November Staff Picks

Sarah says,

“Anto­nia is a high­ly sen­si­tive per­son who relates to events in her life through the lit­er­ary quo­ta­tions that con­stant­ly run through her mind. While griev­ing the sud­den death of her hus­band and deal­ing with a fam­i­ly emer­gency, a preg­nant, undoc­u­ment­ed teenag­er shows up on her doorstep. Unsure how to respond, she won­ders what her hus­band would do and what she owes to those in cri­sis. She also grap­ples with her iden­ti­ty as an old­er woman, a wid­ow, and a mem­ber of the Lati­na com­mu­ni­ty. I imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nized parts of myself in Anto­nia. When she is with her sis­ters, she often reverts back to the ​“assigned role” that she plays in her fam­i­ly. I think many peo­ple can relate – both to the expe­ri­ence of won­der­ing who one real­ly is, and to the strug­gle to stay true to one­self while remain­ing con­nect­ed and in com­mu­ni­ty with oth­ers. The title – After­life – has lay­ers of mean­ing. How do we con­tin­ue liv­ing after los­ing some­one we love? And how do we keep their mem­o­ry alive after they are gone?”

Car­rie says,

“I think Rachel Beanland’s his­tor­i­cal nov­els deserve a wider audi­ence, and her third book, The Half Life, is a great way to get hooked on her work. Eileen Archer is a fresh­ly mar­ried Navy wife leav­ing her home­town of Charleston to accom­pa­ny her hus­band on his some­what mys­te­ri­ous assign­ment to the island of La Mad­dale­na, off the coast of Sar­dinia, in 1974. As she strug­gles to fit in with the oth­er mil­i­tary wives and adapt to a new cul­ture and lan­guage, she meets a local (hand­some, charm­ing) jour­nal­ist who opens her eyes to what’s real­ly going on with the Navy’s work on the island – as well as what’s going wrong in the mar­riage she rushed into. You’ll love this for the vivid set­ting, engag­ing char­ac­ters, great dia­logue (with enough Ital­ian sprin­kled in to inspire you to break out your Man­go lan­guage app), for­bid­den love sto­ry, and the sat­is­fac­tion of watch­ing a smart woman find her voice and place in the world.”

Tim says,

“This is your favorite sci­ence fic­tion author’s favorite sci­ence fic­tion book. The Shad­ow of the Tor­tur­er and The Claw of the Con­cil­ia­tor – both of which are found between the cov­ers of this vol­ume – make up the first half of Gene Wolfe’s leg­endary Book of the New Sun tetral­o­gy, which is often called the finest SF work of the 20^th cen­tu­ry. It’s the sto­ry of Sev­er­ian, an appren­tice tor­tur­er who is cast out of his guild and exiled for the only crime a tor­tur­er can com­mit: show­ing mer­cy to a pris­on­er. Thus begins his epic jour­ney across a ruined and dying world thou­sands of years in the future. Wolfe’s epic is a mas­ter­piece of prose, per­spec­tive, inte­ri­or­i­ty, and world­build­ing. Sev­e­ri­an’s first-per­son nar­ra­tive is deeply per­son­al and also deeply unre­li­able. The world he inhab­its is pro­found­ly alien, but so well-real­ized that it’s com­plete­ly believ­able. The philo­soph­i­cal, moral, and spir­i­tu­al ques­tions Sev­er­ian con­fronts, how­ev­er, are very much of our world.”