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

Fiction

A Burning by Megha Majumdar
Publication Date: 2020-06-02
A young woman in India is accused of treason when she questions the tactics of the corrupt police and the government.
Night. Sleep. Death. the Stars by Joyce Carol Oates
Publication Date: 2020-06-09
After the sudden death of its patriarch his widow and children struggle with changed family dynamics.
What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez
Publication Date: 2020-09-08
When a woman helps her friend prepare for euthanasia during a terminal illness the subject resonates for our society as a whole.
Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
Publication Date: 2020-09-15
Part memoir, part novel, this provocative work mirrors the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s own celebrated/alienated life as a Muslim born in America.
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante; Ann Goldstein (Translator)
Publication Date: 2020-09-01
Sophisticated and intellectual, middle-class parents in Naples are not what they seem as an adolescent girl discovers when she interacts with her relatives who live in poverty in the slums.
The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey
Publication Date: 2020-08-11
After three siblings who live in the countryside near Oxford discover the unconscious body of a boy in a field they become aware of the existence of violence even in idyllic communities.
Artifact by Arlene Heyman
Publication Date: 2020-07-07
It takes courage for a woman who craves a career in science to renounce social values and attend graduate school as a single mother.
The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld
Publication Date: 2020-09-01
The looming menace of the rock offshore a town in Scotland is mirrored in the undercurrent of violence that men employ in this three-generational drama.
Hieroglyphics by Jill McCorkle
Publication Date: 2020-07-28
A look back at a long marriage comes through in fragments from a journal that the wife consults for memories, from her husband’s need to relive his past, and from two people affected by his search.

Fiction (Cont.)

The Great Offshore Grounds by Vanessa Veselka
Publication Date: 2020-08-25
Two feisty half-sibling sisters and their mother slide from middle class into poverty as the siblings search for the mother of one of them while engaging in dangerous adventures and dead end jobs.
The Cold Millions by Jess Walter
Publication Date: 2020-10-27
An exemplary historical novel that chronicles the birth of labor unions in America through the lives of two brothers who fight for working class justice while discovering love and seeking justice.
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.

Short Stories

Sorry for Your Trouble by Richard Ford
Publication Date: 2020-05-12
Stories in the classic vein clearly portray mainly middle class men whose lives have taken a wrong turn.
To Be a Man by Nicole Krauss
Publication Date: 2020-11-03
Beautifully written but challenging tales whose subtle nuances often climax in situations where the message is often opaque.
Likes by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
Publication Date: 2020-09-01
Enchanting versions in different genres of the surprises that can illuminate ordinary lives.
Daddy by Emma Cline
Publication Date: 2020-09-01
World-weary characters attempt to find solace and meaning situations that have alienated them from their families and other relationships.

Nonfiction

Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey
Publication Date: 2020-07-28
This unforgettable memoir traces the U. S. poet laureate’s life growing up as a mixed race child in Mississippi to the trauma of her mother’s murder when she was 19.
The Last Million by David Nasaw
Publication Date: 2020-09-15
The millions of displaced persons left in Germany after WW II had vastly different opportunities to enter the countries that were willing to receive them.
The Daughters of Yalta by Catherine Grace Katz
Publication Date: 2020-09-29
Three remarkable women—the daughters of FDR, Winston Churchill and Averill Harriman—had important parts to play in the 1945 Yalta conference where Stalin flouted the diplomatic rules.
The Uninformed Voter by Robert Levine
Publication Date: 2020-04-30
This very timely work shows that voter ignorance and political corruption are endangering our democracy, and the author offers suggestions about how this dangerous tide can be stemmed.

Sybil's List: October 2020

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.