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MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL

One of our recommended books is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981.  Was it murder or self-defense?  For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares.  John Berendt’s sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.  Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club;

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YALE NEEDS WOMEN

One of our recommended books for 2019 is Yale Needs Women by Anne Gardiner Perkins

In the summer of 1969, Yale University, the Ivy League institution dedicated to graduating “one thousand male leaders” each year finally decided to open its doors to the nation’s top female students. The landmark decision was a huge step forward for women’s equality in education.

Or was it?

The experience the first undergraduate women found when they stepped onto Yale’s imposing campus was not the same one their male peers enjoyed. Isolated from one another, singled out as oddities and sexual objects, and barred from many of the privileges an elite education was supposed to offer,

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PRINCESS OF THE HITHER ISLES

One of our recommended books for 2019 is Princess of the Hither Isles by Adele Logan Alexander

A compelling reconstruction of the life of a black suffragist.

Born during the Civil War into a slave-holding family that included black, white, and Cherokee forebears, Adella Hunt Logan dedicated herself to advancing political and educational opportunities for the African American community. She taught at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, but also joined the segregated woman suffrage movement, passing for white in order to fight for the rights of people of color. As a wife, mother, scholar, and activist, Adella’s determination to challenge the draconian restraints of race and gender generated conflicts that precipitated her tragic demise.

Historian Adele Logan Alexander—Adella’s granddaughter—bridges the chasms that frustrate efforts to document the lives of those who traditionally have been silenced,

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999

One of our recommended books for 2019 is 999 by Heather Dune Macadam

From Heather Dune Macadam, the untold story of the 999 young, unmarried Jewish women who were tricked on March 25, 1942 into boarding the train that became the first official transport to Auschwitz. Timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees, 999 is an important addition to Holocaust literature and women’s history.

On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months,

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THE CLUB

One of our recommended books for 2019 is The Club by Leo Damrosch

Prize-winning biographer Leo Damrosch tells the story of “the Club,” a group of extraordinary writers, artists, and thinkers who gathered weekly at a London tavern.

In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk’s Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as “the Club.”

In this captivating book, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant,

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TODAY WE GO HOME

One of our recommended books for 2019 is Today We Go Home by Kelli Estes

Seattle, Washington: Larkin Bennett has always known her place, whether it’s surrounded by her loving family in the lush greenery of the Pacific Northwest or conducting a dusty patrol in Afghanistan. But all of that changed the day tragedy struck her unit and took away everything she held dear. Soon after, Larkin discovers an unexpected treasure—the diary of Emily Wilson, a young woman who disguised herself as a man to fight for the Union in the Civil War. As Larkin struggles to heal, she finds herself drawn deeply into Emily’s life and the secrets she kept.

Indiana, 1861: The only thing more dangerous to Emily Wilson than a rebel soldier is the risk of her own comrades in the Union Army discovering her secret.

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