Air travel and plenty of cold Spring weather that gave me time to read this month. Here are some of my favorites:
The Lifeguards: A Novel by Amanda Eyre Ward
Austin’s Zilker Park neighborhood is a wonderland of greenbelt trails, live music, and moms who drink a few too many margaritas. Whitney, Annette, and Liza have grown thick as thieves as they have raised their children together for fifteen years, believing that they can shelter their children from an increasingly dangerous world. Their friendship is unbreakable—as safe as the neighborhood where they've raised their sweet little boys.
Or so they think.
One night, the three women have been enjoying happy hour when their boys, lifeguards for the summer, come back on bicycles from a late-night dip in their favorite swimming hole. The boys share a secret—news that will shatter the perfect world their mothers have so painstakingly created.
Combining three mothers’ points of view in a powerful narrative tale with commentary from entertaining neighborhood listservs, secret text messages, and police reports, The Lifeguards is both a story about the secrets we tell to protect the ones we love and a riveting novel filled with half-truths and betrayals, fierce love and complicated friendships, and the loss of innocence on one hot summer night.
Two historical set in the 60's:
Sister Stardust: A Novel by Jane Green
Claire grew up in a small town, far from the glitz and glamour of London. Ridiculed by her stepmother, and harboring a painful crush on her brother's best friend, she has begun to outgrow the life laid out before her. Claire yearns for the adventure and independence of a counter-culture taking root across the world.
One day a chance encounter leads to an unexpected opportunity--- a journey to a palace in Morocco. A getaway where famous artists, models, fashion designers and musicians--even the Rolling Stones--have been known to visit.
When Claire arrives in Marrakesh, she's swept up in a heady world of music, drugs and communal living. But one magnetic young woman seems to hold sway over the entire scene. Talitha Getty, socialite wife of the famous oil heir, has pulled everyone from Yves Saint Laurent to Marianne Faithfull into her orbit. Yet when she meets Claire, the pair instantly connect. As they grow closer, and the inner circle tightens, the realities of Talitha's precarious life set off a chain of dangerous events that could alter Claire's life forever.
Here is the 60’s era of sex, drugs and rock and roll! The author crafts the story of Claire as she is swept into the world of the rich and famous. When I began to doubt some of the experiences, my internet search confirmed people and places, so I allowed the tale to take me into Claire’s life!
The Dolphin House by Audrey Schulman
Based on the true story of the 1965 “dolphin house” experiment, this spellbinding novel captures the tenor of the social experiments of the 1960s
It is 1965, and Cora, a young, hearing impaired woman, buys a one-way ticket to the island of St. Thomas, where she discovers four dolphins held in captivity as part of an experiment led by the obsessive Dr. Blum. Drawn by a strong connection to the dolphins, Cora falls in with the scientists and discovers her need to protect the animals.
Recognizing Cora’s knack for communication, Blum uses her for what will turn into one of the most fascinating experiments in modern science: an attempt to teach the dolphins human language by creating a home in which she and a dolphin can live together.
As the experiment progresses, Cora forges a remarkable bond with the creatures, until her hard-won knowledge clashes with the male-dominated world of science. As a terrible scandal threatens to engulf the experiment, Cora’s fight to save the dolphins becomes a battle to save herself.
Timothy Leary appears in this novel of the 60’s also! A fascinating tale of animal communication, with end notes telling of the real Cora.
Sergeant Jim Chee’s vacation to beautiful Antelope Canyon and Lake Powell has a deeper purpose. He’s on a quest to unravel a sacred mystery his mentor, the Legendary Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, stumbled across decades earlier.
Chee’s journey takes a deadly turn when, after a prayerful visit to the sacred Rainbow Bridge, he spots a body floating in the lake. The dead man, a Navajo with a passion for the canyon’s ancient rock art, lived a life filled with many secrets. Discovering why he died and who was responsible involves Chee in an investigation that puts his own life at risk.
Back in Shiprock, Officer Bernadette Manuelito is driving home when she witnesses an expensive sedan purposely kill a hitchhiker. The search to find the killer leads her to uncover a dangerous chain of interconnected revelations involving a Navajo Nation cannabis enterprise.
But the evil that is unleashed jeopardizes her mother and sister Darleen, and puts Bernie in the deadliest situation of her law enforcement career.
Anne Hillerman successfully continues the Chee, Leaphorn tales made famous by her father.
A lifelong worrier, Philpott always kept an eye out for danger, a habit that only intensified when she became a parent. But she looked on the bright side, too, believing that as long as she cared enough, she could keep her loved ones safe.
Then, in the dark of one quiet, pre-dawn morning, she woke abruptly to a terrible sound—and found her teenage son unconscious on the floor. In the aftermath of a crisis that darkened her signature sunny spirit, she wondered: If this happened, what else could happen? And how do any of us keep going when we can’t know for sure what’s coming next?
Philpott’s distinctive voice explores our protective instincts, the ways we continue to grow up long after we’re grown, and the limits—both tragic and hilarious—of the human body and mind. Leave it to the writer to illuminate what it means to move through life with a soul made of equal parts anxiety and optimism (and while she’s at it, to ponder the mysteries of backyard turtles and the challenges of spatchcocking a turkey).
How Free Speech Saved Democracy: The Untold History of How the First Amendment Became an Essential Tool for Securing Liberty and Social Justice by Christopher M. Finan
How Free Speech Saved Democracy is a reminder that First Amendment rights have often been curtailed in efforts to block progress, and that current measures to reduce hurtful language and to end hate speech could backfire on those who promote them.
To those who see free speech as a threat to democracy, Finan offers engaging evidence from a long and sometimes challenging history of free speech in America to show how free speech has been essential to expanding democracy.
From the beginning of American history, free speech has been used to advocate for change. In the 19th century, abolitionists, advocates for women’s rights, and leaders of the labor movement had to fight for free speech. In the 20th century, the civil rights and anti-war movements expanded free speech, creating a shield for every protest movement we see today.
I worked with Chris Finan during my days on the board of the American Booksellers Association, the final chapter of the book captures my life as a bookseller. Those days were the backbone that still have me fighting book banning and supporting The First Amendment.
CELEBRATE INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE DAY
No comments:
Post a Comment