I’m not quite sure why it took me over 2 months to read 2 books, but here we are. I’m looking forward to warmer days when I can read in the park or spend a weekend at the lake, reading beside the water – pretty much my all time favorite activity! Anyway.. below are my thoughts on the books I read in March/April and what’s on my shelf next. And if you’re looking for more – you can always find all of my book club picks here.
Becoming by Michelle Obama: First of all, drop whatever political baggage you’re holding at the door. This book isn’t here for that. This is the incredible true story of a woman born on the south side of Chicago, raised in a one bedroom apartment who went on to graduate with a law degree from Harvard and become the first African American First Lady this country has ever seen. It’s such an incredible story about the power of knowledge, hard work and resilience. It’s a story about what it means to be a young black girl in Chicago and how if you don’t like what that story typically is – you can fight to write a different one for yourself. It’s about marriage through difficult times and motherhood through crazy circumstances. It’s a human story and I highly recommend it.
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante: This book is by an Italian author and was translated into English and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that for me, there may have been a little something lost in the beauty of the translation. This is also the first in an anthology (The Neopolitan Novels) of four books and something about that kind of seemed daunting in the back of my head while I read it, like I’d still have so much more to read. All that being said, it’s still a precisely crafted novel about the story of friendship between two young girls – starting at about aged 5-6 and ending at age 16-17 taking place in a small village in Italy in the 1950s. Painting a complex story about coming of age mixed with poverty, family relations, education and community that felt like a slow burn – in a good way. And by the end? I still knew I’d have to pick up the next book at some point.
Next up: I’ll be reading Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly (a novel based on the real-life story of a WWII-era New York socialite and a renegade group of concentration camp survivors), Maid by Stephanie Land (the memoir of a working mother’s will to survive), French Exit by Patrick DeWitt (a romp of a story about an Upper East Side Mother and Son who fall from grace and flee to Paris), Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (a multi-generational novel about how a decision by two people can affect families for years to come), and Black Swans by Eve Babitz (about the wild world of NYC in the 80s and 90s). I’ve got a lot of reading to do but I’m so excited about all of these books. Hope you’ll pick one or two of them up for yourself!
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