Members of the Literary Arts Development Council know good books when they see them. At a (virtual) meeting of the group last month, these avid readers shared books they have recently loved. We hope you will enjoy this first selection of their picks.
The Nickel Boys
by Colson Whitehead
Recommended by:
Bob Speltz
From PRH: Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction — Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes a strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.
Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.
Order your copy of The Nickel Boys from an indie bookstore:
Powell’s Books | Broadway Books | Annie Bloom’s Books | Bookshop
The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett
Recommended by:
Jackie Willingham & Jill Abere
From HarperCollins: A richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go.
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.
Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. It is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are.
Order your copy of The Dutch House from an indie bookstore:
Powell’s Books | Broadway Books | Annie Bloom’s Books | Bookshop
Trust Exercise
by Susan Choi
Recommended by:
Carl Wilson
From Macmillan: In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,” two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.
The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.
Order your copy of Trust Exercise from an indie bookstore:
Powell’s Books | Broadway Books | Annie Bloom’s Books | Bookshop
What You Have Heard Is True
by Carolyn Forché
Recommended by:
Sara Guest
From PRH: A devastating, lyrical, and visionary memoir about a young woman’s brave choice to engage with horror in order to help others. Written by one of the most gifted poets of her generation, this is the story of a woman’s radical act of empathy, and her fateful encounter with an intriguing man who changes the course of her life.
Carolyn Forché is twenty-seven when the mysterious stranger appears on her doorstep. The relative of a friend, he is a charming polymath with a mind as seemingly disordered as it is brilliant. She’s heard rumors from her friend about who he might be: a lone wolf, a communist, a CIA operative, a sharpshooter, a revolutionary, a small coffee farmer, but according to her, no one seemed to know for certain. He has driven from El Salvador to invite Forché to visit and learn about his country. Captivated for reasons she doesn’t fully understand, she accepts and becomes enmeshed in something beyond her comprehension.
Order your copy of What You Have Heard Is True from an indie bookstore:
Powell’s Books | Broadway Books | Annie Bloom’s Books | Bookshop
“If it is true for you, it is true for someone else, and you are no longer alone.”
Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys
