How is everyone doing in the Winter Reading Challenge?  The Readers Advisory team at CPL is reading right along with you and this week, in honor of Black History Month, we are working on this Level One challenge:

Read a book written by a contemporary Black author

Deanna is reading…

These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall

Michaela, or Mickie, Lambert has a really interesting job.  She curates people’s memories, creating holographic 3-D type memory book for clients.  She is hired by Nadia Denham, who owns a curio shop, to create a memory book for her.  Nadia is losing her memory to Alzheimer’s and wants to make sure that she remembers a small collection of objects that are important to her.  Mickie meets with her, but then the next day Nadia is dead, seemingly a suicide.  Since Nadia had already paid for the service, Mickie continues to work on the memory book.  But she has to deal with Rachel, the strangely hostile shop manager, and Dexter, Nadia’s mostly absent son, who has come back to town to mourn his mother.  Strange things begin to happen to Mickie – someone is leaving notes in her apartment, someone follows her home, someone is sending her threatening text messages, her parents seem to be keeping secrets.  Learning how all of these things tie into Michaela and her project, and exactly why Nadia wanted to remember these objects, is the fun of this twisty thriller.  Hall writes a series about a black female detective, but this one is a standalone, like last year’s And Now She’s Gone, which I would also recommend. If you are looking for other Black thriller writers, try While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams, All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris, The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris, or When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole.

Kindred by Octavia Butler

This month, our Online Classics Book Group is reading Kindred by Octavia Butler.  Written in 1979 and considered a classic in the science fiction genre, this novel actually crosses boundaries between science fiction, slave narrative, and “grim fantasy”, as characterized by Butler herself.  The main character is a young Black woman named Dana, who on her birthday, finds herself unexpectedly transported back through time.  She is just in time to save a young white boy named Rufus from drowning.  She quickly returns to her own time and place, scared and confused, but safe.  Before Dana knows it, however, she is transported again, this time to stop Rufus from accidentally burning down his house. She stays for longer this time and learns that she has gone back to 1815 Maryland, and as a Black woman, she is in grave danger for as long as she is there.  Again, she returns to her own time and place, this time more frightened and a little worse for wear, but closer to understanding why she might be drawn through time to save Rufus.  Dana returns again and again to slave-era Maryland, each time for longer, each trip more dangerous.  She is in a race against time itself, to save herself.  I had not read this book before, and I was totally drawn into the premise, and into the danger that it represented for Dana. It is powerfully and realistically written, a necessary story about a shameful part of our history that I won’t soon forget.  Interested in discovering more Black science fiction authors?  Try some of these great writers – Tomi Adeyemi, N. K. Jemison, Nnedi Okorafor, Tochi Onyebuchi, or Rivers Solomon.

Wahala, by  Nikki May

Though set in and around London England, this debut contains many of the issues relevant to discussions of race and identity anywhere. In Wahala, three friends, all of mixed race with ties to Lagos, Nigeria, have successful, more or less content lives in London. That is, until a mysterious woman from their past reappears suddenly and injects a great deal of uncertainty into each of their existences, threatening to break up their friendship in horrible ways. Nigerian food features prominently in the novel. It is consistently a major way that the women, as modern as they are, remain tied to their roots. The author even includes recipes for a few of the dishes described at the conclusion of the book. In reviews, the novel is being compared to Sex and The City, for the ways in which each of the women is a distinct example of a successful version of the modern woman. I would compare the novel to The Other Black Girl, as in both, a new character with a mysterious past amplifies the deep insecurities of each character. I would also liken this novel to others that explore the complicated clashes of modern relationships and the demands of cultural traditions, like Ayesha At Last, or Love, Chai and Other Four Letter Words. I’ll talk more about this book at this week’s Book Brunch, Wednesday, February 7 at 10:30am.

The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead:

This month, the Morning Book Group will be reading the Colson Whitehead’s prize-winning 2016 novel The Underground Railroad. If you have not had a chance to read this book yet, it’s a work of historical fiction that re-imagines the real-life Underground railroad network to be an actual network of railway tracks beneath the ground, staffed by actual conductors. As the main character, Cora, and her companion Caesar, progress through the stations hoping to get North, the horrors and brutality of the Antebellum South and the danger experienced by all black people held as slaves seeking freedom is very vividly expressed on the page. Whitehead uses Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, The Odyssey, and the whole tradition of epic literature as a framework to create this new classic. It’s hard to find a parallel in contemporary works, but two other more recent, well-received, character-driven and imaginative novels depicting the antislavery movement are James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird and Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black.

Don’t forget to check out our book displays in the library, our many virtual programs, and our wonderful new Art Exhibit commemorating this significant month. Let us know what books you are reading – and remember to celebrate Black authors and Black history not just in February, but all year long!

Our Winter Reading Challenge is up and running – be sure to pick up your game card in the library or print a copy HERE.  We in Readers Advisory have gotten in the spirit too, what with a fresh new year and so many good books to read!  Here are a few suggestions from us to get you started:

DEANNA RECOMMENDS

LEVEL ONE: READ A GOTHIC NOVEL

Sure, gothics aren’t for everyone.  But there is something about a gloomy castle, the potential for romance, and the certainty of the supernatural that always piques my interest.  I read a few good ones this past year, including Plain Bad Heroines by Emily Danforth and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.  Both honor the gothic genre before deftly giving it their own spin.  I also read We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson for our online Classics Book Group.

One of the more recent titles I have read is The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling.  Set in a re-imagined post-war Britain, Jane (of the title) is an independent woman trying to make her way in the world.  She finds herself in need of a new living situation, so decides that she will find a groom.  She approaches Dr. Augustine Lawrence, a physician of her acquaintance, with a business proposal – she will be his accountant, if he will marry her and give her a home.  Neither expect there to be romance, but they find themselves drawn to each other in spite of their very unromantic arrangement.  The only condition from the doctor is this – Jane would spend her nights in town, at his home and surgery, and he would spend it in the country at his family’s crumbling estate.  She was never to go there.  But of course, fate intervenes, and Jane ends up there on a dark and stormy night.  Cue the supernatural happenings, the locked doors, the discovery of a dead wife – it has all the makings of a classic gothic and I promise you will keep reading to see how it all ends for poor Jane.

LEVEL TWO: READ A ROMANCE NOVEL BY A DIVERSE AUTHOR

Who doesn’t like a good romance?  This level two category urges you to read bigger by choosing a title by a diverse author, someone with a different life experience than you.  I recently finished How To Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days by K. M. Jackson, which I very much enjoyed.  Sonali Dev has a series of romances based on Jane Austen novels (start with Pride, Prejudice & Other Flavors), which are quite popular with several CPL librarians.  And who can resist a book called You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria?

I just finished an upcoming title called Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn. Yinka is a 30-something British Nigerian woman trying to just live her life, fending off her mother and aunties as they continually ask, “Yinka, where is your huzband”?  Things are not going great for Yinka – she has just been laid-off at work, her younger sister is married and about to have a baby, her ex-boyfriend moved to America and is recently engaged, and she needs a date for her cousin Rachel’s wedding in six months. Commence Operation Wedding Date!  Yinka tries various ways to meet a new man, some of them funny, some of them painful to watch.  Over the course of her “project”, she begins to lose sight of herself, and her best friend worries that she is trying too hard to change, all because of a man, and continually points to her own mantra “I am who I say I am”.   Tune into our next episode of Bookmarked later this month to learn more about why I liked this book so much.  Or better yet, get yourself on the hold list today!

JESS RECOMMENDS

LEVEL ONE: READ A BOOK THAT IS UNDER 200 PAGES LONG

Jessica Au is an Australian Writer based in Melbourne and Cold Enough for Snow is her second novel. It starts with a young, unnamed woman meeting her mother in Tokyo for a work vacation. The two of them, in the first part of the novel, have a series of conversations about family, love, relationships, horoscopes, traditions as they walk from gallery to gallery, stopping in cafes and shops along the way. The woman’s introspection begins to increase and the present conversations between the mother and daughter start to recede until it becomes easy to forget there is a present, that the conversation involves two people. It soon becomes less clear whether the daughter is in fact talking to anyone at all, whether this is the daughter’s words, as her memories and the various stories of others in her life are transcribed. What is the purpose of the journey? Who is having these conversations? What do we really know of those we believe we are most close too? Au’s writing is sensual and evocative, especially when describing food and clothing. Reading this brief novel is a moving and meditative experience that lingers long after.

Other great options for this category include: Dear American Airlines, by Jonathan Miles, Dept. of Speculation, by Jenny Offil; and Leaving the Atocha Station, by Ben Lerner.

LEVEL TWO: READ A BOOK INSPIRED BY REAL PEOPLE OR EVENTS:

So we’re just two years removed from the start of the pandemic and already there have been a pretty remarkable number of major novels addressing the events and effects through various stories. Noah Hawley’s latest novel, Anthem,  kicks off with the COVID-19 pandemic. A few years after the pandemic, teens have started committing suicide at alarming rates, and many believe it is a side-effect of having spent a year and half of their formative years in relative isolation. With each new death the mysterious symbol A11 appears. Parents are alarmed, the president has declared a state of emergency, but what can possibly be done to stop children from losing hope in a world of catastrophic climate events and preposterous politicking. One teen in particular, a precocious young woman named Claire, commits the act by overdosing on the Oxycontin peddled by her father’s pharmaceutical conglomerate. Claire is found by her younger brother in their parents opulent bathroom. She has plastered the entire space with the tiny silver wrappers of the medication. Hawley does not pull any punches when it comes to describing grisly scenes like this one, but also in describing the absolute degradation and corruption that leads to scenes like this. This book is full of context, much of which will be all too familiar to the reader. Claire’s brother, Simon, rocked by his sister and his parents subsequent refusal to acknowledge the loss and it’s meaning, is shipped off to a mental rehabilitation center called Float Rehabilitation Services. It’s there that he meets a group of teens, including the mysterious Prophet, who declares that God has summoned them on a mission to defeat The Wizard and Simon is the chosen one to lead the way. The teens manage to escape the facility and begin their journey to confront and defeat the Wizard, a Jeffrey Epstein like criminal who seduces and impregnates teens. It’s a frenetic and fantastical plot that incorporates just about everything. Throughout though, it quickly becomes clear that it’s the youth that will save the day.

Other recent releases seeking to explore different aspects and possibilities emerging from the pandemic crisis include: The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich; Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult; Violeta, by Isabelle Allende; Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart; and How High We Go In The Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu