Book Club Bash Choices: August 2019

Quail Ridge Books
Fall Book Club Bash
August 26 & August 27, 2019

Fiction

Bunny by Mona Awad (Viking $26). Wealthy, aggressively feminine, and embarrassingly childlike, the Bunnies alternately annoy and intrigue MFA writing student Samantha until suddenly she is invited to become a Bunny herself. Her reality quickly descends into Bunny chaos: a darkly funny mix of blood magic gone wrong, miniature cupcakes, and creative revenge. (Kiwi)

French Exit by Patrick DeWitt (Ecco $16.99). Subtly satirical, irreverent, and just plain funny, this is a book I recommend to anyone, whether a member of a book club or not. As Hurricane Florence blew through last summer, knocking out power for most of the night, this was my stalwart companion. I had a blast! (Samantha)

A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley (Graywolf Press, $16). A finalist for the National Book Award, this extraordinary collection defies easy description. Brinkley writes fearlessly and without sentiment about race, class, gender, and sex, but also about dancing, laughing, tenderness, and regret. These stories will transport you. (Tony)

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner (Scribner $17). Rachel Kushner puts us inside the head of Romy Hall, who is in prison for killing her stalker. There are no punches pulled here. Romy's world is full of darkness, yet Kushner finds humor and beauty in it as well. (Tony)

Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber $16.95). Follow a young Irish couple through high school and into college as they repeatedly get together and break up, despite maintaining intense (and confusing) feelings for each other. A unique coming of age story about two complicated people trying to find their place in the world. (Kiwi)

The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna by Juliet Grames (Ecco $27.99). This novel is a richly layered, fictionalized history of the author's own Italian immigrant family that is poetic, empathetic, heart-wrenching, and crucial for understanding the multifaceted people who comprise our country today. (Kiwi)

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper $29.99, paperback October 2019 $17.99). On the corner of Sixth and Plum, Vineland NJ, two families and multiple generations in two different centuries struggle with financial, political and changing social norms. The novel examines the question of where one finds physical, emotional and social shelter in the midst of change. (Anne)

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (Vintage $16.95). A slave on a plantation in Barbados in the 1800s, George Washington Black receives a gift: he is chosen to help his master’s brother, who is building a flying machine. This is a story of a young boy on an amazing adventure, navigating air, water, and the evils of slavery. (Mamie)

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum (Harper $26.99, paperback February 2020). The book begins with the chilling statement. "I was born without a voice....”  Such is reality for a young Palestinian-American girl. Pulling from her own experience, the author exposes the place of women in her culture, perhaps for the first time in American literature. (Samantha)

Women Talking by Miriam Toews (Bloomsbury $24, paperback March 2020). Between 2005 and 2009, over 100 girls and women in a remote Mennonite community woke to find that they had been sexually assaulted and were told that they were victims of demonic possession. In this fictional account, the women, who are illiterate, confront their choices in the face of the crime. (Anne)

Nonfiction

Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall by Tim Mohr (Algonquin $16.95). Mohr traces the evolution of a movement started by a handful of East Berlin teens inspired by a new kind of music heard from the other side of the wall. They become an integral part of the movement that brought down the Berlin wall and the government. (Tony)

The Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep (Knopf $26.95). Harper Lee wanted to write a true crime story. She was fascinated by the murder trial of Reverend Willie Maxwell, and you will be too. The portrait of this best-loved and most private author provides three-stories-in-one. (Anne)

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob (One World $30). Everyone is talking about this graphic memoir! Jacob looks at important events and topics of the twenty-first century, and answers deep questions for her son as he examines the world through young eyes. The text is accompanied by beautiful, meaningful collages. (Mamie)

Poetry

Driving Through the Country Before You Are Born by Ray McManus (University of South Carolina Press $14.95). Get every poetry book you can by this award-winning South Carolina poet! In person he’s rough-talking, cigarette-smoking, and tattooed, but his heart is made of gold. (Mamie)

Fall releases by favorite book club authors

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett: The Dutch House is a fascinating setting, described in exquisite detail. It represents the rejection and longing of a brother and sister and the tension between their father and his two wives.

Grand Union by Zadie Smith: Smith’s first story collection contains stories of an alarming future, stories that read like free-writes—riffs from the mind of a brilliant writer—and stories that drift into absurdity.

The Water Dancer by Ta Ne’hisi Coates: Coates tries his hand at fiction with this compelling story of a young slave boy. Channeling Toni Morrison through beautiful, mystical writing.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson: Firmly planted in the setting of so many of Jacqueline Woodson’s novels—Brooklyn—Red at the Bone crosses years and generations and addresses important events of recent history.

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell: Misreading a stranger can have dire consequences. Once again, Gladwell forces us to think in new ways.