Sybil's List: June 2021

Growing up in Reconstruction Brooklyn and later, Haiti, a young black girl seeks to find the freedom and self-worth promised by her name.

Money cannot buy happiness, but love can transform the lives of the seven characters who narrate the interlinked stories that tie them together in an absorbing novel

Spiked with startling humor and tender insights, the dozen stories in this distinctive collection display McCracken’s inimitable talent for portraying the vicissitudes of human existence.

Two seven-year-old girls who are best friends despite their very different personalities try to understand how the world works and the secrets of their parents’ marriages as they navigate a fateful summer holiday.

The lives of a woman aviator born in 1914 whose destiny lies in the sky, and that of an actress who portrays her in a 2014 movie are connected by more than coincidence.

In this dystopian view of a future world, Klara is an AF, or artificial friend, who develops forbidden thoughts and emotions when she is chosen as companion to a fragile teenaged girl.

The adventures of the Vietnamese-born narrator of The Sympathizer continue in a thriller-like plot that dramatizes the immorality of oppressive governments and an implacable fate caused by betrayal.

Nonstop action scenes hurtle the unlikely story of a 20-year-old half Chinese, half American man swept up in an adventure that takes him from California to southeast Asia in pursuit of a supposedly miracle drink.

This short, cerebral novel lacks action and drama but seduces the reader in the daily routine of a lonely woman’s life in an Italian city where beauty and ugliness exist together.

Drawing on her macabre imagination, Russell imagines a world in which insomnia becomes a plague and a young woman requests that people who are less afflicted donate their sleep.

Ruthless capitalism imposed by an American oil conglomerate threatens to destroy the traditional lives of residents of an African village who suffer the deadly effects of environmental destruction.

Richly conceived characters--a doctor born in Beirut and his Damascus-born wife, who now live in California--- hide secrets that will affect their three conflicted adult children.

Class differences and marital tensions surface during a rainy week in which the characters endure a vacation in Scotland spoiled by unremitting rain and suspicions about a family that does not belong.

A young book publicist develops deadly thoughts when she becomes secretary to Maud Dixon, the pseudonym of a reclusive bestselling author caught in writer’s block.

In this lighthearted feminist Western, the Hole in the Wall Gang is a community of fugitive women who has escaped the punitive traditions of fundamentalist Christians who consider them witches.

A rom-com movie being made in Brighton, England, brings together a clutch of characters who are involved in deceiving one another with hidden identities, devious agendas, and romantic secrets.

An arcane word—mountweazels—drives the plot of this charming novel that revolves around a fictitious dictionary published in London, and the people who work there a century apart.

The London Blitz during WWII is the setting for the intertwined lives of a female air raid warden, a precocious young boy, and a woman living under a secret name who has adopted him.

Vowing not to become a burden when they get old, a British couple make a pact to commit suicide when they turn 80. Numerous what-if scenarios giddily depict what happens when one or the other does not follow through.

A vitally important description of how a female scientist and her colleagues invented a code that enables bacteria to attack viral diseases, a breakthrough that led to vaccines for Covid19 but also could be used for dangerous gene-editing.

A timely reminder that political turmoil and violence permeated the era after the Civil War, in which armed mobs inflamed with rabid partisanship attacked political figures and minorities.

Three courageous women fought for abolition of slavery and for women’s rights. Damage to their social position threatened two of them, who were white, and actual danger existed for black activist Harriet Tubman.

Two sisters defied convention and the 19th century male establishment to become physicians and establish social reforms to provide medical care to the poor.

Adichie expresses the inexpressible: the grief that overtook her when her father died suddenly.

Fascinating new theories about the demise of ancient cities offer insights about archeological research and urban culture.

The best biography one could have hoped for illuminates the life of the legendary actor, playwright, and director of movies and Broadway plays.

Even readers who are not fans of this Irish actor will appreciate this beautifully written, almost poetic memoir. Byrne is candid about his youth in Dublin, his loss of religious faith, and the emotional costs of his career.

Famous in Denmark, this extraordinary writer dramatizes her poverty-stricken youth, her yearning for love, marriage and literary fame, and the addiction to Demerol that was part of her struggle to reconcile art and life.

Having established her distinctive writing identity by combining fiction and biography in groundbreaking work, Beard again displays her talents in a collection of essays, stories, and a fusion of both genres.

The charm of this unusual memoir by the fashion curator of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum lies in her recollections about some of the antique clothes in the museum as well as those that have marked special occasions in her own life.

One photograph of Jews being massacred by Nazis and Ukrainians in 1941 leads to a surprising discovery about the brave photographer who wanted the world to see the evidence that he was forced to document.

This powerful new chronicle identifies and celebrates the heroism of many young Jewish women who fought in the underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Poland. It is a triumph of research and dedication.

It is amazing to read how the Bard has always been celebrated in America, but in many different interpretations during different periods of our history.