This book grabbed me on page one and never let go. It's a riveting page-turner not because it's a thriller or a whodunit but because it's a compelling story about people…people who are acting up, while trying to do the right thing for all the wrong reasons—and utterly failing.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020, this is billed on the cover as a social satire about privilege in America. It's the story of two women—one White, one Black. One is the employer; the other is the employee. Alix Chamberlin is a privileged, wealthy, slightly dishonest mother of two adorable girls, who is used to getting her own way and always coming out on top. Her husband, Peter, is a local TV news anchor. So Peter can get a better job, they move out of New York City to Alix's childhood hometown of Philadelphia, and Alix mourns the loss of the big city. They live in a huge home in a prestigious neighborhood. Alix has a book contract, so she hires Elmira Tucker as a part-time babysitter for the girls to give her time to write. Elmira is Black, and even though she is a Temple University college graduate she is 25 and hasn't figured out what she wants to do with her life. She has no money and is about to lose her health insurance when she turns 26 in a few months.

The novel opens when Elmira receives a frantic call from Alix very late one night to immediately come get Briar, the two-year-old, and take her to the nearby grocery store for about an hour. Why? Peter (we find out later) said something very stupid on air, and their house got egged, causing one of the windows to break. Peter and Alix are calling the police, and they don't want their little girl to witness this. Elmira is all dressed up and out having a grand time at a friend's birthday party, but drops what she's doing to go get Briar, a precocious child whom Elmira dearly loves. While they are in the grocery store, the security guard confronts Elmira, accusing her of kidnapping Briar. A crowd gathers, and a witness named Kelley Copeland, captures the scene on his phone. It is this video that guides the rest of the story in ways that are hilarious, profound, degrading, shocking, and (finally) liberating.

Ingeniously plotted with superb pacing, this is a fabulous story with an important message about prejudice and expectations, deception and forgiveness, but one that is wrapped up in an intriguing storyline, brilliant (and sometimes blistering) dialogue, and colorful characters. Read it!

This is a 10-star book in a five-star world. With an imaginative structure, a riveting storyline, and incredibly vivid characters, this book by author Elizabeth Strout is one to read slowly, fully savor, and treasure.

This is the sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Olive Kitteridge," and, yes, you absolutely must read them in order. Although it is titled a novel, it's really a hybrid—as was "Olive Kitteridge"—between a short story collection and a novel. Each chapter is really a short story about a person, couple, or family living in Crosby, Maine. Olive Kitteridge is often the central character in these stories, but sometimes she makes only a cameo appearance. Still, there is a definite connecting thread through all the stories, and that's what makes it a novel.

Strout has so brilliantly crafted the character of Olive that I almost think she might be joining me on the sofa while I read. She is older now—in her 70s and 80s as the book progresses—but still a large woman with brightly-colored clothing, a big handbag, and distinct quirks, such as waving her hand over head when she says good-bye, responding "ay-yuh" a lot, and saying exactly what she thinks.

This is a book about life…and death. It's a book about life in the face of death. It's a book about life in spite of death. It's a book that will make you laugh and cry as we all must face not only the deaths of parents and friends, but also our own demise. It is a book packed with wit and wisdom and pithy life advice. But most of all, this is a book filled with grace and goodness.

Warning: Do read Elizabeth Strout's novel "The Burgess Boys" before you read this book. The chapter titled "Exiles" is essentially an epilogue of what happened to the Burgess family 10 years after that novel ends. In other words: Major spoilers!

This is a fairy tale for grown-ups. And quite a tale it is with the suffering heroine, the monster with whom she falls in love, and a desperately unhappy life that happily turns around.

As a little girl, our heroine said something almost every angry child utters at one time or another. But in this case, the meanspirited wish came true, causing the unnamed narrator to believe she could make bad things happen just by wishing it so. After living a solitary, loveless life with a heart that has turned to ice, her brother, Ned, essentially forces her to move from their family home in New Jersey to be near him in Florida. And then the seemingly impossible happens: She is struck by lightning. While the physical effects of the lightning strike are horrific, it gives her a new beginning as she embarks on a passionate love affair with another lightning strike survivor — a man who is so burning hot that his breath can make water boil. Can love make the ice queen's heart melt? Like her, he harbors secrets that are almost too terrible to speak aloud, but it is only when the strange and horrific secrets are revealed that they lose their power to hurt.

Like all good fairy tales, there is a moral lesson that leads to a healing redemption and a bold transformation. Author Alice Hoffman, who is a genius at the tricky genre of magical realism, has created an imaginative, emotionally-searing story that is absolutely spellbinding. And the ending is perfect. (Well, it is a fairy tale!)

Bonus: This is also a fascinating scientific primer on the physical and psychological effects of lightning strikes on human beings, as well as the basics of chaos theory.

This is a difficult book to read because it is so very sad. But even though this historical novel by Emma Donoghue is raw and emotionally draining, it tells an important story about the 18th century: the plight of girls and women who were abandoned and the degrading, awful lives they were forced to live just to survive.

It is 1760, and 13-year-old Mary Saunders, a poor girl with a cold and detached mother and a cruel stepfather, makes a mistake that will forever and tragically alter the course of her life: for a bit of red ribbon she lets a course peddler kiss her—and more. She is ruined. Her mother throws her out of the house, and she must fend for herself on the mean streets of London. Mary quickly realizes there is only one thing she can do to survive. She has never known love, so working as a prostitute is just a job. But through all the horrors she experiences, Mary has a fierce will to better herself. Most of all, she wants to control her own destiny. But the horrors of her past will always haunt her every step. This is her story.

Loosely based on a true story, the novel is packed with fascinating historical details, finely-wrought characters, and a riveting plot. It is a gripping saga that reveals the underbelly of a brutal and ultimately tragic life.

Be forewarned: This book is filled with graphic descriptions and violent scenes that may be difficult for some readers.

If the front cover didn't list Stephen King as the author, I would never have guessed he wrote it. Mind you, I don't read horror novels, so I dance around the edges of King's oeuvre, and this one is definitely on that edge. No horror at all, but also not much of a story.

Recently divorced Scott Carey lives in a wealthy, gated community in fictional Castle Rock, Maine. He has some minor issues with his new neighbors' unleashed dogs; the neighbors are married lesbians who are setting this conservative town on edge. But that's the least of his worries. Scott is losing weight—rapidly—even though it doesn't show. He looks out of shape and obese, but the weight is falling off. What is happening?

This novella, which can easily be read in a couple of hours, is most of all a lesson in tolerance and the value of diversity, but it's told a bit like a hammer over the head. No subtleties, no nuances. While it's still a good story, I'm disappointed. King is one of the most talented American writers living today, and I think he could have done better.

If someone were to ask me to describe this incredibly creative book in three words, this is it: Innovative. Imaginative. Inspiring. It may take you a few pages to become accustomed to the highly original writing style, but the payoff is so worth it. This is one of those books that I will be thinking about for a long, long time to come.

The narrator of this book is Death. He is the one who releases the soul from a body once it has died, and he carries it away. It is January 1939 in Nazi Germany, and 9-year-old Liesel and her little brother are being sent to a foster home to be cared for by strangers. Her brother dies, so she is all alone when she enters the home of Hans and Rosa Hubermann on Himmel Street, which is in the shadow of Dachau. When Liesel steals her first book at her brother's graveside, she doesn't even know how to read. Stealing books becomes an obsession—a potentially dangerous one not only because it is theft and a crime, but also because this is a time when books are burned. Books are seditious. Words have power. This is the story of Liesel's life in Germany during World War II told from the perspective of a German child who is not Jewish, but whose family is harboring a Jewish man in their basement. Her life is filled with love, but also incredible danger and tragedy. And her life is filled with words—words that give and words that take.

The characters are vivid and strong, the passionate writing is superb, the novel's structure is ingenious, and the plot is profound and moving. This is a brilliant and unforgettable must-read novel.

When I was about halfway through reading "America for Beginners" by Leah Franqui, I had the (admittedly odd) thought: I just want to hug this book. In addition to being a delightful story—more enchanting than a page-turner—this book is filled with pithy wit and wisdom about life, love, and truly living.

At 60 years old and newly widowed, Pival Senjupta scandalously decides to leave her lifelong home Kolkata, India (a place in which she has only ever traveled five blocks) to take a tour alone of the United States with the hope of reuniting with her son, who may or may not be dead and may or may or may not be alive and living in Los Angeles. Soon after Rahi told his parents he was gay, his incensed and outraged father told Pival that her beloved boy had died of a heart attack. She signs up for a private tour of the U.S.A. with a New York-based tour company of Bangladeshis who pretend to be Indian. Her guide is Satya, an undocumented immigrant who has never been anywhere other than New York, along with her American female companion, Rebecca, a desperately unhappy, somewhat jaded wannabe actress. Each is in for a life-changing experience that hinges not on the sights they see, but rather on their interactions with one another.

Bonus: Pival and Satya's first experiences of America are poignant, hilarious, and illuminating.

Written with humor and grace, this moving story is a new twist on the age-old idea of a journey as a means for quest and transformation. And the physical monsters Ulysses conquered in "The Odyssey" are no less daunting than the psychological monsters this trio battles.

Most of all, this is a story that offers hope, love, and understanding written in a brilliant and beautiful way.

History comes vitally alive when it's told not with facts and dates and lists but rather through the drama of the people who lived it. And author Hilary Mantel does a magnificent job of bringing to life Thomas Cromwell, a man long cast as a cunning Machiavellian villain but in Mantel's deft storytelling, he is something else entirely: a man of honor, respect, ambition, brilliance, and great loyalty. (Okay, in fairness he was a cunning Machiavellian villain—but with a heart.)

Cromwell was a close aide and attorney to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. After this holy man was disgraced and discarded by King Henry VIII, Cromwell found a place in that volatile and dangerous Tudor court, winning Henry's respect and friendship when he cleared a legal and religious path for Henry to do what was heretofore unthinkable: divorce his wife of 20 years, Katherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn.

Through a combination of extraordinary research and old-fashioned storytelling, Mantel has cast Cromwell in a way that gives him flesh and blood, a soul and a heart.

This multilayered book, the first in a three-part series on Cromwell's life, is rich in historical detail with big and bold characters. It is imaginatively written in a style that is uniquely Mantel, although admittedly that style can be quite confusing at times. (The word "he" almost always—but not every instance—refers to Cromwell, even when logic says it should be someone else. I got used to it.)

Just beware! There are quite a few detailed descriptions of the brutal and violent practices of torture and execution that were common during this time. Parts of this book you definitely do not want to read just before going to sleep.

If you grew up in the 1960s, graduating from high school in the early 1970s, this coming-of-age story is likely to resonate with you. While the novel recounts a girl's passage into adulthood during a somewhat turbulent time, it also pays homage to the power of Mother Nature, and in both cases reminds us how little control we really have over our lives—no matter how much we think we do.

Beautifully written by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen, this is the story of Mimi Miller, the third child and only girl in a Pennsylvania farm family. Mimi is smart and plays by the rules. The farm, which has been in the Miller family for generations, is located at the bottom of Miller's Valley, an area that is prone to severe flooding. The government wants to buy out the families and flood the valley to create a recreational lake, but Mimi's father and others refuse to budge. Meanwhile, one of Mimi's brothers enlists in the Army and is sent to Vietnam. Although he survives the war, his return home is filled with trouble, conflict, and heartbreak. Through it all, Mimi navigates her way through junior high and high school and college—best friends, boyfriends, sex, summer jobs, and farm work—eventually discovering a startling, long-guarded family secret while at the same time finally figuring out who she is and what she wants to be.

The book, which focuses on the meaning, memories, joys, and sorrows of home, is highly readable with a realistic plot and genuine characters. That said, the end is very disappointing in that many years of Mimi's life are glossed over quite quickly—almost as if the author were told she had one day to finish the book when she needed much longer. It could have been better.

This book grabbed my heart on page one and never let go. Exquisitely written by Laurie Frankel with aplomb, humor, and a rare insightful emotional intelligence, this is a book about a subject that is so difficult—and to some so disgusting—it's easier to ignore it or, worse, ridicule it.

Rosie and Penn—she's an emergency room physician and he's a would-be novelist and stay-at-home dad—have five children. All boys. Loud, messy, smelly, chaotic, lovable boys. The youngest is Claude, who is precocious and adorable. And when Claude grows up, he says he wants to be a girl. By the time he gets to kindergarten, he is wearing dresses. He soon changes his name and to all outward appearances becomes a girl. This is a secret the family holds close. But secrets are hard to keep, and when this one is revealed, the love of this family is fully tested.

This is a book about how to parent, how to love, and how to let your child be whom he wants to be—even if it breaks your heart.

Multiple research studies have shown that reading novels makes you more empathetic. This book should be Exhibit A for that theory. Most of us have no experience (our own or that of our friends) of a little child desperately wanting to be a different gender. But it happens. And this book will gently bring you into that world so when you finish the last sentence, you will have a new understanding…a new compassion…a new empathy. You will be a better human being for it. That is the power of reading.

More than anything, this is just a really, really good book. You will not want to stop reading, but also you won't want it to end. There is so much wisdom and insight that it will take your breath away, so much wit that you will laugh out loud, and so much heartbreak that you will cry real tears. This is almost a perfect book.

History DOES repeat itself. I read this book about the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, and the similarities are chilling—especially the many elected officials who first mocked it and later denied it, not only radically increasing the number of cases and deaths, but also posing a public health threat to the overwhelmed hospitals and exhausted health care workers.

Expertly written by John M. Barry, this is what I think of as a real history book. There are facts and figures and more facts and figures that are interrupted with stories of people, mostly the incredibly dedicated and hardworking scientists who were trying to understand this mysterious new disease and stop it with a vaccine, all while the bloviating public officials were busy denying it and putting the public at even greater risk.

As with all good historical accounts, this one begins at the beginning. In this case, the beginning is a lengthy account of the state of medicine and medical education starting around the time of the American Civil War—long before ever mentioning the first instance of flu. While parts of it are absolutely riveting, other parts are a bit longwinded and borderline tedious. Still, every bit of it is important and must be part of this story if the full history is to be told properly.

Find out:
• Why it was popularly called the "Spanish flu," even though it seems to have started in Haskell, Kansas.
• President Woodrow Wilson's absolutely shocking response to the virus as millions died worldwide.
• The best and most understandable description of antibodies and how they function in the human body that you will ever read.
• Why newspapers were not permitted to honestly report what was happening.
• The mind-boggling reason why young adults were far more likely to die from this influenza than the elderly.
• A detailed and quite comprehensible medical explanation of the flu's symptoms and the devastating effect they had on the human body.

Prodigiously researched and intelligently written for the common reader, this is a vitally important and at times utterly fascinating examination of a terrifying time in our history that has very real ramifications for today and our Covid-19 pandemic.

You will never again watch Trevor Noah tell a joke or go on a political tirade without asking yourself this question: How did he do it? How did he grow up to become a functioning human being? Even with the fierce, protective love his mother, Noah lived a precarious and dangerous life in South Africa where he truly was born a crime. His father is white. His mother is black. When he was born, it was against the law—punishable by five years in prison—for the races to mix. And he was the living proof of their crime.

Trevor Noah is a funny man. And while parts of this book are funny as you would expect, most of it alternates between shock and incredulity and sheer tragedy. Apartheid officially ended when Noah was six years old, but that didn't mean his life got any easier. As a mixed-race child he never fit in. As a toddler in the 1980s, he could not be seen walking with his black mother, so he was hidden inside and even forbidden to play with anyone other than his cousins.

He does know how to spin a tale! From attending three different churches on Sundays to all the bad things he did as a boy to the fun and normal escapades of a teenager, some of which were borderline criminal, as well as surviving an abusive, alcoholic stepfather, the book contains story after story about his life in South Africa—a life that is so unlike anything in my frame of reference that I found it absolutely riveting.

His meteoric rise to success as a comedian — and what are the chances of THAT for anyone?? — is probably the least unbelievable part of his astonishing life. And, truly, it all comes back to one person: His mother. Mother-love is powerful. Mother-love can overcome so many wrongs and so many hurts. Mother-love is like an angel's wings. And Trevor Noah has that kind of mother.

This is a book that shocked me, but it also made me laugh — and it gave me hope. I know it will stay with me for a long time to come.

This novel, written long before "Covid-19" or "coronavirus" were in our everyday lexicon, has an eerie ring of verisimilitude. So if the daily headlines aren't scary enough for you, grab this book—but don't plan on getting anything else done for a while because you won't be able to stop reading it.

In this stunning and intelligent thriller by Chris Bohjalian, it's a race against time pitting the initially clueless good guys against the evil, moneygrubbing bad guys to prevent a pandemic of an antibiotic-resistant plague from spreading around the world.

A plot summary is impossible to give without significant spoilers. Suffice it to say that Alexis, an emergency room physician at a busy New York City hospital, and Austin, who works in the hospital's development department, are dating. Austin, an avid bicyclist, wants to return to Vietnam for another bike tour so he can pay his respects to the sites where his uncle died and his father was wounded in that unpopular war 50 years ago. On the second-to-last day of their trip, Austin vanishes. And then the real story takes off like a rocket. Hold onto your reading chair! This is going to be an exhilarating ride.

Bohjalian has mastered the thriller genre with aplomb and creativity. The characters are realistic — good in the right ways so we readers like them and flawed just enough to make them human — and the plot is absolutely riveting and spine-tingling right to the very end. Anything can happen, and sometimes I didn't see it coming, which makes it even better.

What a book!

This is a heartbreaking book. And while I believe this may very well be great literature, it is not a book one should read lightly. It is absolutely devastating.

Written by the inimitable Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the lyrical, sometimes gritty prose will take you on a Nigerian journey of family, misguided love, violent secrets, and the psychological breakdown of two children.

Eugene Achike is a very wealthy and generous man, who is powerful because of his money. He and his wife, Beatrice, and their two teenaged children Jaja, 17, and Kambili, 15, live in a gated mansion with servants, plenty of food, and luxuries most Nigerians will never see. But this is not a happy home. Eugene, a fanatic Catholic who singlehandedly financially supports the local church, cruelly rules his wife and children with an iron fist. He doles out discipline, which typically involves unspeakable violence, for the slightest infractions. For 10 days, Jaja and Kambili are permitted to visit with their aunty and cousins, who live in small flat in a university town where everything from fuel to chicken is carefully rationed but where love, laughter, and singing abound. After their father makes a startling discovery about their short visit, Jaja and Kambili must return home immediately, and the terror and defiance that ensues tests Kambili's very heart and soul. The denouement is stark, chilling, and absolutely perfect.

Functioning stylistically as a shadow to the narrative of the Achike family is the secondary story of a government in chaos with political unrest, daring defiance, and violent disturbances.

Told in Kambili's first person, elegiac voice with utter candor, this remarkable coming-of-age story will alternately inspire in readers rage and sympathy, anger and compassion. It is an unforgettable and emotional tale of the power of the human psyche in that liminal space between love and hate.

Bonus: The vivid and colorful descriptions of Nigeria—from earthworms crawling in a sparkling white tub to the intense heat before a drenching rain—are so realistic that you will feel transported to the heart of Africa.

This book is the literary equivalent of a bottle of Champagne. It opens with a pop, and while it's fizzy and bubbly and fun, there ultimately isn't much substance to it. Still, it's pretty amazing!

Written by Jay McInerney in his witty and intelligent style, this is the second of three books in the "Brightness Falls" series. The golden couple Russell and Corrine Calloway are living the good life in the heart of New York City in a converted loft with their six-year-old twins. It's Monday, September 10, 2001. Corrine is running late for their big dinner party. She arrives home minutes before the guests, surprised to find her sister Hilary, whom Corrine thought was at her home in California, lying on their couch, while Russell plays chef in the kitchen. And then the world changes so drastically that it's hard to remember what it was like before. Corrine meets a man walking out of the dust and ash of the World Trade Center, and they meet again volunteering at a Ground Zero soup kitchen. The troubles in the Calloway marriage rise to the surface as Corrine and Russell deal quite differently with the emotions and anguish of the 9/11 tragedy.

This is a story of enduring love and love lost, of an enduring life and life lost. But it's also a story of the aftermath of 9/11 and the supercharged emotions and anguish that roiled New York City for so long. While what happened on that fateful day in 2001 is always treated with respect, the story that surrounds it is a sex-fueled tale of rich New Yorkers with too much of everything. And it truly is the quintessential "New York" story with lots of inside jokes, tidbits, and trivia, which, as a non-New Yorker, I often felt left me on the outside looking in.

But even so, I greatly admire Jay McInerney. He's a solid writer in the same mold as Tom Wolfe. A good story. A good bottle of Champagne. Enjoy!

Oh, this book is dark. Very, very dark. It is about dying and grief—grief in the myriad ways that the deaths of those we love bruise the human psyche. Adding to the complexity of the story, the death in question is a suicide, which means the "why" will never be answered and that question will forever niggle in the hearts of those left to pick up the pieces.

The story, which takes place primarily in a small town outside Dublin, Ireland, is narrated by 39-year-old Veronica, who has just learned that her beloved brother, Liam, who was a scant 11 months older than she, committed suicide by walking into the sea with stones in his pocket. Veronica and Liam are two of 12 children in a troubled and dysfunctional Irish family—so troubled that at one point in their childhoods, Veronica, Liam, and their younger sister Kitty were sent to live with their grandmother for a year. It was during that time that something horrific happened to Liam, which most likely leads to his subsequent alcoholism and eventual suicide. But that is only the surface of the story. It is Veronica's colorful and often bizarre memories, including many about her grandparents that she freely admits she makes up as a way to comfort herself, as well as her intense grief for Liam's life and death that is the crux of this 2007 Man Booker Award-winning novel by Anne Enright.

This is a story about the indelible ties of family, the heartbreak of death and the forever separation it causes, the healing power as well as the shame and futility of sex, the inherent wounds of old secrets, the ongoing scourge of abuse, and most of all how these all merge together like modeling clay to shape and form us into our very selves.

While the writing is extraordinary with some sentences so lyrical that they demand to be read over again, the story is just so incredibly sad and desolate I found it difficult to keep reading at times.

The essential power of books is both simple and majestic: Knowledge can change lives. That is the power of this short book by Ta-Nehisi Coates that succinctly and poetically recounts America's racial history both nationally and in the author's own life. And it is absolutely riveting.

Written as a very personal letter to his teenage son, we readers are permitted to peer into this private missive and by doing so share in the joys, aspirations, love, anger, and bone-deep fear that one man has for his black son in modern-day America. I felt his joy. I felt his love. I felt his anger. And I, a 66-year-old white woman, definitely felt in a whole new way his bone-deep fear.

And there we have it: The power of books.

This book is spellbinding. Some of the stories Coates tells about his life on the streets of Baltimore, at Howard University, the killing of a close friend by a police officer, and how he felt when his son was born are compelling, vivid and as engrossing as a fine novel.

What troubles me the most is the deeply engrained fear that Coates has endured all his life. Just walking down the street or shopping or doing a simple, everyday activity is spiked with fear. No child should grow up learning that fear is the best (only?) way to survive. This must change. How can I help do that? That is the most important question I am asking myself.

While reading this book has given me a new sense of empathy and understanding, what it has done best is given me a new sense of the questions to ask. Coates encourages his son to do what we all should be doing: to question what we see. And then to question what we see after that. "…because the questions matter as much, perhaps more than, the answers," he writes.

This is a book about a specific time and place and horror. This is a book about Colombia at the height of the terror-filled reign of drug lord Pablo Escobar. This is a book about a privileged, affluent little girl, as well as her impoverished teenage maid who is the sole support for her mother and four siblings. This is a book about innocence destroyed and the horror of war when it happens in your own front yard.

Written by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, this is the unlikely coming-of-age story of 7-year-old Chula and 13-year-old Petrona and the intersection of their lives in Bogotá where bombs and guns and kidnappings are plentiful and people can—and are—killed right in front of your eyes. Chula is a sweet, innocent girl whose days are spent with her Barbie dolls, playing with her older sister, Cassandra, doing her schoolwork, and the twists and turns of her vivid imagination. Meanwhile, Petrona, who is herself still a child, comes to work for Chula's family, bearing the financial and emotional burdens of an adult. But Petrona gets mixed up with the guerrillas, and life for both families changes forever.

This is a novel that is based on the life of the author, but at its heart, it is the true story of many Colombians. And it is that truth that makes this book so brilliant. It teaches a slice of history and shows the human toll of living in terror in a way that absolutely resonates.

Profound and moving, this emotionally searing book touched my soul in a ferocious, gritty, and especially tender way.

In the 1930s in the hardscrabble mountains and hollers of eastern Kentucky food was scarce and jobs were backbreaking, but thanks to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, there were books. Think of it as a bookmobile on a mule. Women (and a few men) were hired as librarians, and they delivered and retrieved books via horse, mule, and donkey up and down steep trails and through dark forests.

Written by Kim Michele Richardson, this novel is based on these "book women" with a major plot twist: The lead character, Cussy Mary Carter Frazier, is one of the infamous blue people of Kentucky, supposedly the last of her kind. Her skin is a vivid shade of blue, which gets so blue that it's almost purple when she blushes. While the few blacks in the backwoods town of Troublesome Creek in which the book takes place faced fierce discrimination, the blues were even more hated.

Cussy, or Bluet as she was nicknamed early on in life, becomes a book woman, and her work fills her with tremendous joy. But her widowed father is set on marriage for his daughter — if anyone will have her. And then trouble brews. On her book route she is "hunted" (quite literally) by the local parson, a vulgar and dangerous man, until something happens that puts both Cussy and her father's lives at risk of a public hanging. While the plot left me breathless at times, the real strength of the book is in the stories of Cussy's patrons—the 16-year-old pregnant woman whose husband was shot in the foot for stealing chickens, the school teacher and her endearing students, the moonshiner who resents the time Cussy's books take from his wife and children who should be doing chores, and the handsome newcomer who moved back home to the mountains after helping to build the Hoover Dam.

Deftly written with authenticity, keen insight, and extraordinary descriptions, this is a gripping saga about poverty, prejudice, and the resilience of the human soul. It's also a love song to books and the pleasure, power, and light they bring to even the darkest of places.

Best of all, it's just a really good story. It's one of those hard-to-put-down novels that will keep you up past your bedtime.

If you're of a certain age, you'll remember the consciousness-raising sessions that were popularized by feminists in the late 1960s. This brilliantly written book by Ijeoma Oluo is like that—consciousness raising about racism. But it's a lot more than that, and herein lies the wisdom of the book: It's also a manual for constructive behavior change.

White people can—and should—read it on two levels:
• Read it as a way to raise your consciousness about racism and how you, a white person of privilege, have knowingly and unknowingly fostered racism both one-on-one between you and a person of color and systemically in our society. Yes, be prepared to be shocked, surprised, and stunned.

• Read it again in a few months after you have had time to fully digest and contemplate all this book has to say, and then you'll be ready to use it as a manual for behavior change. The questions you would like to ask but are too timid to broach or feel would be too rude to actually say out loud are answered here. What if you talk about race incorrectly? How can you talk about affirmative action? What are microaggressions? What is tone policing? What do you do if someone calls you racist?

Not only is this an excellent primer on how to talk about race constructively and compassionately, but also it's a constructive way to learn and think about racism in a manner you have probably never before considered.

Most of all, this book is practical. This is something you can really use to positively change how you think and act.

Bonus: Take the time to read the acknowledgements at the end of the book. I was moved to tears.