Here's What We're Reading
Greater Niles Village Book Club: Classic literature or latest best seller, fiction or non-fiction, participate in lively discussion whether or not you have read the book. Meetings are listed on GNV Calendar.
These Villagers shared their reading suggestions—send us yours!
Cindy McIntyre:
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Leadership by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Inheritance by Dani Shapiro
What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
Patrice Varga:
My top pick for the pandemic is the Rivers of London series (aka the Peter Grant series) by Ben Aaronovitch. I think of it as Harry Potter for grown-ups, rich in details, wonderful characters, and great writing. Each book is like a trip to London, and you’ll learn a lot of British vernacular. I highly recommend the audiobooks. The narrator, Kobna Holbrook-Smith, is a top talent--on par with Jim Dale. He reads the first book at bit fast, but, after that, his pace is perfect.
Judy Roudman:
I’m reading The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson. England during the Blitz (one year). Based on research of letters, diaries and facts. Entertaining.
Margery Leonard:
Beach Read Fiction: The Lincoln Lawyer or The Last Coyote (Michael Connelly)
Poetry: anything by Billy Collins, particularly The Lanyard
Classic: The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Nonfiction: Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World (Linda Horseman)
Kathy Steel-Sabo:
The Honey Bus: a Memoir of Loss, Courage, and a Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith Mayk
Penne Field-Feinberg:
The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present in the Life You Have by Mark Nepo. It was originally published in 2000 and has come out in a hardcover edition for the 20th anniversary. It is one of Oprah’s 7 super-soulful reads. “It is a collection of reflections in a year’s supply of gentle daily wake-up calls. Like most of us he has thought a lot about the meaning of life, but because he is a poet, a philosopher and a cancer survivor, his insights are special and beautifully expressed.” -Oprah Winfrey.
Sue Meadows:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski—on an extraordinary journey, canine characters as memorable as human ones.
Iris Nicholson:
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. The novel follows Sarah Grimke and her enslaved handmaid, Hetti "Handful" Grimke, through 35 years as they each struggle to make lives of their own choosing despite the terrible constraints imposed on enslaved persons and women. The novel is based on the lives of the Grimke sisters who were nationally-known American female advocates of the abolition of slavery and women's rights in the early and mid 1800's.
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka. The novel has no plot in the usual sense, it's an account of Japanese mail-order brides who immigrated to the US and married men they had not met. The novel is told in the first person plural from the point of view of many girls and women , none of whom is individualized as a continuing character, but all of whom are vividly described in a sentence or two.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize winner. The novel follows Cora a 15-year-old runaway slave. From Good Reads: "In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom."