#35 Defining Home
Spring-Summer 2010
"Is it the places from which we come, or the soil where we plant our roots that defines who we are becoming? These novels offer insight into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires."
Spring-Summer 2010
"Is it the places from which we come, or the soil where we plant our roots that defines who we are becoming? These novels offer insight into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires."
"In Stockett's The Help, we transition from the previous series of antebellum literature to a portrait of the Civil Rights era South. Ms. Phelan struggles to define herself against a background of silent conformity. Jordan's Mudbound places readers in rural Mississippi after WWII to witness the struggles of the McAllen family. Love and home are ties that bind, and allow the characters in each of these novels to grow where they are planted. In Home, Robinson's follow-up to Gilead, she returns readers to the life of Rev. Ames, and allows us to ruminate on the adult relationships and revelations between parents and children, and siblings. Olive Kitteridge depicts the life of a retired school teacher in Crosby, Maine. Through Strout's eyes, this larger than life character in a one-horse town is in essence the whole world, and the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama–desire, despair, jealousy, hope, and love. The last novel in the series, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, is presented from the perspective of a young man with autism. When every memory is fractured and every moment is keenly felt one young man sorts through the puzzle. Haddon's readers are able to go beyond the limits of fiction to entertain and become aware of perspective in this novel. What if you could remember as Christopher does? "My memory is like a film….And when people ask me to remember something I can simply press Rewind and Fast Forward and Pause like on a video recorder….If someone says to me, 'Christopher, tell me what your mother was like,' I can rewind to lots of different scenes and say what she was like in those scenes." ~ Kami Hancock
March 25 - Ann A
The Help
by Kathryn Stockett
(including Kindle editions)
April 22 - Mary
Mudbound
by Hillary Jordan
(including Kindle edition)
May 20 - Alanna
Home: A Novel
by Marilynne Robinson (including Kindle editions)
June 17 - Kathy
Olive Kitteridge: Fiction
by Elizabeth Strout
(including Kindle editions)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Mark Haddon
(including Kindle editions)
by Kathryn Stockett 
by Charles Frazier
by Louisa May Alcott
by Geraldine Brooks 
by William P Young 
by Howard Bahr
by William Wells Brown