Posted on January 24, 2021 by Anna Pier
“Reading is a way to go somewhere else without having to leave the house,” believes Jude Sales of Readers’ Books, “and it gives us the experience of someone else’s life – real or imagined.” Manager of Sonoma’s treasured local bookstore, Sales continued, “This is one way to expand our empathy and feel how it is to live in another person’s shoes, and hopefully, when we can rejoin the world we will not have shrunk, but grown.”
Sales told the Sun that she feels personally very lucky to be back at work and in the store where she can interact with co-workers and customers – the five at a time allowed in. “People are happy to be able to browse and I feel like there is a renewed sense of appreciation both for books and bookstores. It’s all good.” Here are some of her recommendations for 2021, with comments.
Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell
A vividly imagined life of Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, from their first meeting through and beyond the death of their beloved son Hamnet. This was my favorite book from last year – a portrait of a time and a place and a marriage that is unequaled.
The Boy in the Field, by Margot Livesey
Three siblings on their walk home from school discover a man, barely alive, in a field. Each child has a very different understanding and recollection of what they saw and experienced and each later has a different interaction with the man that they found.
Gun Island, by Amitav Ghosh
A rare book dealer, on vacation in India, makes a chance encounter that sends him off on a quest to discover the truth behind a Bengali myth that has haunted him since childhood. Climate change, folklore,and family mixed with cipher and exotic locales.
Inland, by Tea Obert
Two stories told in alternating chapters – one day in a woman homesteader’s life in the Arizona territory in the 1800s – there is no water and her husband left days ago to go and find some; her two older sons have gone off to try and find the missing father, leaving her alone with her 10-year-old son and the psychic cousin who is supposed to be her house help. The other story follows a young immigrant boy whose father dies and leaves him to fend for himself, living with ghosts and getting into bad company. This story covers the boy’s entire life. The two stories meld into something quite extraordinary at the end.
Flight Portfolio, by Julie Orringer
Varian Fry (a real person) left his New York wife and family to work to get the degenerate artists and writers out of Vichy France before it was too late. Marseille in the 1940s, fake passports and papers and the impending sense of doom – but a love story and a glimpse into the lives of artists and heroes.
Fresh Water for Flowers, by Valerie Perrin
A young woman marries the wrong man and endures the heartbreaking consequences, but finds a new life as the caretaker of a cemetery.
This is Happiness, by Niall Williams
A young man leaves the seminary and goes to live with his grandparents in rural Ireland in the summer when electricity finally arrives in the village.
Nonfiction picks
Rough Magic, by Lara Prior-Palmer
With no plans after high school, Lara Prior-Palmer decides to enter the world’s longest toughest horse race through Mongolia. With no previous preparation she manages to make it to the end becoming the youngest person to ever finish.
Owls of the Eastern Ice, Jonathan C. Slaght
The Blakison Fish Owl is just over two feet tall with a wingspan of six feet and looks like a shaggy bear with feathers – this elusive and endangered bird is the focus of Slaght’s scientific research, and his stories of tracking them are both harrowing and hysterical…
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, by Casey Cep
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) spent months helping Truman Capote research the crime that became his magnum opus In Cold Blood. After investing herself in his book she decided she could do the same and began looking into the crimes of a fast-talking charismatic preacher who killed his wives but managed to go free. Harper Lee never wrote her true crime story but this fascinating study looks at the killer, the crooked lawyer, and the courtroom drama in a nonstop narrative.
Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir, by Ruth Reichl
Reichl’s previous memoirs concentrated on growing up with a terrible cook for a mother and her life as the food critic for the New York Times. This time she recounts her years as the editor of Gourmet magazine, and looks at the way food, restaurants, and cooking became an enormous part of our culture. The sudden demise of the magazine both shocked and hurt not only the writers, photographers, and staff, but the many people who had subscribed and followed it for years.
Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana and the Stoning of San Francisco, by Alia Volz
San Francisco in the 1970s was the center of the AIDs crisis, and Alia Volz’s mom was the center of the marijuana brownie distribution with her home-baked company Sticky Fingers brownies. With her brownies tucked inside the stroller, Meridy would wander the local streets and provide succor in the form of chocolate highs.
Visit Readers’ Books at 130 E. Napa St., Sonoma; call to pick up a book from the back patio; or order online at Readersbooks.com.
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