Featured Fiction for June:
The Vignes twin sisters are identical. But after growing up in a black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their lives that is different as adults, it's everything. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, separated by many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. Weaving together multiple strands and generations, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Bennett produces a story that is a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations.
Once a year, Alice and Tom have met on Nantucket to rekindle the passionate love affair they began 28 years earlier. Each married to someone else, with busy lives and happy families, they've managed to keep their secret and to keep their love alive. But nothing is forever. Tom's wife is in the national spotlight for her controversial and increasingly popular campaign for office. And Alice has received a diagnosis that puts her future in doubt. Their secret love affair has lasted for decades, but could their 28th summer together also be their last?
“He fixes everything that’s wrong with you in three days.” This is what hooks Sam when he overhears it at a dinner party in the Hollywood hills: the story of a shaman who claims to perform “open-soul surgery” on emotionally damaged people. For neurotic, depressed Sam, new to Los Angeles, the possibility of total transformation is tantalizing. He’s desperate for something to believe in, and the shaman—who promises ancient rituals, plant medicine and encounters with the divine—seems convincing, enough for Sam to sign up for a weekend under his care. But are the great spirits the shaman says he’s summoning real? Or are the ghosts in Sam’s memory more powerful than magic? At turns tender and acid, funny and wise, Broken People is a journey of discovering hope amid cynicism, intimacy within chaos, and peace in our own skin.
Featured Nonfiction for June:
Once we were drivers, the open road alive with autonomy, adventure, danger, trust, and speed. Today we are as likely to be in the back seat of an Uber as behind the wheel ourselves. Tech giants are hurling us toward a shiny, happy “self-driving” future. Are we destined, then, to become passengers, not drivers? A celebration of open-road driving by the philosopher-mechanic author of Shop Class as Soulcraft explores the road trip as a technology-threatened but enduring path to human reliance, exploration and freedom.
A twenty-first-century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, and corruption. The Texas Rangers rode into existence in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico, and continue today as one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Swanson offers a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles both their epic, daring escapades and how the white and propertied power structures of Texas have used them as enforcers and protectors.
Butterflies are one of the world’s most beloved insects. From butterfly gardens to zoo exhibitions, they are one of the few insects we’ve encouraged to infiltrate our lives. Yet, what has drawn us to these creatures in the first place? And what are their lives really like? In this groundbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author and science journalist Wendy Williams reveals the inner lives of these “flying flowers”—creatures far more intelligent and tougher than we give them credit for.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.