotel and convert it to a...
Category: Historical
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
Etaf Rum’s powerful debut novel, A Woman Is No Man reveals the lives of three generations of Palestinian-American women told in primarily two time periods (1990 and present day). Through these...
The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
The crime at the heart of this novel occurs in 1826 in London: Frannie Langton is accused of the brutal double murder of her employers George Benham, who is a famous...
The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
A Beautifully Written Tribute to Those Who Fought for Social Justice I loved this historical fiction novel as much as The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash. And that’s enormous praise! Both...
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Before I began attending The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library System’s Social Justice Book Clubs and Learning Circles devoted to teaching and discussing Black History, I had never heard of Octavia E. Butler....
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
I was a little nervous when I read that one of the most important voices in America today, Ta-Nehisi Coates, had written a novel. I cherished his nonfiction starting with We...
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdich
In the Afterword and Acknowledgments to The Night Watchman, Ms. Erdich states that “if you should ever doubt that a series of dry words in a government document can shatter spirits...
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
In 2018, Emma Donoghue, author of Room and Wonder, among other novels, began The Pull of the Stars inspired by the one-hundred-year anniversary of the Spanish Flu pandemic which killed millions...
This is Happiness by Niall Williams
Years ago, a much-loved Uncle asked if he could come and visit. I was thrilled. He was known for his detailed storytelling and sure enough, after dinner, he settled into a...
The Revisioners: A Novel by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Strong Black women form the centerpiece of Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s Revisioners, which focuses on the power of women, intergenerational trauma, mother-child relationships, caretaking, dementia, and the legacy of white entitlement and...
