New York (PIX11) October focuses on the importance of reading with National Book Month. Books Director at Oprah Daily Leigh Newman stops by PIX11 to share some must-reads for Fall. Picks include:
Absolution by Alice McDermott: This sweeping novel that spans 60 years is the story of a Vietnam we never got in history class—a story of innocence lost, the bounds of womanhood tested, and our nation held to account. The story starts off in 1963 in Saigon and follows Patricia, who is newly married to an “engineer on loan to the navy.”
Witness by Jamel Brinkley This is a beautiful book of 10 stories from National Book Award finalist Jamel Brinkley. Each story is set in the changing landscapes of contemporary New York City and each story examines actions taken and not taken and what it means to really see the world around you—to bear witness?
Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward Oprah’s Book Club announced Jesmyn’s book as the 103rd pick earlier this week with Oprah calling it “a vital work for our culture.” Oprah has read all of Ward’s books and been a fan of hers for years. · Jesmyn Ward is the winner of two National Book Awards—the only woman and the only Black author to have won the award more than once. It is about the re-imagining of of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, and replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll: This is the highly anticipated second book from Jessica Knoll—author of the bestselling novel Luckiest Girl Alive—it expertly blends elements of psychological suspense and true crime in this exhilarating thriller. Two women from opposite sides of the country are brought together by violent acts of the same man, and become allies and sisters in arms as they pursue the justice that would otherwise elude them. The book opens on a Saturday night in 1978, hours before a soon-to-be-infamous murderer descends upon a Florida sorority house with deadly results. The lives of those who survive, including sorority president and key witness, Pamela Schumacher, are forever changed.
Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant: It turns out everything you thought you knew about achieving greatness is wrong. ‘Hidden Potential is not a matter of where you start, but of how far you travel,” writes psychologist and professor Adam Grant in his new book, ‘Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things.’
Super Bloom by Meg Tady: In this sparkling, heartwarming debut set at an iconic Vermont spa, massage therapist Joan Johnston struggles with grief. Can a quirky assignment from a demanding, eccentric author help Joan rewrite her life?
The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl: In ‘The Comfort of Crows,’ Margaret Renkl New York Times opinion writer and bestselling author Margaret Renkl comes presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons—from a crow spied on New Year’s Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year—what develops is a portrait of joy and grief. Joy at the ongoing pleasures of the natural world: “Until the very last cricket falls silent, the beauty-besotted will always find a reason to love the world.” And grief at a shifting climate, at winters that end too soon, at songbirds growing fewer and fewer.
