The Westport Library Resource Guides: Sybil's List: May 2019

Sybil Steinberg's New Book Picks

Date: Friday, May 17, 2019 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Location: Suzuki Music School of Westport, 246 Post Rd East, Lower Level (below Webster Bank)

Westporter Sybil Steinberg, contributing editor and former book review section editor for Publishers Weekly, returns with more ideas for your fall reading with her ever-popular talk on the best new reads.

Fiction (In Order of Presentation)

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
Publication Date: 2019-06-04
Expelled from Vassar in 1940, an unconventional heroine comes to Manhattan where she discovers her thirst for independence and her frank sexuality.
The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer
Publication Date: 2019-05-07
Varian Fry, the hero of this absorbing narrative, smuggled Jewish artists and writers out of France under dangerous circumstances during WWII.
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
Publication Date: 2019-05-14
In a remote corner of Russia, two young sisters are kidnapped. Their desperate mother and a cast of interconnected characters never give up hope in this electrifying literary thriller.
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
Publication Date: 2019-05-28
After the families of two New York policemen become neighbors, two of the children fall in love, and a shocking event drives them apart.
Dawson's Fall by Roxana Robinson
Publication Date: 2019-05-14
Charleston newspaper publisher Frank Dawson was the author’s great-grandparent, whose high moral principles brought tragedy during Reconstruction.
Women Talking by Miriam Toews
Publication Date: 2019-04-02
Mennonite women in a remote Bolivian colony plot to protect themselves after they discover a dreadful secret about the men in their community.
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Publication Date: 2019-04-09
Halfway through this novel about a love affair between two high school students, the narrative shifts viewpoints and casts doubt on everything we’ve read so far.
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Publication Date: 2019-04-16
This hot young author examines class, gender, power and the complexities of love through the lives of two young people coming of age in Ireland.
Lost and Wanted by Nell Freudenberger
Publication Date: 2019-04-02
Intellectually challenging and heart-breaking, this novel is about female friendship and loss seen through the prism of quantum physics.
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
Publication Date: 2019-03-05
Set on a Korean island, this novel describes an ancient, matrilineal culture of women divers whose professional expertise supports their families.
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
Publication Date: 2019-03-26
The suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant dismantles his family and reveals the cracks in his small community in the Mojave Desert.
The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins
Publication Date: 2019-05-21
A young slave discovers how she’s been betrayed by her own white father in this Gothic novel set on a Jamaican sugar plantation and in London.
Milkman by Anna Burns
Publication Date: 2018-12-04
Set in Ireland, this experimental, prize-winning novel follows a young Irish girl stalked by a vicious man.
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Publication Date: 2018-04-03
This tour-de-force of imagination linked with scientific facts about the secret lives of trees links nine central characters in an engrossing narrative.
Old Newgate Road by Keith Scribner
Publication Date: 2019-01-08
A man with a tortured past flies home to CT where he encounters his estranged father living in their old home, the site of a long-ago murder.
The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason
Publication Date: 2018-09-11
A medical student in the Austro-Hungarian army during WWI is assigned to a tiny hospital in the Carpathian Mountains run by a mysterious nun.
Late in the Day by Tessa Hadley
Publication Date: 2019-01-15
Two British couples, longtime friends, become unmoored when the husband of one of them dies. A sensitive, insightful portrait of marriage.
The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose
Publication Date: 2018-11-27
Inspired by the performance artist Marina Abramovic, this novel takes place during her installation at MoMA.

Printable List

Printable Version of Sybil's List May 2019

Fiction Continued (In Order of Presentation)

Trinity by Louisa Hall
Publication Date: 2018-10-16
Hall imagines the secret lives of people sequestered at Los Alamos during the development of the atomic bomb.
Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell
Publication Date: 2019-05-14
Eight vividly unforgettable short stories that evoke a world gone askew, by a master storyteller with a visionary imagination.
Sugar Run by Mesha Maren
Publication Date: 2019-01-08
A young woman returns to rural and economically depressed West Virginia, where she tries to expiate her violent past.
The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey
Publication Date: 2018-11-13
In 1491, in a tiny hamlet in England, a priest is burdened by his conscience when a death by drowning leaves the village without a benefactor.
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
Publication Date: 2019-01-08
A working-class English girl is forced to join her parents in a reenactment of Ice Age culture, a primitive and eventually violent event.

Nonfiction (In Order of Presentation)

These Truths by Jill Lepore
Publication Date: 2018-09-18
This history of the U.S. exposes the dual nature of our country, founded with the ideal of human freedom but tolerating the institution of slavery.
Frederick Douglass by David W. Blight
Publication Date: 2018-10-16
This monumental biography of Douglass contributes important information about the man who pursued racial justice in America.
Madame Fourcade's Secret War by Lynne Olson
Publication Date: 2019-03-05
The riveting suspense of a literary thriller propels this account of the woman who led the largest espionage network in France during WWII.
The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson
Publication Date: 2019-03-12
A scholar’s eye examines the evidence in the axe-murder of Lizzie’s parents in a quick-moving narrative that has the immediacy of a novel.
Furious Hours by Casey Cep
Publication Date: 2019-05-07
Eighteen years after Mockingbird, Harper Lee wrote about a famous murder trial in Alabama. Where is the manuscript?
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer
Publication Date: 2019-01-22
Native American life is flourishing despite the myth that the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee was the death point of its culture.
Working by Robert A. Caro
Publication Date: 2019-04-09
This collection of 15 short essays is a delightful glimpse of the rigorous and exhaustive methods Caro has employed throughout his career.
Greek to Me by Mary Norris
Publication Date: 2019-04-02
Norris continues to confess her obsession with words in this memoir-cum-travelogue about her passion for all things Greek.
After Emily by Julie Dobrow
Publication Date: 2018-10-30
Despite opposition and scandal, two remarkable women edited the uncollected writings of Emily Dickinson in the years after her death.
The Scar: A Personal History of Depression and Recovery by Mary Cregan
Publication Date: 2019-03-19
Having suffered from depression when her baby died, Cregan investigates the stigma and pain of clinical depression and offers new scientific insights.
Crave: A Memoir of Food and Longing by Christine O'Brien
Publication Date: 2018-11-13
This desperately candid memoir reflects a journey from a damaged childhood to a redemptive life.
All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung
Publication Date: 2018-10-01
The child of Korean parents, Chung was adopted by a loving Oregon Catholic family, but she felt a need to search for her birth family.
On Sunset by Kathryn Harrison
Publication Date: 2018-10-02
Harrison lived in the house on Sunset Boulevard with her grandparents after her mother abandoned her and before her father seduced her.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Publication Date: 2018-11-13
Obama’s distinctive voice, her candor and intelligence, animate her memoir about growing up black, forging a career, and becoming First Lady.