American Literature

James by Percival Everett

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James

The other side of Huckleberry Finn's adventure

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a classic in American juvenile fiction. Set in 1880s Missouri, it’s the story of the friendship between a young white boy and a black slave, both on the run, from a violent father and a slave owner. Much loved for its portrayal of youthful adventure, Huckleberry Finn, packed with racial stereotypes and the N-word, makes for uncomfortable reading today. In James by Percival Everett, we get the story from the black man’s perspective, and it’s far cry from the charming adventure story so many readers have come to love.

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All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley

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All the Beauty in the World

Life, death, and the art of seeing

A stand-out read of the year to date, All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley is a finely understated combination of memoir, lessons on the art of seeing, and a  glorious and very personal tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Capturing a transformative period in Bringley’s life, the book focuses on the months and years after his brother Tom’s untimely death, when poleaxed by grief, Bringley drops out of his relentless New York life and takes a job as a museum guard at the Met. Here, with a broken heart, he gets to just stand still awhile and let the art and life of the museum work its healing magic.

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Table for Two by Amor Towles

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Table for Two

A magnificent short story collection

Anyone wary of short stories should put their doubts to rest and dive into the utterly magnificent Table for Two by Amor Towles. I’ve been chuckling through his stories which range from a neurotic wife convinced her husband is having an affair to a Russian peasant turned opportunistic capitalist by the Russian revolution; from a high-strung Goldman Sachs banker suspicious of a fellow concert goer to the incompetent aspiring author whose skills at forging puts him on a new career path and many more. Once again, Towles’ superb storytelling skills shine.

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Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

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Let the Great World Spin

On edge in New York City

In August 1974, a tightrope walker crossed between the World Trade Center towers as police and pedestrians watched incredulously from below. It’s the starting point for Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, a novel which follows the lives of different New Yorkers, all living on the edge one way or another. Their lives intersect in unexpected ways that day in August, weaving together destinies and showing how we’re all connected. It’s as much a novel about New York as it is about New Yorkers and a moving love letter to a city which was just emerging from the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks when McCann wrote it.

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The Long-Winded Lady by Maeve Brennan

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The Long-Winded Lady

A captivating and stylish peek at bygone New York

An unearthed gem for lovers of the Big Apple, The Long-Winded Lady by Maeve Brennan is a gloriously evocative collection of vignettes of New York life between 1954 and 1981. Originally written for The New Yorker as a series of observational pieces, Brennan captures the city in a state of  flux, reporting from street scenes, hotel lobbies, and more often than not, the window table of an elegant bar. From here, as a wry and solitary observer and unashamed eavesdropper, Brennan gives us the lowdown on a city where it’s never too early to order a martini.

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Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

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Inheritance

Finding your genes

At the age of 54, author Dani Shapiro discovers that her father is not the man who raised her. The Ancestry.com genealogy test results show that not only is she fathered by someone else, but she also has a lot less Jewish DNA than she thought. Having been raised in an orthodox Jewish family, this raises all kinds of questions about identity and belonging. I was enthralled by Shapiro’s detective work as I joined her emotional rollercoaster to find out why, how and who. Inheritance by Dani Shapiro is a human story which raises some compelling ethical dilemmas and is well worth your time.

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Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

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Leave the World Behind

Apocalypse in the Hamptons

Amanda and Clay – a successful, liberal New York couple – are staying in a smart rental summer house in the Hamptons with their kids. When the phone and internet connections go down and a black couple, Ruth and G.H., claiming to be the owners of the house, knock on the door asking for shelter, Amanda and Clay’s proclaimed tolerance is put to the test. Who is this couple? Can they be trusted? And why doesn’t the communications network function? Cyberattack? Terrorism? War? Nuclear accident? Catastrophe looms in Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, the most unsettling and frighteningly believable novel I’ve read in a long time.

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Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

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Killers of the Flower Moon 

Gripping true story of murder and greed

The non-fiction book The Wager was one of my reading highlights this summer so when I heard of Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann I jumped on it. This time, Grann takes us to early 20th century Oklahoma, a state established to house the many displaced Native Americans. After being forcibly moved away from fertile land, the Osage tribe were assigned a rocky patch of no apparent value until, that is, oil in large quantities was discovered. The Osage became immensely rich – at the time they were the wealthiest people in the world – and lived comfortable lives. For a while.

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The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

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The Ministry for the Future

Hope and despair in the age of the climate crisis

If this summer hasn’t made you realise the urgency of the climate crisis, I’d recommend reading The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley-Robinson. A sci-fi eco-thriller which made it onto President Obama’s list of favourite reads, The Ministry for the Future is both a terrifying prediction of what the future will look like and hopeful tale of how we can avoid total extinction. I can empathise with the urge to look away but do read this book, your future depends on it.

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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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Demon Copperhead

Down and out in Opioidland

Updating one of Charles Dickens’ iconic novels is a brave thing to do. In Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver we get squalor, poverty and destitution worthy of the master himself, set in modern day America during the opioid crisis. Damon Field aka Demon Copperhead’s story is one of resilience in a society where everything is stacked against someone like him; his mixed race, poverty, his mother’s addiction, the education system, the list goes on. The shocking realisation is how little things have changed since 1850, which is precisely Kingsolver’s point.

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