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THE CONFIDANTE

One of our recommended books is The Confidante by Christopher C. Gorham

For readers of Hidden FiguresA Woman of No Importance, and Eleanor: A Life, the first-ever biography of Anna Marie Rosenberg, whose influence on American history, from the New Deal to the Cold War and beyond, has never before been told. Her life ran parallel to the front lines of history—and her story, though forgotten for too long, is extraordinary, inspiring, and uniquely American.

As FDR’s special envoy to Europe in World War II, she went where FDR couldn’t go. She was among the first Allied women to enter a liberated concentration camp and stood in the Eagle’s Nest,

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SAVE THE VILLAGE

One of our recommended books is Save the Village by Michele Herman

Life hasn’t turned out quite the way Becca Cammeyer of Greenwich Village – once voted most likely to land on Broadway or in jail for a good cause – had planned. Her only child has moved to another continent, she’s still living in a fifth-floor walkup with her aging dog, still single, still nearly broke, still not on speaking terms with her best friend or mother, and still hearing the ghost of her long-dead father whispering in her ear.

But she’s a semi-famous tour guide, and on a perfect October evening, Becca almost believes all is well with her world as she helps a group of South Carolinian tourists fall in love with her beloved Village.

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IN THE TIME OF OUR HISTORY

One of our recommended books is In the Time of Our History by Susanne Pari

Inspired by her own family’s experiences following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Susanne Pari explores the entangled lives within an Iranian American family grappling with generational culture clashes, the roles imposed on women, and a tragic accident that forces them to reconcile their guilt or forfeit their already tenuous bonds. Set between San Francisco and New Jersey in the late-1990’s, In the Time of Our History is a story about the universal longing to create a home in this world – and what happens when we let go of how we’ve always been told it should look.

Twelve months after her younger sister Anahita’s death,

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MOONRISE OVER NEW JESSUP

One of our recommended books is Moonrise Over New Jessup by Jamila Minnicks

Winner of the 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, a thought-provoking and enchanting debut about a Black woman doing whatever it takes to protect all she loves at the beginning of the civil rights movement in Alabama.

It’s 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into the all-Black town of New Jessup, Alabama, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their “side of the woods.” In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell,

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WOMEN TALKING

One of our recommended books is Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Now a major motion picture from writer/director Sarah Polley, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand.

One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm.

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AESTHETICA

One of our recommended books is Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom

In a debut novel as radiant as it is caustic, a former influencer confronts her past—and takes inventory of the damages that underpin the surface-glamour of social media.

At 19, she was an Instagram celebrity. Now, at 35, she works behind the cosmetic counter at the “black and white store,” peddling anti-aging products to women seeking physical and spiritual transformation. She too is seeking rebirth. She’s about to undergo the high-risk, elective surgery Aesthetica™, a procedure that will reverse all her past plastic surgery procedures, returning her, she hopes, to a truer self. Provided she survives the knife.

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