The Westport Library Resource Guides: Sybil's List: June 2020

Three Books to Make You Smile

This Is Happiness by Niall Williams
Publication Date: 2010-07-01

A young man comes of age when a stranger comes to a tiny Irish village bringing electricity and the knowledge of love.
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler
Publication Date: 2020-04-07

A Baltimore bachelor obsessively set in his routines confronts his girlfriend’s disaffection and a teenager who claims paternity.
Nobody Will Tell You This but Me by Bess Kalb
Publication Date: 2020-03-17

A tender, funny, endearing memoir in which Kalb channels the voice of her dead grandmother to explore life’s vicissitudes.

Hope You've Read These!

The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
Publication Date: 2020-03-10

In the third volume of this magisterial trilogy Oliver Cromwell achieves enviable power— until Henry VII demands his head.
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Publication Date: 2020-03-03

The poor, mainly black inhabitants of a housing complex in Brooklyn come alive in this lusty, hilarious, vividly imagined novel.

Forthcoming Soon

Monogamy by Sue Miller
Publication Date: 2020-09-08

After a long and happy marriage, a widow learns some things about her husband that challenge her memories.
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Publication Date: 2020-07-21

Shakespeare was in London and his wife and three children in Stratford, when his 11-year-old son, Hamnet, died.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Publication Date: 2020-06-02

Twin sisters who are black, grow up in a small southern town and choose different lives; one passes as white; the other has a dark-skinned daughter.
The Vanishing Sky by L. Annette Binder
Publication Date: 2020-07-21

A compassionate, honest picture of a German family trying to survive during the last six months of WW II.
Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore
Publication Date: 2020-03-31

Five women grapples with the aftermath of a rape of a Hispanic girl in this gripping novel about justice and power set in a West Texas oil town.
Mother Daughter Widow Wife by Robin Wasserman
Publication Date: 2020-07-07

Weaving together the lives of three women, this provocative novel questions memory and its loss and the roles females inhabit in society.
Want by Lynn Steger Strong
Publication Date: 2020-07-07

A wife and mother in New York who works two jobs in a failing school system faces potential bankruptcy in this fierce and funny novel.
The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
Publication Date: 2020-10-06

In 1909 in Spokane, two brothers become involved in an historic labor strike where a feisty female activist leads the struggle for a fair wage.

Available Now

Weather by Jenny Offill
Publication Date: 2020-02-11

A woman’s thoughts about contemporary life, conveyed in fragments. No plot, no real action, a new kind of novel, insightful and funny.
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Publication Date: 2020-03-03

Set in the 1950s on Erdrich’s home reservation, this absorbing novel reveals efforts by Congress to terminate Native American rights.
Amnesty by Aravind Adiga
Publication Date: 2020-02-18

In Australia, an undocumented refugee from Sri Lanka has the clues to solve a murder but must make a life-changing moral decision.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
Publication Date: 2020-02-04

An engrossing novel in which a nine-year-old boy playing detective discovers why children are being kidnapped from his slum in India.
Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon
Publication Date: 2020-01-28

A haunting story in which three orphaned teenagers try to survive daily American bombings during our secret war in Laos in the 1960s.
Writers and Lovers by Lily King
Publication Date: 2020-03-03

A touching, witty and delightful novel about love and loss, artistic creativity, and a young woman’s life-affirming decisions.
A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende; Nick Caistor (Translator); Amanda Hopkinson (Translator)
Publication Date: 2020-01-21

After a young doctor survives the civil war in Spain, he flees to Chile where he lives an eventful life until the fall of Pinochet.
Afterlife by Julia Alvarez
Publication Date: 2020-04-07

A widow recently retired college professor finds that urgent events, in society, and in her family, keep her vibrantly alive.
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
Publication Date: 2020-03-10

Dark indeed is this tale about a young woman involved in an obsessive relationship with her sexually abusive college professor.
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
Publication Date: 2020-05-19

An astute, highly readable conjecture about what might have been if Hillary never married Bill and went on to her own political career.
Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak
Publication Date: 2017-12-05

A novel of ideas in which a woman in Istanbul questions fundamentalist Muslim religious beliefs and is caught in a terrorist attack.
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
Publication Date: 2020-03-24

A woman named Vincent, the unwitting wife a man who is running a massive Ponzi scheme, disappears from the deck of a ship at sea.
The Book of V. by Anna Solomon
Publication Date: 2020-05-05

The Bible’s Queen Esther, a senator’s wife in 1970s, and a Brooklyn mom in 2016 are connected by the ways they refuse to succumb to patriarchy.

Available Now (Cont.)

Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit
Publication Date: 2020-03-17

Plymouth, Mass., in 1630, was a colony simmering with tension between Puritan settlers and their Anglican servants—and a murder.
Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles
Publication Date: 2020-04-14

A reluctant soldier first seen in “News of the World” falls in love during the post- Civil War turmoil in the West.
A Thousand Moons by Sebastian Barry
Publication Date: 2020-04-21

The Lakota Indian girl adopted by the heroes of “Days Without End” narrates this moving sequel, set in post-Civil War Tennessee.
How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Zhang
Publication Date: 2020-04-07

During the Gold Rush, two newly orphaned Chinese siblings roam a desolate landscape yearning to find a new home.
An Elegant Woman by Martha McPhee
Publication Date: 2020-06-02

Four generations of women drawn from McPhee’s own family reinvent themselves in Montana, Maine, Ohio, and London.
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Publication Date: 2020-09-08

A Ph. D candidate in neuroscience at Stanford tries to understand her Ghanaian family’s heritage of striving and loss.
Actress by Anne Enright
Publication Date: 2020-03-03

The daughter of a famous Irish actress looks back on her mother’s courageous, tragic-comic life.
Here We Are by Graham Swift
Publication Date: 2020-09-22

A tender, sad, and consoling novella that portrays a love triangle involving entertainers in a tawdry music scene in Brighton, England.
Love by Roddy Doyle
Publication Date: 2020-06-23

Joe and Davy, once boyhood friends, meet in a pub in Dublin. Both have a secret. Thirty years ago they were in love with the same woman.
To the Edge of Sorrow by Aharon Appelfeld; Stuart Schoffman (Translator)
Publication Date: 2020-01-14

The late Israeli novelist’s last novel set during the Holocaust, when a group of partisans endure danger, cold and hunger as they plan an attack.
The Parisian by Isabella Hammad
Publication Date: 2019-04-09

A compelling historical novel ranging from WW I France to Nablus, Palestine, where political events will destroy a family’s way of life.
Apeirogon: a Novel by Colum McCann
Publication Date: 2020-02-25

Two fathers, one Palestinian, the other Israeli, each of whom has lost a daughter to terrorism, come together to try to end the bloodshed.
The Convert by Stefan Hertmans; David McKay (Translator)
Publication Date: 2020-02-04

In 11th century France, the daughter of a wealthy Christian family eloped with a yeshiva student. Her conversion to Judaism led to tragedy.
Saltwater by Jessica Andrews
Publication Date: 2020-01-14

In a remote cottage in Donegal a young woman reconciles her working-class background with her education at a London university
The Island Child by Molly Aitken
Publication Date: 2020-07-28

Having fled the wild, windswept island off the coast of Ireland where she was raised, a woman returns 20 years later to face her past.
Northernmost by Peter Geye
Publication Date: 2020-08-18

In 1897, a small Norwegian town at the top of the world welcomes home a fisherman who has miraculously survived being lost in the Arctic.
Miss Iceland by Audur Ava Olafsdottir
Publication Date: 2020-06-16

Iceland in the 1960s is no place for a female writer, so the feisty heroine of this delightful novel decides to take drastic steps toward a career.
The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman
Publication Date: 2020-02-18

Inspired by a real event in Scotland in 1845, this old-fashioned domestic novel revolves around a controversial book that predated Darwin’s theories of natural selection.
Abigail by Magda Szabo; Len Rix (Translator)
Publication Date: 2020-01-21

This classic novel by an esteemed Hungarian author follows a young girl’s rebellious coming of age as storm clouds gather portending WW II.

Short Stories

A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth by Daniel Mason
Publication Date: 2020-05-01

Clever and imaginative interlaced tales, each written in a different literary style, bind together characters in a remarkable range of times and places.
Maggie Brown & Others by Peter Orner
Publication Date: 2019-07-02

Forty-four short fictions, some funny, some heart-breaking, in which ordinary people confront turning points in their lives.

Nonfiction

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker
Publication Date: 2020-04-07

A mesmerizing, account of a family with12 children, six of whom were afflicted with schizophrenia, while scientists were striving to find the genetic factor in the disease.
American Rebels by Nina Sankovitch
Publication Date: 2020-03-24

Subtitled “How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution,” this fresh look at our founding fathers is fascinating.
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
Publication Date: 2020-02-25

How Churchill’s courage and determination led England through the darkest year of WWII, during the fierce bombardment of the Blitz.
Love in the Blitz by Eileen Alexander
Publication Date: 2020-05-26

The voluminous letters of a young woman enduring the Blitz and writing to the man she loves, a soldier overseas, provides a vivid picture of the era.
Our Revolution by Honor Moore
Publication Date: 2020-03-10

As the wife of the celebrated bishop of New York, Jenny Moore submerged her life in the ministry and belatedly sought creative independence.
The Man in the Red Coat by Julian Barnes
Publication Date: 2020-02-18

A handsome, charismatic French doctor portrayed by John Singer Sargent was immersed in the culture, art, and scandals of the Belle Epoque.
Tehran Children by Mikhal Dekel
Publication Date: 2019-10-01

During WWII, 1,000 Polish-Jewish children were rescued and sent on a torturous journey to a warn welcome in Iran.
Return to the Reich by Eric Lichtblau
Publication Date: 2019-10-15

Freddy Mayer’s family fled Germany in 1938. In 1944 he parachuted into Germany posed as a Nazi officer and was a spy for the OSS.

Sybil's List: June 2020

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