James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain: From Penguin Classics: "This haunting coming-of-age story, first published in 1953 and based in part on James Baldwin’s childhood in Harlem, is an American classic. John Grimes is the fourteen-year-old stepson of a fire-breathing and abusive Pentecostal preacher in Harlem during the Depression. The action of this short novel spans a single day in John’s life, and yet manages to encompass on an epic scale his family’s troubled past and his own inchoate longings for the future, set against a shining vision of a city where he both does and does not belong." Baldwin is a gorgeous storyteller and prose stylist whose writing explores race in America in ways startlingly relevant today. Let's talk about his first novel together! (Ms. Eskelund)
Molly Ball, Pelosi: From the Publisher: "She’s the iconic leader who puts Donald Trump in his place, the woman with the toughness to take on a lawless president and defend American democracy. Ever since the Democrats took back the House in the 2018 midterm elections, Nancy Pelosi has led the opposition with strategic mastery and inimitable elan. It’s a remarkable comeback for the veteran politician who for years was demonized by the right and taken for granted by many in her own party—even though, as speaker under President Barack Obama, she deserves much of the credit for epochal liberal accomplishments from universal access to health care to saving the US economy from collapse, from reforming Wall Street to allowing gay people to serve openly in the military. How did an Italian grandmother in four-inch heels become the greatest legislator since LBJ?" I am really excited to read this, hope you are too. Nancy Pelosi is a woman and politician par excellence. (Dr. Eagle)
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A graphic novel memoir about cartoonist Alison Bechdel's childhood growing up in a funeral parlor, her coming out at Oberlin College, and her complicated relationship with her father—who, like her, was gay. (Ms. Johnson)
Joseph Brodsky, Watermark: Joseph Brodsky was a Russian-American poet and essayist. Born in Leningrad in 1940, he ran afoul of Soviet authorities and was expelled ("strongly advised" to emigrate) from the Soviet Union in 1972, settling in the United States with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters. Watermark is Brodsky's paean to the city of Venice. It's a little jewel of a book, forty-eight brief, meditative chapters that fold observation, rumination, and rueful confession into a lyrical contemplation of the city's architectural and atmospheric charms—and of the relation between water and land, light and dark, present and past, and more. (Ms. Dale)
Theodora Goss, The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter: The daughters of mad scientists from 19th century novels meet each other and Sherlock Holmes. It works surprisingly well! (Ms. Budding)
Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin: From Wikipedia: "The novel, a semiautobiographical account of British author Christopher Isherwood's time in 1930s Berlin, describes pre-Nazi Germany and the people he met. It is episodic, dealing with a large cast over a period of several years from late 1930 to early 1933. It is written as a connected series of six short stories and novellas. The musical, Cabaret, is based on the work. After moving to Germany to work on his novel, Isherwood moves around the city frequently and soon thus becomes involved with a diverse array of German citizens: the caring landlady, Frl. Schroeder; the 'divinely decadent' Sally Bowles, a young Englishwoman who sings in the local cabaret and her coterie of admirers; Natalia Landauer, the rich, teenage Jewish heiress of a prosperous family business; Peter and Otto, a gay couple struggling to accept their relationship and sexuality in light of the rise of the Nazis. The book, first published in 1939, highlights the groups of people who would be most at risk from Nazi intimidation. It was described by contemporary writer George Orwell as 'brilliant sketches of a society in decay.'" (Mr. Chalue & Mr. Wolff)
Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: Written when she was only 23, Carson McCullers' The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter takes a deliberate, intimate look at life in a Georgian mill town during the Great Depression. Although the book transports you to a different time and place, the main characters grapple with issues that still confront us today: class, race, ability, gender, addiction, and the politics which give rise to these matters. Living in a time of quarantine gives us a new way to relate to this beautifully crafted, unhurried story. Note that the book is an artifact of its time and does contain language that wouldn't be used today. (Mr. Singer)
Herman Melville, Billy Budd: This short, laser-focused novel by Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, was discovered in a desk drawer after his death in 1891 (a circumstance weirdly prophesied in his novel Pierre). The story of a court martial aboard a British warship in the age of sail, it is equally a metaphysical exploration of what, if any, moral order governs the world. Billy Budd, the archetypal "handsome sailor," beloved by all his fellow sailors, finds himself morally and intellectually helpless in the face of the pure, elemental malice of the sergeant-at-arms Claggart. When a crime is committed, the ship's captain, wavering between strict legal principle and a natural sense of right, is forced to make an agonizing judgment ... with the eyes of his crew upon him. (Mr. Conolly)
Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night: A mystery that's also a romance and a real novel of ideas (no offense to mysteries generally) set in the academic paradise of an Oxford women's college. I like the way it shows that feminism was not invented in 1969. (Ms. Brewster)
Claude M. Steele, Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do: In Whistling Vivaldi, Claude Steele paints a compelling picture, through personal stories and research results, of how simply being aware of negative stereotypes toward our social group diminishes our ability to perform. (Ms. Schilder)