Holiday Reading List!!

With some time over the holidays-- in transit, at home, or hopefully on a beach somewhere (!), time to find a good book or two to read.

We're going to be reading:

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Lucy's already read it and loved it.  The intersection of a 16 year-old Nigerian girl and a well to do British couple.

Freedom by Jonathan Frazen

Highly recommended by some of our closest, most interesting friends, "Freedom" is Frazen's follow up to his highly acclaimed first novel "The Corrections."  He is being touted as the most significant novelist of our time.  And Oprah loves him.  Enough said.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

A romantic thriller...  takes place in a castle.  Perfect holiday fare!!

The Wolves of Andover By Kathleen Kent

Takes place during the Salem witch trials -- the prequel to Kent's The Heretic's Daughter, the story of her real life ancestral grandmother, who was hanged as a witch during the trials.

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Stunning, wrenching and inspiring, the fourth novel by Canadian novelist Hill (Any Known Blood) spans the life of Aminata Diallo, born in Bayo, West Africa, in 1745. The novel opens in 1802, as Aminata is wooed in London to the cause of British abolitionists, and begins reflecting on her life. Kidnapped at the age of 11 by British slavers, Aminata survives the Middle Passage and is reunited in South Carolina with Chekura, a boy from a village near hers. Her story gets entwined with his, and with those of her owners: nasty indigo producer Robinson Appleby and, later, Jewish duty inspector Solomon Lindo. During her long life of struggle, she does what she can to free herself and others from slavery, including learning to read and teaching others to, and befriending anyone who can help her, black or white. Hill handles the pacing and tension masterfully, particularly during the beginnings of the American revolution, when the British promise to free Blacks who fight for the British: Aminata's related, eventful travels to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone follow. In depicting a woman who survives history's most trying conditions through force of intelligence and personality, Hill's book is a harrowing, breathtaking tour de force. (Nov.)

Happy Reading!!  Off to NYC tomorrow.... stay tuned. xoxox